Preaching is leadership. The preacher not only is a leader by position, but by practice as he or she works to move people to new levels of appreciation for and obedience to the truths of God’s Word. However, this is leadership from among the people more than...

from Psalm 78:65-72

(Recently published in Insight for Living)

Many of us are thinking a lot about leadership these days as we contemplate elections on both sides of the border. We are looking at the candidates trying to weigh questions of c...

Hull, William E. Strategic Preaching: The Role of the Pulpit in Pastoral Leadership. St. Louis, MO: Chalice, 2006.

The relationship of preaching to leadership is significant. The pulpit provides valuable opportunity for the preacher to lead the con...

In a recent conversation a friend and I discovered that we had both got our first opportunities to preach at an evening “youth service” at our home churches. In my case, I was 17 years old. The pastor had set aside the evening for music and testimonies...

Every November the national and regional leadership of the six denominations affiliated with the Associated Canadian Theological Schools (ACTS Seminaries) come together to meet with the faculty and discuss some issue of current importance...

Here is a link to some fascinating new research on the increased incidence of second-career pastoral leadership, particularly in conservative protestant denominations. It appears that pastors are starting older and that they usually have had a career before they c...

I just read an interesting little book by Jim Schmitmeyer describing the need for preachers to get their hands dirty, involving themselves in the real lives of the people that they preach to. Schmitmeyer is a Roman Catholic priest, so his sense of what preaching i...

For the last several months I have served on the search committee for Lead Pastor at my local church. This has been a delightful experience. We were in the happy position of being able to offer the leadership of a happy and unified church to some very fine candida...

I had another interesting conversation with one of our Doctor of Ministry students last week. Robert Campbell is a pastor from Corona, California and is working on the question of whether or not a pastor can have friends in the congregation.

Traditionalists...

This week I have been engaged in wall-to-wall faculty meetings here at ACTS Seminaries. It is annual review week, which is both grueling and encouraging as we get a sense of what we have been doing (well and poorly) and what we could see ...

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 ...

From the Center for Creative Ministry some Barna research numbers indicating that “only 5% of Protestant pastors in America are women. Almost all pastors are married. While 13% have been divorced almost all of these are remarried.”

“The pa...

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...

Yesterday, the front page of my local newspaper displayed two stories that I found annoying. In one case, a government minister was fired because of an angry email that he sent to a constituent. In the other case, a woman with cancer had her travel privileges limi...

I was pleased to see a two-page review of Choosing to Preach in the latest issue of Preaching magazine. The unnamed reviewer likes the book, and gives it a warm endorsement as well as a useful summary of its contents. The review also raises a small question about ...

Every now and then I troll my junk email box in order to see whether something has gone astray. Yesterday morning I found a message offering a link to a website that is questioning whether the “position” of “preacher” is biblically mandated...

Yesterday was an important day for us at Parkland Fellowship. This was the first Sunday after the leaving of our Senior Pastor. I, like many, wondered what the day might feel like, how many would attend, and whether I would be able to preach in such a way that peo...

Yesterday was the final Sunday at our church for my friend and pastor David Horita. The day became even more memorable than it would have been due to a surprise snowstorm which cut our electric power about 10 minutes into the service. We ended up bringing out the ...

Preaching is leadership.

It is not just a way of exercising leadership. It is leadership. If we believe that God communicates to his people through his Word as it is preached, then the very act of preaching is a means by which God leads his people.

M...

A few weeks ago I raised the question as to when “authenticity” became the new fruit of the spirit. Last night a couple of young pastor friends and I discussed the question a little more. For a lot of people, authenticity is a license to dump all their...

What is one to say about the news of yet another public evangelical leader’s hypocrisy. I have no doubt that Ted Haggard’s claims are true, that this has been a long dark struggle of the soul and that he is a sinner in need of forgiveness just like any...

I just received a copy of Michael Quicke’s new book 360-Degree Leadership: Preaching to Transform Congregations. The book is a follow-up to his previous work, 360-Degree Preaching. This time, his concern is to restore the fractured relation...