Building a Life-Transforming Sermon

The Baptist minister Alexander Maclaren once said, “The Gospel is not a mere message of deliverance, but a canon of conduct; it is not a theology to be accepted, but it is ethics to be lived. It is not to be believed only, but it is to be taken into life as a guide.”  As ministers, we have a divine …

Using All of Their Faith Just to Get There

When I began to explore my calling as a pastor, I latched onto the images of the Old Testament prophets. Who could have been a better role model for a young pastor than Elijah calling down fire from heaven or Elisha calling bears to attack the boys who taunted him? Red-faced, fist-swinging, veins bulging, Holy Ghost preaching was what the …