I’ve recently begun a new sermon series from the Psalms leading up to Easter. I had to collect some resources for this series, and thought I’d share with you some that have already been beneficial to me. I’m sure you may have some of your own that you would like to suggest. Psalms from the …
Getting to know our neighbors is not always an easy endeavor in today’s society. My good friend Ben Stevens has written an article, “To Love Your Neighbor, You Must Know Your Neighbor,” that can help us in this important aspect of the Christian life. As pastors, we need to encourage our people to get to …
“My colleague, Stanley Hauerwas, was recently asked about the moral confusion of contemporary clergy. Hauerwas said something to the effect that, ‘You have these people who get out of seminary thinking that their job is to ‘help people.’ That’s where the adultery begins.’ What? ‘So you have these clergy,’ he continued, ‘ who have no …
“Pastoral care aids preaching by giving the preacher a respect for listeners in their individual struggles. In counseling troubled parishioners, preachers are with their people in intimate, personal, face-to-face encounters. The preacher who is also a pastor is therefore less likely to make sweeping, generalized, universal judgments about ‘the human condition.’ Before making pronouncements from …
“Informed imitation, that’s our goal. We don’t listen to the preaching of others so that we can be slavish imitators. We listen as fellow artists, as those who have learned enough about preaching to know competence when we hear it, to respect the ways in which more experienced practitioners of our craft can teach us. …
Hugh Latimer was a popular preacher of the English Reformation known for his “homely, rustic touch…he spoke from the heart and his words went…to the heart.” His best known sermon is his “The Sermon of the Plough.” Read a couple of excerpts below. And now I would ask you a strange question; who is the …
I read alot. Here are some short blurb reviews for a few books I’ve currently read or am reading. Nomad byAyaan Hirsi Ali. This is an autobiographical book chronicling Hirsi Ali’s departure from Islam to America. In this book she shares many personal anecdotes about the challenges, fears, and failures she faced as an immigrant …
Trevin Wax links to the napping habits of 8 famous men. If you’re still not convinced of the benefits of napping and are in need of some additional inspiration, or, you’re simply curious about how some of history’s famous men incorporated the nap into their daily routines, today we provide a look at the napping …
I’ve watched a couple of interviews on Rob Bell in recent days and have downloaded Love Wins on my Kindle. I actually plan to reference it in this week’s sermon on the doctrine of glorification. Some of the interviews with Bell have been done very well (I especially fond of Martin Bashir’s interview). Honestly, though, …
“Unfortunately, we preachers are not always attentive to issues of delivery. Bad habits are often begun in seminary. The professor of homiletics says, ‘You will write three sermons for this class this semester.’ But those manuscripts, undelivered, are not yet ‘sermons.’ Better delivery is learned over a lifetime of preaching. The skills required for good …