Increasingly this theme of “confidence” has become important to me both as pastor and as preacher and as… person. Maybe it’s getting nearer to dying that prompts such reflection but I think it is more that I realize how crippled are by lack of confidence… and the awful things that occur on this frightening soil of “may be”.

A kind and thoughtful parishioner commented today, “Oh it must be good to have years of sermons from which you can make a choice Sunday by Sunday”. I quickly, I hope gently, disabused her. Today’s sermon is fresh, stories might not be, but the sermon is fresh for me; in fact with hardly any time the second half was radically altered between first and second service.

Sermon “The Divine Confidence Artist” – Alan Neale. 10/11/15