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miriam bier – texts in conversation

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about going along to an Anglican church this year is knowing that in every service, every week, we’ll hear from the breadth of Scripture before anyone even gets up to preach. There’s always a Psalm, an Old Testament reading, an epistle, and then the capstone, a Gospel reading. Every [...]

george wieland – what do they hear when you don’t say anything?

As I understand and try to practice it, preaching the Bible involves trying to hear from God through scripture for others, and to communicate to those others what I believe I am hearing. It is part of my responsibility to try to know and understand as far as is possible the people to whom I [...]

brett jones – preparation: prepared and revealed

The dichotomy between careful preparation and spontaneous delivery in preaching has consumed many a congregation as they pursue authentic revelation. For some, the discipline and detail of extended preparation offers due recognition to the great responsibility of preaching.  Other times it has seemed that the voices promoting the spontaneity of the Spirit’s inspiration have been [...]

robyn mellar-smith – how then shall we plan?

Around this time of year I start to give serious thought to a preaching plan for next year. I am the sole pastor of a medium sized Baptist church who is responsible for the preaching slot on Sunday morning. This means that I either preach myself (around 3 weeks out of 5 this year) or [...]

reuben munn – counterpoint preaching

I was talking the other day to a friend about a Christian conference he had been to. In the context of telling me about one of the speakers, my friend made an interesting comment: “when it comes to Christian speakers, I find it helpful to ask, ‘who do they think is the enemy?’” In other [...]

mark keown – making space for evangelism

One of the great tensions for any pastor is how to integrate evangelism into the life of the church. One element of this is when and how to preach the gospel in the natural flow of church life. This all relates to the main function of the sermon. Is it to feed those already in [...]

laura giddey – ps: i love preaching

Recently I preached when the youth took over our two morning services at church.  Pulling together a bunch of teenagers and leaders proved tricky but speaking back in ‘big church’ was lots of fun!  I love the setting of local church, Sunday morning and I love the style of expository, casual, relational preaching.  I enjoyed [...]

brad carr – taking a break

At the risk of creating envy in some readers, I have to admit that I am writing this column a couple of weeks into a six-week sabbatical. The elders of our church have taken a very loving and proactive approach to caring for their pastors, and my family and I are currently enjoying the fruit [...]

rod thompson – living in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation

Miroslav Volf contends that God’s people in current times and places must choose to live “against the tide” – a tide characterised by the inner pull toward self-absorption and away from care for others, impelled by what he calls a “culture stripped of grace” (Volf, Against the Tide (Eerdmans, 2010) xi-xii).  In different ways, in [...]

thalia kehoe rowden – minor master class

I was a sceptic when I arrived at West Baptist Church in New Plymouth in 2008. For many years West had embraced an all-age approach to church life, including Sunday mornings.  Yes, you read that right.  In a church of 70-odd on a Sunday, the kids were in the service the whole time. While I [...]