Sermons to Self

by Christopher Ward

The Christian faith is difficult--intellectually, morally, and spiritually. People struggle to make sense of it, and to live it. Many give up. Sitting in the pew (an increasing rarity), with a Christian upbringing and education behind him, Christopher Ward finds the practice and the preaching of the church unhelpful in resolving these struggles. He is tempted to give up and reject it all. Before he does, however, he is determined to make one last attempt to explore what it all means to him, guided only by what he hears and reads in the Bible Sunday to Sunday. Christopher Ward takes the four readings appointed for each Sunday in one year and identifies those verses that have a particular resonance for him. He then explores his personal response to them, unaided by academic study or biblical commentary, and analyzes their cumulative impact on his thinking. This exercise results in unexpected discoveries, and new trains of thought, plus many frustrations and much perplexity. In the end, his struggles are rewarded by a realization that his faltering faith has more to support it than he first believed.