Sermon of the Year 2018: Meet the winner!
Lydia Lee, from Aylesbury,
worked as a primary school
teacher until last summer. She
now works for her local church
where she has been preaching
for around five years and is part
of the team running monthly
all age worships. Lydia set up
and now manages the church
community coffee shop.
She never imagined her sermon
titled ‘Why Are You Afraid?’
would evoke the hugely positive reaction it did, let alone lead to her winning
overall and receiving a year’s study at LST.
From L-R: Dr. Calvin Samuel, Principal of LST, Lydia Lee, winner
and Amelia Gosal, CEO at LWPT
Lydia said: “It just felt amazing to stand there and share and it’s not a context
you get very often so it was something very special and it’s probably unlikely
to happen again.
“I love to share the Word of God, and whenever I get an opportunity to do so it
always fills me with great excitement. I trusted in the Holy Spirit and stepped
out in faith and obedience as I shared my story and trusted that God would
use it to encourage and challenge those who heard it.”
London School of Theology and Preach magazine would like to thank everyone
who submitted sermons to the Sermon of the Year 2018 competition. Louisa
Lockwood (Preach Editor) and Shawn Swinney (Ordained Minister and
external adjudicator) read and appreciated every entry, from theological
exposition to the many stories of God’s inspiration in people’s lives.
We would like to say thank you to the expert panel of judges who gave up
their time to listen, understand and examine the words preached.
Sermon of the Year 2019 is now open!
To enter a submission into Sermon of the Year 2019 go to www.preachweb.
org/sermonoftheyear for more information.
The theme is The Power of Love and the deadline is midnight, Sunday 17
February 2019.
2 LWPT
How your donations make a difference!
GRANTS CASE STUDY: ANDREW MUMFORD
In this edition of Ichthus we hear
from Andrew Mumford, Pastor at
South Ashford Baptist Church who
received a grant from LWPT last
year. Andrew shares the impact the
grant has had on his life.
I want to thank you once again for
the grant given to me in spring
last year (March 2017), towards my
fees for the Diploma in Ministerial
Formation at Spurgeon’s College.
This summer I finished my course
and graduated on 7th July from
the College. I am pleased to report
that I have been asked by the
congregation at my placement
Andrew graduating from Spurgeon’s College church to stay on here as full-time
pastor from 1st September. At the
in July this year.
time of writing I have just completed
the payment on my fees and leave the College without owing anything.
This is important since the College does not receive any funding from
external sources or from the Baptist Union of Great Britain and relies
solely on student fees to exist.
In terms of my development, the course has been crucial. Not only have
I learned about different styles of preaching but I have also had the
opportunity to practice in my placement context. I have been exposed to
different styles of worship and theologies of worship and have gained
significant experience in organising and leading services of worship.
The grant given by LWPT has enabled me to develop this way and helped
the College as it seeks to continue to train men and women to preach and
lead worship in a wide variety of churches across London and the wider
UK and not exclusively in Baptist churches. §