Lossiemouth Church of Scotland

The Evening Communion (last Sunday of each month at 6pm at St James’ Church) Sermon from Rev. Graham Crawford for 27 September 2015:

124 1-5 If God hadn’t been for us
—all together now, Israel, sing out!—
If God hadn’t been for us
when everyone went against us,
We would have been swallowed alive
by their violent anger,
Swept away by the flood of rage,
drowned in the torrent;
We would have lost our lives
in the wild, raging water.
6 Oh, blessed be God!
He didn’t go off and leave us.
He didn’t abandon us defenceless,
helpless as a rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs.
7 We’ve flown free from their fangs,
free of their traps, free as a bird.
Their grip is broken;
we’re free as a bird in flight.
8 God’s strong name is our help,
the same God who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 124 involves a whole catalogue of life events which are, at best, unpleasant.

When bad things happen

They are the things we like to keep hidden. The things that we do not like to talk about, in case they infect us with their unpleasantness. [Read more…]

Rev. Graham Crawford continues his series on Stewardship in this sermon on 20 September 2015:

This morning we are continuing the series that we have been instructed to conduct on stewardship by looking at our stewardship of talents.

In other words, how are you using the gifts God has given you to bring glory to God?

We have addressed this issue many times over the last 12 years as I have encouraged you to examine your SHAPE for ministry.

SHAPE stands for Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality and Experience. By considering these 5 areas, the idea is that you can understand more about –

• who you are,
• how God has made you and
• how he has used life to shape you.

As a result of this examination, many really good things have happened that have blessed you and this town of Lossiemouth. [Read more…]

This is the text of Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for 13 September 2015:

One of my favourite quotes is this: “Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so!”

It is of course harking back to a time when executives and directors used to have lavish, all expenses paid, fairly liquid lunches, which would stretch into the afternoon – which would often accomplish an agreement or a contract, but those involved were rarely capable of doing much else afterwards.

You would just pop out for lunch and often simply not come back to the office that day.

And yet, while lunchtime may be an illusion for some, whether because they barely get time to eat or their lunchtime spreads until teatime, time is a very important concept in life and in the Bible. [Read more…]

This is the text of Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for Sunday 06 September 2015:

Today, quite rightly is a day of celebration here at St. James.

We are celebrating with two people who have stepped forward to profess and confess their faith. We are celebrating with yet another who has agreed to work as a leader (Elder) in this congregation. It is a great day for our church.

Yet in the heart of our celebration there is a hint of sadness, a hint of confusion, a hint even of disillusionment.

After all, most of us grew up with the great hymns of conquest on our lips: “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun”; “Soldiers of Christ arise”: “Ye armies of the living God”. The Billy Graham mid-century campaign had a tremendous effect on our churches, even through the Sixties, and there was a genuine belief that nothing could stop Christianity conquering the world by the year 2000.

Now, of course nothing could be further from the truth. [Read more…]

The sermon on Sunday 23 August 2015 from Rev. Graham Crawford: 

Over the last few weeks, in our Old Testament scriptures, we have been building and building to the climax of Solomon’s temple, somewhere permanent for the Ark of the Covenant, and as a result, God, will dwell.

From the joyful procession of David bringing the Ark home up until this point, it has all been building up to this when the temple is completed and finally dedicated to God.

This is one of the most important passages in all of the Jewish writings, for the Temple – and their beliefs concerning the temple – in many ways defines the Jewish people from this point on. The fact that an Islamic mosque now sits on that site is also one of the causes of all the unrest in the Middle east. So it is important to understand this Temple and the worship therein for us to understand much modern conflict while asking ourselves questions about our own place of worship as well as the place of worship in our lives. [Read more…]