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Practicing Forgiveness - Forgiveness within Ourselves
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - March 18, 2018
We have talked about how we are called to forgive those who have hurt us, and to seek forgiveness from other people and from the Lord for the things we have done. This Sunday we will consider another important aspect of forgiveness: forgiveness within ourselves. There are times when other people may have forgiven us and the Lord certainly has but we still beat up on ourselves and we can't seem to let it go. The Lord can help us to understand why this happens and help us to get free. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAPracticing Forgiveness - Why Forgive?
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 25, 2018
This Sunday we begin the Practicing Forgiveness programme with a question: "Why Forgive?" Why should we forgive people who have hurt us? What is it about forgiveness that is so essential to spiritual life that all the major world religions teach about how important it is? And - most importantly - how do we do it? How do we grant and seek forgiveness in a genuine way? Come on Sunday as we begin to try to find answers to these important questions. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSACollected, One by One
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 11, 2018
There's a verse somewhere in the middle of Isaiah that says, ...."you shall be collected, one by one...." Someone recently showed me this verse and pointed out that it has important implications for how we approach our relationships with other people and the Lord. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSARebuilding the House of the Lord - Part 2 - How to Keep Working
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - January 21, 2018
When the people obey the Lord and rebuild the house of the Lord it doesn't meet their expectations of what it should be. The Lord's response to them, through the prophet Haggai, can be very useful for us when the results of our spiritual efforts aren't quite what we think they should be. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSARebuilding the House of the Lord - Part i - Is it Time?
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - January 14, 2018
At this time of year we're often taking stock of who we are and where we are in our lives and thinking about what we might need to do to improve our lives. This Sunday and next we will be exploring the somewhat obscure but very relevant story in the book of Haggai of the Children of Israel being called to rebuild the house of the Lord and what it can teach us about the process of trying to do better about prioritising the Lord in our lives. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAAnd His Name Will Be Called
Worship Service: Family (may include music) - December 25, 2017
This Christmas Day, as we celebrate the Lord being born into this world, we will be reflecting on the significance of some of the many different names that that little baby was called. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAHow to Receive the Lord's Light in Our Lives
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - December 17, 2017
This Sunday we'll be talking more about the Christmas story according to the Gospel of John, with a focus on theme of darkness and light. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAFacing Floods, Part 4 - Rebuild
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - November 19, 2017
What do we do after a crisis? How do you go back to normal? This Sunday we're going to talk about what happens after Noah and his family can finally leave the ark after the flood and what we can learn from the story about how to rebuild our lives once a crisis has passed. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAFacing Floods, Part 2 - Get Ready
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - November 05, 2017
Noah has been told by God that a flood is coming that will destroy everything and everyone, except for those people and animals that God saves on the ark that He tells Noah to build. There are times when we know something big is coming. The Lord can help us to get ready and help us to keep safe what is most important. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAGet More Out of Reading the Bible: Part 3: New Testament
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - October 22, 2017
The New Testament is the last section of the Bible that we haven't talked about yet in our series about getting more out of the Bible. On Sunday we'll talk about things like how the New Testament differs from the Old Testament, whether all the books in the New Testament are equally authoritative, why there are four Gospels, etc. It will be fun and I hope it will help you to get more out of reading the New Testament. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAGet More Out of Reading the Bible
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - October 08, 2017
A lot of people when they open the Bible find it hard to get much out of it, particularly the Old Testament. There are hard to pronounce names and strange and sometimes disturbing stories. What are we supposed to do with it? How do we make sense of it? The goal of this 3 part sermon series is to help you have a better understanding of what you're looking at and how it can have relevance to you today. This Sunday we're going to be focusing on the first big chunk of the Bible, the Old Testament stories in Genesis through 2 Kings. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAHealing Spiritual Blindness
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - September 24, 2017
This Sunday we're going to be looking closely at an amazing story of the Lord healing a man who was blind from birth. It's an amazing story because the Lord did an amazing miracle but also because it's clearly also about people who are spiritually unable or unwilling to see. With the help of this story we're going to try to understand how we might be spiritually blind and how the Lord can heal us and help us to see in a new way. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAHelping Each Other: Part 3 - Offering Spiritual Support
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - September 03, 2017
In this sermon we are concluding the Helping Each Other series by talking about how to offer spiritual support. It sounds so good–offering spiritual support. And it is so good and can make such a difference when it’s done well. But offering spiritual support can also be done badly–people can be arrogant, controlling, clueless, etc. in the ways they approach "trying to help" and they can end up actually making things worse. But the answer isn’t that we should stop trying. Let’s learn what the Lord teaches about how to avoid common pitfalls and how we can best approach offering spiritual support to others. Download the workbook and other resources for doing this program at http://newchurchwestville.co.za/helping/ | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAHelping Each Other: Part 1 - Challenges and Opportunities
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - August 20, 2017
This Sunday we begin the sermons that go along with the Helping Each Other: How to Serve Spiritual Needs programme. Helping each other sounds great in theory but it can also be really challenging. We're going to start this series by looking at the challenges involved and how the Lord's teachings can help us to overcome them. For Part 2 by Rev. Joel Glenn search by date: August 27, 2017. For Part 3 by Rev. Malcolm Smith search by date: September 3, 2017. Download the workbook and other resources for doing this program at http://newchurchwestville.co.za/helping/ | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSAWhy Heaven and Hell are Relevant Today - Part 2 Hell
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - July 23, 2017
Hell is something a lot of people would rather not think about and not talk about. And it makes sense: who would want to contemplate the idea that they or people they love might end up in a place of suffering for eternity? That's terrifying. But ignoring hell or pretending like it doesn't exist also doesn't work. Just like we talked about last week with heaven, hell is a reality that we can experience on a daily basis and so we need to look at it squarely and try to understand how best to deal with it. That's what we're going to try to do on Sunday. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA