As much as I love the research and reading (the conversations with other wrestlers of the Word) and discovering new revelation and bringing that before the congregation . . . I wonder if sometimes we make it too hard for ourselves. Part of the joy of preaching I’ve recently rediscovered is this: simply reminding people […]
One of the key texts in the NT for understanding how the early church did its worship is 1 Cor 14:26. Paul is dealing with the problems at their worship gatherings—an obsession with flamboyant rhetoric (1 Cor 2), inappropriate dress and abuses of the Last Supper (1 Cor 11), a fixation on tongues, and more. […]
I found myself in a recent encounter with Dawn and Petersen’s “The Unnecessary Pastor” and began to question the “necessariness” of the preacher. As often happens in these fascinating internal monologues, I discovered some resonance with both trajectories – becoming less necessary and more necessary… The strength of the idea that “the pastor as preacher […]
How can we describe the calling to preach? Is it that we sense God at work while we’re preaching? Or that we enjoy sermon preparation as much as delivery? Is it the God given ability to make Scripture understandable to today’s listeners? Or better still, to apply it in such a way that gets behind people’s defences? […]
“Preach from the heart”, these are the words that keep coming back to me as I think about preaching today. I could talk about technique, I also go back and forward between preaching from a script to preaching form just a series of topics. I sometimes spend hours over the PowerPoint and sometimes just pop […]
Through a series of circumstances, my wife and I have had the privilege of joining a newly established community of faith. Throughout this process, a key question is: “How much does the community itself affect the content, style and type of preaching in that community?” This is the question that has plagued me over the […]
