Sunday sermon at Portstewart Baptist

This morning – warm sunshine, summer has arrived – we had a good crowd for a varied service at PBC.  Two special parts of the service were, first, a 10 minute talk from a local representative of the Gideons – famous for their evangelistic distribution of the Bible – and, second, a prayer for the [...]

FA Cup final 2009: Everton’s 25-second goal not enough

FA Cup final 2009: Everton’s 25-second goal – Telegraph

Stop Texting and Read This — The Thumb You Save May Be Your Own

From Albert Mohler:
In the fourth quarter of 2008 American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month.  That, dear friends, is nothing to LOL about.
Stop Texting and Read This — The Thumb You Save May Be Your Own

This week’s Sunday update from PBC

This past Sunday was a second (smaller) holiday weekend for May – so our overflow was in summer mode to accommodate the morning congregation.
In the morning we were looking at part of Philippians 3 where Paul talks about the difference knowing Jesus has made to his balance sheet of religious status and achievement.  The challenge [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

Already half-way through the week, but here and here are the audio links to the two sermons I preached on Sunday.
In the morning we were looking at the second half of Philippians 2.  Technically the first paragraph of that (from verse 12) belongs with the rest of Paul’s appeal that started in 1:27, but we [...]

The Leadership Journey of Moses

This week sees the annual meetings of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, of which our church is a member. On Monday I was invited to speak at an event for Baptist workers – mostly pastors and retired pastors and their wives.  I used Stephen’s 3 part outline of Moses’ life (see Acts 7) [...]

Sunday morning at Portstewart Baptist

This morning’s message looked at then theme of attitude from Philippians 1:27-2:11.  The best known part of that section is the group of verses that deal with the humbling and exaltation of Christ.  There has been a great deal of speculation that this may have been an early Christian hymn: whether or not that is [...]

What makes a good team?

Gary Collins, well known in Christian counselling circles, has an interesting article in his latest newsletter on teams.  He reports from an interview with Professor Richard Hackman in this month’s edition of the Harvard Business Review.
Here are some of the conclusions that Collins highlights from the interview:

While some teams are effective, research consistently shows that [...]

Men, church and macho hymns

A number of news sources have reported an item this week about men and church.  Among the findings is that men prefer to sing hymns that are proclamational or anthemic.  There are other comments about hugging and sitting around discussing.  
Following is the top ten list of hymns from the survey on which the item [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist Church

This weekend is a holiday weekend here in Northern Ireland and it tends to give us one of our biggest Sundays outside of July and August.  This morning I was preaching the second part of our gospel-centred living series from Philippians.  We were looking at Paul’s personal update in 1:12-26.  Although his circumstances were difficult [...]