Let Your Light Shine Through

<p><strong>Praise for <em>Let Your Light Shine Through</em></strong></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Are you a preacher of long-standing jaded feeling your sermons no longer connect? Or a lay preacher seeking innovative and fresh ways to tell the Jesus story? Then </span><em>Let Your Light Shine Through</em> is for you. A little book of 62 creative sermons fresh ideas and resources there's much in it to stimulate congregational thought or personal reflection and transformation. Wellingtonian Philip Garside is a man of many parts - a Methodist Lay Preacher of over 15 years a New Zealand distributor and publisher of stimulating theological resources a musician and singing group leader a widely read thoughtful theologian and a married father of three.</p><p><br></p><p>Philip invites you to share his insights from scholars like N.T. Wright Bart Ehrman and Richard Rohr Joy Cowley's contemporary psalms and use video clips from an Al-Jazeera documentary musical CDs from his Festival Singers' choral music Bach and Handel and physical objects to sheet home your points. I particularly warmed to some 2014 sermons where Philip unbundles the Trinity to make sense to modern ears as: Worship God - Follow Jesus - [Be] Spirit Filled. And in Jesus the Human Face of God his de-coupling of the Nativity story.</p><p><br></p><p>This is a preachers' goldmine I highly commend.</p><p class=ql-align-right><em>Gary Clover historian & retired Methodist presbyter author of:</em></p><p class=ql-align-right><em>Collision Compromise and Conversion during the Wesleyan Hokianga Mission 1827-1855</em></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Description</strong></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Are you a new preacher who wants to build confidence in writing and delivering sermons?</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Or have you been preaching for a while and are looking for new ideas and techniques to keep your sermons fresh and your congregation engaged?</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>These 62 creative sermons written by New Zealand Methodist Lay Preacher Philip Garside will provide just the input you need.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Sermons work well when you are honest about your theology draw meaning from the Bible readings for the day and relate them in a clear logical way to your congregation. People will respond to personal stories in your sermons and you will find that you develop your own style of preaching over time.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Memorable sermons and services can be created by offering physical objects for the congregation to interact with e.g. at prayer stations around the church or waving flax leaves at the start of a Passion Sunday service and folding them into palm crosses later during the sermon slot.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>If you read widely listen to new music look at new art stay up-to-date with the politics of the day and generally take in what is happening in your local community you will never be short of imaginative ideas to fill your sermons. Keep adding to your creative toolbox. Try something new. Your congregation will thank you.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>And always remember that your sermons need to tell the Good News of God's love for us.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The book includes indexes of Scripture readings and of People & Themes and a Bibliography of key books recordings and other sources referred to in the sermons.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The book is supported by free online PowerPoints images & photos video clips and audio recordings of many of the sermons</span></p>