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The following 67 entries are posted in the "Preaching in General" category.
July 21, 2008 15:11
Summer offers a different pace of life for most of us and life at church is no different. Even preachers need vacation, meaning that pulpits everywhere are filled with unfamiliar faces.
In many such churches, summer relief comes from associate staff, off...
July 09, 2008 17:09
I was given this comment some time ago. It’s a strong opinion, but not a unique one. As I’ve said before, I think “the pulpit sermon” is fair game for some of these critiques. At the same time, I think that there are a lot of ways that some...
May 27, 2008 19:58
As mentioned previously, I recently had the opportunity to work with a group of Anglican clergy at Wycliffe College in Toronto. One of the things they asked me to talk about was the nature of “Great Preaching.” I determined to build on my previous piec...
May 15, 2008 21:32
Marva Dawn told a story this week about a young pastor who was working very hard on his sermon preparation in order to make an impression on his bishop. Unfortunately, due to a congregational crisis, he was able only to get his sermon two-thirds prepared. So he de...
April 07, 2008 12:03
I heard a very good sermon recently. I was personally challenged and convicted by what the pastor had to say. This is what preaching is supposed to do, I thought to myself. I was impressed and encouraged by the word that I was hearing.
I was disappointed...
February 25, 2008 12:18
Some of you may remember I commented on and linked to an article by New Zealander David Allis a few months ago. The article was titled, The Problem with Preaching. Here is a stimulating response from Allis. He makes some interesting points…
“...
February 06, 2008 23:37
I received an email from a regular preaching.org reader and former student of mine. I’ve reproduced his message here, slightly edited…
“I really appreciate your website with extremely helpful articles and links (I’ll probably subs...
February 04, 2008 13:05
This morning, two different colleagues sent me a link to the same article, recently sent out in the weekly newsletter of the Alban Institute. The article, written by John Addison Dally and titled, Missional Preaching and the Kingdom of God, begins with the usual c...
January 28, 2008 20:22
As regular readers of this site are aware, I have the opportunity to preach sermons more than once. As a sometimes itinerant preacher I have the opportunity to hone my sermons to a level that the regular pastor/preacher cannot. Of course, it’s important that...
January 14, 2008 12:29
After the Seahawks/Packers playoff game on Saturday, someone on the radio mentioned that there is a huge advantage to playing on one’s home field. No doubt that’s usually true in sports. It is also true in preaching.
I have the opportunity to...
December 14, 2007 13:26
John Chrysostom, the well-known fourth century preacher was famous for his eloquence. Nicknamed “the golden mouth” he was better known for the grandness of his speech than for the content of his sermons. Understandably, this began to grate on him.
...December 05, 2007 16:56
I just had a conversation with one of my students about the relationship of preaching to sales. My student spent part of his life selling cars. He was quick to recognize the ways in which his sales training could enhance his work as a preacher. We’re in the ...
November 28, 2007 08:46
The value of thorough preparation was brought home to me again last week in homiletics class. One of my students had painstakingly worked to prepare a major powerpoint presentation to supplement his sermon. Unfortunately, in class he had some major computer issues...
November 23, 2007 15:59
First, let me say “happy thanksgiving” to my American friends. We do, in fact, have much to be thankful for. There is a lot of football on our televisions right now as is customary at thanksgiving time. I was just watching a few minutes of the Texas/Te...
October 31, 2007 11:55
My friend, Roger Helland sent me a link to and excellent article from Leadership journal titled Glimpses of Glory by Skye Jethani. It’s worth your while to read.
Jethani asks, “how many voices speak of God in your church – and ...
October 18, 2007 12:46
I’ve just returned from this year’s meetings of the Evangelical Homiletics Society held at Talbot Seminary in La Mirada, California. I love these meetings because these are the people that do what I do and who think about the things that I think about. Over the ye...
September 10, 2007 12:57
We have a new lead pastor at our church and we couldn’t be happier. Yesterday, Brian Stewart offered us a dramatic recitation of the entire book of Philippians, from memory! I had memorized the book of Philippians some years ago, but I had never had the cou...
September 03, 2007 00:26
I am one of those preachers that play golf. Most of the time my golf game is a lesson in humility, a kind of willing mortification of the flesh that reminds me that for all my supposed spirituality, my conquest of the physical world is tenuous at best. Preachers d...
August 27, 2007 14:34
There are times when the sermon comes easily. Everything flows and you know exactly what it is that God would have you say. At other times, however, the ideas come as slow as molasses (“in January” as a friend of mine used to say). I had one of those m...
August 08, 2007 15:22
I had a long conversation with one of my colleagues this morning about the nature of “depth” in preaching. We are seeking to put together a survey instrument that will help us understand how preachers prepare to preach and the degree to which their pre...
June 18, 2007 11:04
I found the attached article by David Allis to be one of the more thoughtful critiques of preaching. My response is that much of what he says is truthful. Preaching, for instance, is expensive. Preachers often can’t be trusted. At the same time, I ...
May 04, 2007 11:52
Thomas Long has written a tremendous piece on pulpit plagiarism that you can find here in it’s entirety: Stolen Goods. The article traces the arguments for and against using materials developed by others in the pulpit. Long comes down on the issue of honesty...
April 26, 2007 10:36
I noted an excellent article in the March-April issue of Preaching by Ryan Baltrip, a doctoral student at Southern Baptist Seminary. The article titled, Preaching the Kingdom of God offers “Ten Tensions That Every Preacher Should Deal With....
April 18, 2007 15:41
Some more highlights from the International Congress on Preaching…
Dave Stone is a great communicator. He offered a pretty good example of how a person can be both entertaining and biblically insightful.
I found myself resonating with Tim...
April 17, 2007 15:16
Having spent a delightful number of days on vacation with my wife in Rome and London we have now arrived in Cambridge for the International Congress on Preaching. About 500 pastors and homileticians have gathered in the historic St. Stephens Avenue Baptist Church ...
March 30, 2007 11:11
A few years ago, Preaching magazine named James S. Stewart as the greatest preacher of the twentieth century. Whenever I mention this to my students, they all respond with quizzical expressions. They have never heard of him. My first exposure to Stewart w...
March 28, 2007 12:00
Yesterday, I concluded the latest installment of my preaching laboratory class. Toward the end of the class one of the male students mentioned that while he felt his preaching was improving he wasn’t yet up to the standard of one of his fellow students, who ...
March 23, 2007 09:11
I was encouraged by yesterday’s opening presentation at the Chief Academic Officer’s Society of the Association of Theological Schools. The speaker, Lovett Weems, described his early findings as president of Wesley Theological Seminary in the mid 1980&...
March 19, 2007 13:20
Lost in the reporting of last week’s statement by Pope Benedict IV was his criticism of “generic and abstract homilies.” While the statement highlights many points of continuing theological variance with the doctrine and practice of evangelicals,...
February 26, 2007 10:36
Yesterday, I preached the same sermon at two consecutive services. In between the first and second services I took some heat from an older man who suggested that “if anyone came into the service confused, I left them more confused.” I tried to offer a ...
February 23, 2007 14:26
I recently received a copy of Wayne McDill’s second edition of 12 Essential Skills for Great Preaching. The book offers a detailed and practical approach to the preparation of declarative, Expository sermons. This might be the most comprehensive pre...
February 21, 2007 11:17
The Preaching Now weekly newsletter quoted John Ortberg this week, offering the following deadly sins of preaching.
1. The temptation to be inauthentic
2. The temptation to live for recognition
3. The temptation to live in fe...
February 20, 2007 11:35
Last week I was part of the examination committee for a Doctor of Ministry dissertation written by Pastor David Acree from Lethbridge, Alberta. David’s dissertation examined the matter of the preacher’s sense of readiness to preach. I’m pleased t...
February 19, 2007 13:00
I know that there has been a debate about whether pastor/preachers should take Mondays as their day off or whether they should try to take another day mid-week. Monday is most convenient, of course. Churches gear up towards the weekend and after all the excitement...
February 09, 2007 14:46
Christianity Today gathered a group of prominent pastors together at this past summer’s National Pastor’s Conference to talk about preaching and consumerism. The panel included John Ortberg, Doug Pagitt, Will Willimon and Efrem Smith. To read the a...
January 31, 2007 11:26
Over the years I’ve learned to be a little suspicious of statistics – or at least the way that numbers can be manipulated. I don’t imagine many preachers would deliberately misrepresent their case by manipulating statistics. Nonetheless, it happe...
January 17, 2007 11:50
Yesterday’s ‘Preaching Now’ email from Preaching magazine mentioned a new trend toward advertising from the pulpit:
“The newest advertising trend is aimed at your church. As a recent article in the Knowledge@Wharton (from the Whar...
January 03, 2007 11:51
One of my students told me about a recent experience preaching through a series of cell phone interruptions. A listener’s phone rang at least six times during the service, eventually causing the preacher to stop the sermon. As it turned out, the telephone ca...
December 18, 2006 13:34
I’ve observed a phenomenon in my preaching, whenever I preach a sermon more than once. It’s always better the second time around. The third time is better yet. Perhaps, in churches that offer more than three services, there is some point at which impro...
December 06, 2006 12:02
This past Sunday I was preaching as best I could about the way that fear cripples our ability to know the joy that God has promised us. I was talking about some of the ways that I had experienced discouragement and fear in the past month – my multiple trips ...
December 05, 2006 11:37
As a preacher, I love my listeners. Without listeners, I wouldn’t have an opportunity. Listeners are great.
I’ve found it is important to respect the listener as a preacher. Listeners don’t want to be ‘talked down to.’ They ...
November 22, 2006 11:59
Today begins a new round of student in-class sermons as part of my Homiletics I class at ACTS Seminaries. I always feel for these students. The act of preaching in class is important and it can be formative, though it often is pa...
November 20, 2006 12:33
The study of the history of preaching is informative, though not necessarily always practical. Preaching is a skill that might not be enhanced by an understanding of it’s past. This is because preaching is about the effective communication of God’s Wor...
October 26, 2006 16:44
I recently received a copy of Scott Gibson’s new book “Preaching the Old Testament”. This book is a compilation of articles, edited by Gibson, and offered in tribute to Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., former president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminar...
October 14, 2006 18:07
The EHS conference is now concluded. I’m in my hotel room preparing for an early morning flight back home. I deeply appreciate this annual opportunity to interact with the people who are seriously interested in advancing the cause o...
October 14, 2006 06:09
After a long day’s travel I am delighted to be at the tenth annual meetings of the Evangelical Homiletics Society. These people, committed to the advancement of biblical preaching have become dear to me.
I just heard Dennis Hollinger, president of ...
October 09, 2006 00:47
I’ve got to tell you what a wonderful time I had preaching today. I really felt like people were hearing from God. Judging by their response to me afterwards, God did some wonderful things by his Spirit through the sermon that he gave me.
My wife w...
October 06, 2006 10:19
Preaching is pervasive. Though people continue to question the relevance and power of the sermon, it remains resilient. One would have a hard time finding a church anywhere in the world that didn’t feature formal preaching as a staple of its regular worship gather...
October 05, 2006 12:50
Last week I had lunch with a pastor friend of mine who has been very influential in my part of the world. He leads one of those creative new churches that has been highly successful in finding creative ways to build the church and bring people to Jesus.
...
October 02, 2006 11:21
I had a recent conversation with one of my mentors who challenged me to consider what he called “Feedback Intensive Practice Embedded Programming,” in my training of preachers. His concerns was that in most seminary contexts, we have students present f...
September 08, 2006 17:11
Last weekend my family and I saw a street performer who’s only real skill seemed to be able to “catch a catapulting cabbage on a spike on his head.” At one point in the performance he spoke to all the children in the crowd. “When you see so...
September 06, 2006 18:24
It’s been a while since I have preached at a funeral. My seminary role doesn’t always afford me the opportunity to serve such pastoral functions like I used to. Tomorrow morning, however, I have the privilege of preaching at the memorial service for my...
August 31, 2006 14:38
According to Thom Rainer in Surprising Insights from the Unchurched the highest level of education among pastors who are successfully reaching the unchurched is either doctorate (40%) or masters (47%). This bodes well for those of us trying to serve the c...
August 30, 2006 16:33
Wow, I’ve been trying to get to this blog all day, but sometimes a person just gets swamped. I’ve been hit with all kinds of unexpected issues of varying degrees of importance all day long. I didn’t expect any of this.
It’s like t...
August 29, 2006 11:51
One of my doctoral students, Dick Moes, wrote the following narrative for a discussion group he is working with. It is loosely based on selections from Choosing to Preach.
Pastor Correct is a cognitive preacher who sees as his primary task to in...
August 24, 2006 11:12
David Fitch has been writing and blogging about expository preaching in his new book and blog titled The Great Giveaway (www.thegreatgiveaway.blogspot.com). In sum, Fitch offers a number of interesting suggestions:
1. “Quit explaining and...
August 17, 2006 20:32
I just received an examination copy of Quentin Schultze’s new book, An Essential Guide to Public Speaking: Serving Your Audience with Faith, Skill, and Virtue. While the book is presented at an introductory level, I found it to be profoundly informe...
August 17, 2006 15:38
Yesterday I wrote about the death of John the Baptist narrative in Mark 6. Have you read this text recently? This is a salacious story. Drunken orgies and severed heads. I usually teach preachers to ask themselves, what does the Bible story sound like, smell like,...
August 16, 2006 12:43
Yesterday I spent some time trying to help a pastor with a sermon based on the Mark 6:14-26, the well-known narrative of the death of John the Baptist. The obvious approach to this text would be to talk about Herod’s abuse of power and the importance of bein...
August 12, 2006 12:47
Listening to the speakers at this week’s Willow Creek Leadership Summit I have been struck by just how funny everybody is. Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, and even Bill Hybels all used humor to great effect. Andy Stanley was hilarious. Not that anybo...
August 10, 2006 15:26
Have you ever tried to hold down a warped board? As soon as you get one side hammered down the other side pops up. Put your attention to that side and the first side pops back up. It can be maddening.
The same can be true of integrative preaching. You pu...
August 10, 2006 15:24
There are many technical definitions of the task of preaching, but I like to keep it simple. As far as I am concerned, preaching is “helping people hear from God.” I have plenty of opinions, and some of them may even be worth listening to, but no one c...
August 10, 2006 15:20
Preaching is undervalued. If “Homiletics” was a stock on the Nasdaq it would carry a strong “sell” recommendation from most pundits. Many just aren’t sure that the sermon can carry the freight. As preachers we are trying to build beli...
August 10, 2006 15:19
How can they call in the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful a...
August 10, 2006 15:16
Student preachers often want to know how to choose what text they will preach from. I confess that I am not usually a whole lot of help on the question. “Is it in the Bible,” I ask? “Then go ahead and preach it.”
My answer is base...
August 10, 2006 15:11
Who’s the greatest preacher the world has ever seen?
Granted, it’s a subjective question, but that’s what makes it fun. One is tempted to offer the Sunday School answer, “Jesus”, which would be correct, but that would be taking th...
August 10, 2006 15:08
If you are new to the task of preaching you can take encouragement from the following story. No matter how badly it goes, you never know. God might be preparing you to bring a generation from across the world to obedience to Christ!
In the early spring o...