Building for Eternity
Archive for June, 2009
‘The Importance of vows’
2 years ago
by Lyndall Bailey
in News
We find the important issue of vows, a theme in Judges 11 this week. Through life, we will make many vows,
* to friends
* to family and
* to God
When the penny drops for us, and we respond to Jesus for salvation, we ‘vow’ to trust in Jesus, and not in ourselves, to be saved. There is no more important vow for a human to make.
An article in a recent Daily Telegraph headed, ‘Couples Ditch; Death Do Us Part’. This article outlined that people are increasingly unwilling to vow a lifelong commitment to each other and including a ‘get out clause’ in their vows. Couples are now pledging, ‘as long as our love lasts’, to each other.
One reason for this influx is that secular marriage celebrants or non-christian ministers who allow this, are simply providing a service and care nothing for what God has ordained a marriage to be.
Another reason is humans are selfish, and wrongly see marriage as a tool to meet their ‘needs’.
Christian marriages must take seriously the vow, ‘for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part’, especially as we see the trivialisation of marriage vows becoming more apparent.
Jim Mobbs,
Assistant Minister
Sermon humour, is it ok?
2 years ago
by Lyndall Bailey
in News
I was listening to Robert Forsyth, Bishop of South Sydney, talking on the ABC radio last Friday. His topic was the place of humour in sermons. His basic argument is not that it’s wrong, but often misused. As someone who has quite a dry, twisted sense of humour, who doesn’t take myself too seriously, I find the topic very interesting. You might be surprised to know I agree with him. A preacher must be himself in the pulpit. A person who is funny, and likes to laugh should naturally be that way when preaching. A person who is serious, and not naturally funny should not be different in the pulpit. I think a temptation for preachers is to 
be different to who they are in daily life.
The best definition I have heard to define preaching is “truth through personality” = God’s truth, through an individuals unique personality. At the end of the day, different personalities will appeal to different people.
Charles Spurgeon, “the Prince of Preachers” from the 1880’s was often criticised for using humour in his sermons. His reply was “if you thought that was funny, you should hear the things I left out!”
Jim Mobbs,
Assistant Minister