preachers

Advent – Revd Roberta Rominger

Roberta is the General Secretary of the United Reformed Church. Originally from the United Churches of Christ in the USA (associated with the God is Still Speaking campaign), she has ministered in the UK since 1985. Roberta is also an accomplished cellist, with a special love of chamber music. and served as Moderator of the Thames North Synod before being appointed as General Secretary of the United Reformed Church.  She is the first woman to hold a Church’s top office in the UK.

Lawrence Moore

Lawrence Moore is the Director of The Windermere Centre, the United Reformed Church’s residential training centre in the English Lake District that resources the Church for mission.  He is a lay person, served as a lay pastor in a Baptist Church in South Africa and has been preaching for over 30 years.

What keeps you going as a preacher?
“The conviction that preaching matters because God wants to communicate with us.  That is something I believe from experience – both as a preacher and a member of the congregation.”

What makes for a good sermon?
“A sermon is good when it creates an encounter between people and God.  When that happens, people cannot look at either God or the world and the way in which they live in the same way.  So a good sermon excites, interests, disturbs, offends, challenges, inspires … those sorts of things.  It’s an event.  When it happens, you know it!”

What do you look out for when you’re studying the Bible for Sunday’s sermon?
“I’m expecting to meet Jesus and to discover God in a new way.  The first thing I do is read the passage to see what jumps out at me.  Then I go back and read it in the wider context of the whole story.  I actively look to have my familiar ways of reading it disturbed and challenged.  I look for the ways in which God is a problem to me – I read to be converted.”

Christmas – Revd Lis Mullen

Lis Mullen has been ordained for nearly seven years.  An experienced social worker and counsellor, Lis was the Lay Chaplain at Luther King House before training for the ordained ministry at Westminster College.  Unusually, she is serving Carver Church, her home church in Windermere.

What keeps you going as a preacher?
“That’s a really difficult question!  To be honest, I’m not sure I know how valid af orm of communication preaching is.  I reckon I could preach the same sermon two weeks in a row and there’s a good chance no one would notice!  Three things, I guess: it’s required and people expect it;people tell me I’m good at it; and I suppose there’s an element of sheer faith that it is valuable and changes things.”

What makes for a good sermon?
“One that people can concentrate on, follow all the way through, and take something away from; one that challenges or teaches you.”

What do you look out for when you’re studying the Bible for Sunday’s sermon?
“Something that I find is a word of encouragement, guidance, leads to a change, and helps me and others become more faithful followers of Jesus Christ.”

Epiphany – Revd Lance Stone

After studies at Edinburgh and Princeton, Lance was ordained into the Church of Scotland and served seven years in Aberdeen before transferring to the URC and ministering in the London Borough of Hackney for 12years. From there he went to Westminster College, Cambridge, as Director of  Pastoral Studies and taught for 9 years in the Cambridge Theological Federation.  He is now back in pastoral ministry in Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge.

What Keeps You Going as  Preacher?
“The extraordinary, surprising way you keep finding something to say. Every week I doubt it will happen but the text has this extraordinary generative power!”

What Makes for a Good sermon?
“Augustine employed three rhetorical styles in preaching aimed at teaching, delighting, and moving people. Good sermons contain these elements in varying proportions.”

What do you look out for when you’re studying the Bible in preparation for Sunday’s sermon?
“Lots of things… e.g., tensions – between the readings, or between the world of the text and the here and now, or between common understandings and what the text actually says – or notable correspondences between the text and the here and now, or striking images.  It’s less a question of what I look for and more one of what looks for and strikes me!”

Lent – Revd Kristin Ofstad

Kristin is the United Reformed Church’s only Norwegian minister.  She spent 4 years training for ministry at Westminster College, Cambridge, and was ordained in Cardiff in 1992.

What keeps you going as a preacher?
“The thrill of defying the odds – every Sunday is make or break!”

What makes for a good sermon?
“My only criterion for a good sermon is that people say, ‘I’ve never thought of it like that before.’”

What do you look out for when you’re studying the Bible for Sunday’s sermon?
“I look for something that makes me say, ‘I’ve never thought about it like that before.’”

Easter – Revd David Jenkins

Revd David Jenkins, former Moderator of the United Reformed Church General Assembly

Revd David Jenkins was born in 1941 twin son of Rev and Mrs R.L. Jenkins. His father was a Congegational Minister from Pontypridd in South Wales. He trained at the University of Manchester (BA Theol. BD) and Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley,(STM) California.  He was married in 1967 to Margaret Jacobs at First Congregational Church Berkeley and had ministries in Morley near Leeds, the South West Manchester Group. He was a Tutor at Northern College for twelve years. David was the first full time URC Synod Training Officer from 1984-7.  He was then Moderator of Northern Synod from 1987-99.  and was elected Moderator of General Assembly for the year 1997-98. His final pastorate at Wilmslow Cheshire from 1999- 2006. He is now retired at Marple, Cheshire and enjoys gardening, choral singing, walking, sport of all kinds, travel.  He and Margie have three daughters and five grandchildren.

What keeps you going as a preacher?
‘A delight as the surprsiesthat keep appearing in Scripture.  Also, a search for new ways of using language to communicate the story’.

What makes for a good sermon?

‘The ability to re-tell the Gospel story with imagination, colour and brightness.  Sermons are painted like a pricture, or crafted like a piece of music.  They lead the congregationon a journey.’

What do you look out for when you’re studying the Bible in preparation for Sunday’s sermon?
‘I ask myself, “What is the surprise hidden in this reading?”  I also imagine I was there, experiencing the occasion or hearing the words spoken.’

Pentecost – Revd Rowena Francis

Revd Rowena Francis, Moderator, Northern Synod, The United Reformed Church

Rev Rowena Francis is Moderator of the Northern Synod of the United Reformed Church.  She was raised in a Church of Christ family., was baptised and became a preacher in her teens.  She trained as a nurse and midwife amongst the everyday life of folk in Birmingham and Liverpool, including very briefly the Walton sextuplets. Following ordination in 1991 she served in Kettering, Stroud (Gloucestershire) and Coventry before becoming Moderator of Northern Synod.  The experience of midwifery, infertility and the women’s movement of the 80’s and 90’s has shaped her as a woman disciple of Christ and preacher. Herdogs and a supernumerary Methodist minister husband gift her large amounts of sustaining love and encouragement.

What keeps you going as a preacher?
“The gripping adventure of being with God and others on the daily journey to life.”

What makes for a good sermon?
“Same as a good meal, balanced nutrition, good taste and good company. So a sermon needs to be biblical, varied in presentation and shared with others who take faith to heart”

What do you look out for when you’re studying the Bible in preparation for Sunday’s sermon?
“Entering into the text and making it part of me so that I can hear what if anything God is saying today through it.”