Jodie McNeill lives in Sydney, Australia, and is the Executive Director of Youthworks Outdoors.
Rathane Rd, Royal National Park, NSW Australia
PO Box 705 Sutherland NSW 1499 Australia
jodie@jodiemcneill.com
Phone: +61 2 8525 3101
As the disciples were joined by Jesus after his resurrection, they waited impatiently for the coming of the Kingdom of God.
As they waited, they asked a question that showed they didn’t really understand what the Kingdom of God was to be like.
Jesus gently corrects them, and in turn us, about just where the Kingdom is, what people will be in that kingdom, and when it will come.
Listen to this sermon on Acts 1:1-11 preached 9am 24th January 2010 at Sylvania Anglican Church.
As I spoke on Luke 23, I realised afresh the enormous injustice of the sentencing of Jesus to death.
It was clear that Pontius Pilate was convinced of the innocence of Jesus, and yet he willingly sent him to be crucified.
Listen to this Bible talk on the crucifixion of Jesus, as preached on 22nd November 2009 at Sylvania Anglican Church.
Have a listen to the Bible talk I gave at Sylvania Anglican on 24th December 2009 at our 6pm all-age (kiddies included) service.
I spoke on Matthew 2:1-12 and invited the congregation to consider the two reactions to the birth of Jesus. Some followed the star to him and worshipped him (i.e. the star gazers) but others followed the star to try and kill him (i.e. Herod).
Near the end of the talk you’ll hear a badly-distorted recording of an original song I performed. Please adjust your headphones accordingly!
Please let me know if you have any technical difficulties with this, as it’s my first attempt at a podcast!
At church on Sunday I roadtested the radical suggestion I made in last month’s sydneyanglicans.net article entitled ‘The word of God, loud and clear’. In this article, I suggested the following:
“In normal situations, we listen to the Bible read before the preacher explains and expands the text. Wouldn’t it be better to hear the Bible expounded, and then hear it read? The text would gain even greater clarity, and the meaning would be amplified by the exposition just presented by the preacher.”
Well, it might shock you to know that before I had written the article, I had never seen this done in real life. It was simply an exercise in kite-flying, so to speak.
Anyway, when I put together the runsheet on Sunday for the gathering I was leading, I gave it a try, and it worked a treat. Not only did the Bible reader read with more clarity (since she had just been given a twenty-minute preparation for her task), but the whole congregation also benefited from hearing the word of God, after it was explained.
What’s more, it made the reading of the Word appear to have a centrality in the gathering that I’ve not experienced before. It was as if the reading of the sermon passage was the peak of the word ministry.
Have you ever tried this retrospective reading? Have you ever witnessed it first-hand?
Thanks to the ease of WordPress, I’ve put together a quick website for the youth ministry I lead at Sylvania Anglican. Check it out by visiting www.sylvaniayouth.org and tell me what you think!
The beauty of WordPress is that I can give all the leaders passwords, and they can help me keep the site up to date. I think one of the great advantages to using a CMS (Content Management System) is this ease of entry and editing. I remember in the not-so-old-days that to update a website required major HTML editing, with FTP and all other primitive nasties. Now, those days are behind us.
We’re also planning in time to convert our website to use the upcoming www.cyiada.com platform. Check out that blog to find out what is being planned!
Recent sydneyanglicans.net blogs on youth and music ministry |
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