Precious are the times when a classic hymn transfixes you. One did this week. Under pressure for a sermon draft deadline, my head was down and the fingers moving across the keyboard as iTunes played a shuffle of songs behind. That’s when I heard Anglican John Newton’s 1779 hymn, “I Asked the Lord that I… Read More I Asked the Lord that I Might Grow
Our Wednesday service has been reading through Luke’s gospel consecutively each week. We have just concluded Luke 15, a favorite chapter of many. Jesus tells there the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost sons. Those of you who have read Luke 15 with frequency as I have done and have… Read More The Ninety and Nine
I first read of Isaac Watts as a boy learning American history at school in that battle cry, “Give ’em Watts, boys!” at the battle of Springfield, New Jersey. Over time I spotted his name in hymnals as the author of the some of the most famous hymns in evangelical Christendom. It happened this week… Read More Give ’em Watts, boys!
When you grow older in the Christian life you are regularly knocked down in the dust astounded and amazed, only to rise up in doxology and praise as you see glimpses of God’s footsteps pressed upon you through the path of your life. The fullness of God’s ways are way past our ability to trace.… Read More He Plants His Footsteps in the Sea
The Vicar's Garden 