Let Your Light Shine Through: 1st Edition - Print.
Reduced to $15.00, saving you $10.00
Published: January 2022
Language: English
Words: 111,920
B/W text, 304 pp, 6″ x 9″
Soft cover
ISBN: 9781988572871
15 in stock 16 November 2025
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Praise for Let Your Light Shine Through “Are you a preacher of long-standing, jaded, feeling your sermons no longer connect? Or a lay preacher, seeking innovative and fresh ways to tell the Jesus story? Then Let Your Light Shine Through, is for you.
A little book of 62 creative sermons, fresh ideas and resources, there’s much in it to stimulate congregational thought, or personal reflection and transformation. Wellingtonian, Philip Garside, is a man of many parts – a Methodist Lay Preacher of over 15 years, a New Zealand distributor and publisher of stimulating theological resources, a musician and singing group leader, a widely read thoughtful theologian, and a married father of three.
Philip invites you to share, his insights from scholars like N.T. Wright, Bart Ehrman, and Richard Rohr, Joy Cowley’s contemporary psalms, and use video clips from an Al-Jazeera documentary, musical CDs from his Festival Singers’ choral music, Bach, and Handel, and physical objects, to sheet home your points. I particularly warmed to some 2014 sermons where Philip unbundles the Trinity to make sense to modern ears, as: “Worship God – Follow Jesus – Be Spirit Filled." And in, “Jesus, the Human Face of God," his de-coupling of the Nativity story.
This is a preachers’ goldmine I highly commend."
Gary Clover, historian & retired Methodist presbyter, author of:
Collision, Compromise and Conversion during the Wesleyan Hokianga Mission, 1827–1855
Are you a new preacher who wants to build confidence in writing and delivering sermons?
Or have you been preaching for a while and are looking for new ideas and techniques to keep your sermons fresh and your congregation engaged?
These 62 creative sermons, written by New Zealand Methodist Lay Preacher Philip Garside, will provide just the input you need.
Sermons work well when you are honest about your theology, draw meaning from the Bible readings for the day and relate them in a clear, logical way to your congregation. People will respond to personal stories in your sermons, and you will find that you develop your own style of preaching over time.
Memorable sermons and services can be created by offering physical objects for the congregation to interact with, e.g. at prayer stations around the church, or waving flax leaves at the start of a Passion Sunday service and folding them into palm crosses later, during the sermon slot.
If you read widely, listen to new music, look at new art, stay up-to-date with the politics of the day and generally take in what is happening in your local community, you will never be short of imaginative ideas to fill your sermons. Keep adding to your creative toolbox. Try something new. Your congregation will thank you.
And always remember that your sermons need to tell the Good News of God’s love for us shown by the life, teaching and example of Jesus Christ.
The book includes indexes of Scripture readings and of People & Themes, and a Bibliography of key books, recordings and other sources referred to in the sermons.
The book is supported by free online PowerPoints, images & photos, video clips, and audio recordings of many of the sermons. (Click for Sermons page on our website )
Introduction to the 2nd edition
"For this second edition, I have created a new cover, updated the book , author bio notes and photo, and this Introduction. The new sub-title better reflects that this book is intended primarily as a resource for both new and experienced preachers.
I hope that preachers and other readers will find here stories and ideas that stimulate you and support your spiritual journey.
I also hope that other lay people will be encouraged to learn to lead worship and take up the rewarding challenge of preaching.
While I admire preachers who are skilled at speaking off the cuff, using just a few notes as pointers, I have tried that approach and it doesn’t work for me. I seldom digress from my script, so the words you find in this book are pretty much what I preached on the day.
Another advantage of preaching off the page is that I can better control the logical flow of my sermon. I enjoy exploring new ideas and sharing them with the congregation and need to carefully build my sermons to help them fol