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baptist church
baptist church
Topic: Christmas
At Open Icon Baptist Church, we value great preaching — preaching that engages deeply, humbly and honestly with Jesus, the Bible, and the pain and joy of living in the real world. And since going permanently online, we have been able to welcome great preachers from all over the world without having to wait for them to visit our shores. Click here to meet the inspirational preachers depicted in the gallery above, none of whom have preached for us!
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28 December, 2025
Preacher: Nathan Nettleton
Scripture: Matthew
The hope born at Christmas does not erase, deny, or hide from the horror of a violent world, but meets us in the midst of it.
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24 December, 2025
A Christmas Message from the leader of the Baptist World Alliance
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14 December, 2025
Preacher: Jennie Clarke
Topic: Christmas, Hope, Joy, Liberation, Pilgrimage, Suffering
Scripture: Isaiah
Isaiah 35 declares joy and courage and gladness, for those stuck in the wilderness and dry lands.
Joy for the weak hands, the feeble knees and the fearful hearts. -
5 January, 2025
What difference does it make for us and in the world that The Word became flesh and made its dwelling among us?
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29 December, 2024
Preacher: Nathan Nettleton
Topic: Children, Christmas, Fullness of Life, Identity, Spirituality
Scripture: Luke
The childhood picture of Jesus’ development calls us to ensure that our relationship with God is our primary allegiance, our first responsibility and the foundation of our identity.
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24 December, 2024
In the nativity we see the light of living grace, in all its vulnerability, shining into the darkness of the world’s violence and divisiveness.
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8 December, 2024
If the message of Christmas is real, then our preparations for it need to be radically life-changing.
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31 December, 2023
Preacher: Nathan Nettleton
God reaches out to us through babies and elderly folks with a message of love and redemption that cuts through the theological justifications of empire and warmongering and calls us to peace.
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24 December, 2023
The the birth of Jesus we see the beginning of a peace mission that is not based on force but on patience, forgiveness and presence.
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24 December, 2022
Preacher: Nathan Nettleton
Topic: Christmas, Identity, Incarnation, Reconciliation, Scandal
The particularity of Jesus’s identity scandalises our tribal sensibilities, but our attempts to erase such details in favour of a more “universal” truth inevitably fail to convey the good news of God with us.
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2 January, 2022
A sermon on John 1: 1-18 by Audrey Kateena
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24 December, 2021
Preacher: Audrey Kateena
Topic: Christmas, Incarnation, Jesus
A modern paraphrase of a homily for the Feast of the Nativity by Ephraim the Syrian (306-373CE) taken from his second Christmas hymn.
