“Moulding Culture” is the sermon title for week 6 of “Fruitfulness on the Frontline” from Rev. Graham Crawford:

In our list of things that we should be doing in order to be fruitful where we are, this is perhaps one of the hardest.

It is the one which, as a church, we are probably failing at most dramatically.

We know scriptures such as Romans 12: 2. You read it most times you come into church – even if subconsciously. And yet we still allow our culture to shape the mission and attitudes of our church.

2 Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

[Read more…]

“Minister Grace and Love” is the message for Week 5 of “Fruitfulness on the Frontline”. The sermon delivered by Rev. Graham Crawford on 08 March 2015.

In this series so far on Fruitfulness on our frontline – or, in other words, how we can become a missional church – we have looked at

• how we can model Godly character, and

•  how we can make good work.

Now, we are looking at ministering Grace and Love. [Read more…]

Week 4 of “Fruitfulness on the Frontline” involves looking at how we “Make Good Work”, with Rev. Graham Crawford:

This morning, instead of ending my sermon with a video clip, I want to begin the sermon with the clip because – instead of it inspiring us to follow through on the theme of the sermon – this one issues us a challenge, a worthy challenge, a Godly challenge.

[Link to Common Good RVA video on Vimeo.com, which encourages the viewer to explore what it means to see our everyday work as a meaningful part of our Christian calling].

Childhood dreams

I wonder how many of us pursue our childhood dreams to do the things we dreamt of as youngsters?

When I grow up I want to: be an engine driver; be a fireman; drive a tractor; play football.

One of my favourite bumper stickers of all time was on the back of a wee red mini. It simply said: “When I grow up, I want to be a fire engine!”

I love that!

As the chap in the video said, they were all things that seemed like fun; exciting things to do that were full of purpose.

I do not know many 6 or 7 year olds who say that, when they grow up, they want to be stuck behind a desk all day.

And yet, as the video points out, for many of us our nine to five job ends up being a “toil of frustration”.

How can we redeem our work?

After all, as we have already said, Jesus came into the world to redeem everything. Not just people but the whole of creation – and that means our work as well. [Read more…]

This is the text of Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for 15 February 2015 (Week 2 of the series “Fruitfulness on the Frontline”):

The disconnect between professed faith and demonstrated faith

In his book, “It takes a Church to raise a Christian” (which the Session are studying at the moment), Todd Bolsinger makes the startling claim that, while religion is highly popular, it is, to a large extent, superficial.

It does not change people’s lives to the degree one would expect from their level of professed faith. In other words, the faith we profess is not resulting in fruitfulness.

There seems to be a disconnection between our faith at 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning, and the way we live our lives at work and at play.

The studies that we are doing over the next few weeks, and the sermons I will be preaching, are my humble attempt to help you to reconnect.

In this attempt, one of the key New Testament passages is from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. [Read more…]