A churchfull of preachers

Readers are official Church of England lay preachers and service leaders. They aren't 'Revs' but they are trained and licensed by the Bishop to minister in parish churches as lay ministers.

Here at St James and St Anne we are fortunate to have two: Penny and Adrian. Nationally there are more than ten thousand of these excellent people.

Over the last three days, the Readers in our three episcopal areas in our diocese (Woolwich, Kingston and Croydon) have been meeting for their annual meetings and rededication services.

Invited by Bishop Michael (the Warden of Readers), Wilma, a vicar from Balham and me have formed a kind of travelling roadshow, giving a bit of training input to the Readers, first at St Mary, Peckham (on Thursday night) and today at St Mark's, Wimbledon, and St Mildred's, Addiscombe.

Its been great to meet the Readers, and both a privilege and a challenge, as preachers ourselves, to speak to a whole churchfull of preachers - three times over.

For me, it was the chance to speak about a personal hero, Charles Simeon (right), a great preacher from the past, still able to encourage and challenge preachers today.

A few years ago, I wrote a booklet about Simeon, a man from the 20th century strongly influenced by him called John Stott, and the impact that the Simeon-Stott tradition of preaching still has today. You can order a paper copy here or get the ebook version.

Simeon was a brainy fellow but he was also a very humble man and I like the way he approached God's word in the Bible. This is what he said about how he started off as a young vicar and a new preacher at the age of 23: 

In the beginning of my inquiries I said to myself, "I am a fool; of that I am quite certain." One thing I know assuredly, that in religion of myself I know nothing. I do not therefore sit down to the perusal of the Scriptures in order to impose a sense on the inspired writers, but to receive one, as they give it to me. I pretend not to teach them, I wish like a child to be taught by them.