Preaching Into a Meaningful Whole: Connecting Sermon with the Rest of Worship
The sermon is never complete until the last word is said and people stand and sing. No matter how much I prepare, study, and wrestle over what needs to be said or how to say it…the sermon is never done until it is done. In order to make the sermon fit better into the rest […]
Words Create…and Creation Cannot be Rushed
God created the universe with words and with Word (Gen 1:1, John 1:1-3, Col 1:16). Needless to say, words are powerful. In a much more limited sense, our words also have power to create. There are certain words that are spoken that just cannot be unspoken because once they are said they create a lasting […]
Psychotherapy, Preaching and Self-Differentiation in Ministry
There is a term in psychology that every preacher needs to be aware of called “self-differentiation” and it basically means knowing where you stop and everyone else starts…it is the maturity to be able to pull apart what is going on inside of self and what is going on outside yourself. Part of self-differentiation in […]
Borrowing imagination…
will only take you so far. There are more good (and bad) resources (blogs, books, audio/video, etc) available today than any other point in history. What is at least as significant is that these resources are more accessible than ever before (often instant). Unfortunately that means I can easily make a living off borrowed imagination […]
Favorite Books List: Preaching
As One Without Authority By Fred Craddock – amazing paradigm changer in how we view preaching and the preacher. This is Craddock’s inductive approach and an effort to reconnect the form of the sermon with the meaning we intend to convey. Every preacher should read this book (as is the case with every book on […]
Balancing Scripture and Explanation in Preaching
I believe there is something powerful that happens when God’s word is read aloud among the people of God. Unfortunately there are times preaching is more about personality than it is about the power that comes from the very nature of God’s Word. If a preacher did nothing but get up and read scripture there […]
My Sermons are Online
January marked the beginning of my transition from associate ministry to preaching ministry. I want to share the link to our sermon page here at Westside in case it is helpful to any of you.
Has Powerpoint for Preaching Outlived Its Usefulness?
There have been a few articles out over the last week that bashed the effectiveness of powerpoint. Here are a few of those articles with a brief synopsis: Physicists, Generals And CEOs Agree: Ditch The PowerPoint This article basically says that in a variety of fields the experience has been the same, reliance on powerpoint […]
Preaching With a Purpose
Up until the last two months, I have been an outsider to full-time preaching. For 35 years I have gotten to listen to a lot of different preachers week in and week out, at the lectures and at retreats. After being in the audience all of these years there is one question that has always […]
Greek in the Pulpit – Being Honest With Limitations
I love this story from David Black and his book, “It’s Still Greek to Me” in warning ministers to not preach making points from the original languages, “When Harvard presented Andrew Jackson with an honorary doctorate in 1833, Jackson had a small problem. His schooling was meager, and the ceremony was in Latin. To express […]