Welcome to Old High St Stephen's Church, Inverness

Category: Sermons

Sunday Worship 22 May 2020

Listen to our online prayer and worship at our Soundcloud page.

Click on the orange button above to listen to our special online service from Sunday 22 March 2020.

The preacher is our Minister, the Rev Peter W Nimmo. Prayers by Deacon Dot Getliffe. Thanks for our Student Assistant, David Sim, for editing.

The Wisdom of Humility: sermon for the Kirking of the Council, 8 September 2019

Click here for the order of Service for the Kirking of the Council 2019

Click here for more information about the Kirking of the Council 2019

Scripture Readings: 1 Kings 3.4-15

Luke 14:1, 7-14

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

I have just been reading a remarkable account of a British traveller who, just a few months after September 11 2001, walked across Afghanistan. It was just after the American-led invasion of the country, which drove the Taliban out of Kabul. The author writes:

The country had been at war for twenty-five years; the new government had been in place for only two weeks; there was no electricity between Herat and Kabul, no television and no T-shirts. Villages combined medieval etiquette with new political ideologies. In many houses the only piece of foreign technology was a Kalashnikov, and the only global brand was Islam.[1]

A welcome for everyone: sermon for 19 May 2019: General Assembly Sunday (Easter 5)

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

This weekend, the General Assembly of our Church of Scotland is meeting, and will continue to meet until Friday. On this Sabbath Day, there is no business done. Instead, commissioners will attend worship at St Giles to hear a sermon from the Moderator- and, no doubt, some very fine music. We have no commissioners from this congregation this year, but most of our St Stephen’s Church Choir will be taking part in a less formal act of worship, as part of a massed choir at Heart and Soul, an excellent event which showcases the work of the church and other Christian organisations in Prince Street Gardens, in the heart of our capital city. I’m looking forward to hearing how they enjoy that event.

A healing community: sermon for the Kirking of the Council, Sunday 9 September 2018

Scripture Readings: Psalm 146

Mark 2.1-12

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

There is a bit of a hubbub in the lakeside Galilean town of Capernaum. News has got around about a young rabbi from the nearby town of Nazareth, whose preaching and teaching is sincere and heartfelt, and who has also got a reputation for healing miracles. He’s been in Capernaum already, then went on a preaching tour around the local synagogues; now he is making a return visit. This was an age and a place when people had an entirely different attitude from us to personal space and public space. You left your door open as an invitation to anyone to wander in. In a small, humble house, there would be no entrance hall- from the street, you stepped directly into the family’s living quarters.

Cherish the light! Sermon for The Kirking of the Council, 10 September 2017

Order of service

Scripture Readings: Philippians 4.4-9
Matthew 5.1-16
Cherish the light
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

On the 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin approached the surface of the moon in their fragile Lunar Module, the Eagle. It was a fraught descent. Aldrin was calling out computer data to Armstrong as they approached, but the computer played up- and only cool heads meant that the landing was not abandoned. And as he approached the surface, Armstrong spotted that their landing site was strewn with boulders the size of small cars. In his attempt to find a clear site to land, Armstrong almost used up all his fuel reserves, which would have meant that they could not return home, or crashed among the boulders.

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