Author: Administrador

Any minister who has ever moved from one home or office to another knows the scourge of every ministerial move: packing and unpacking the books.My move from Louisville to Birmingham at the beginning of 1987 included with it the obligatory transfer of my ministerial library. My wife suggested an alternate arrangement for my books, but … Continue reading “Singing the Bookshelf Blues”

A remarkable discovery occurs in the preaching event when you and I probe some very ordinary life situations to their biblical depths. We find the Eternal God appearing as Stranger in the stress and strain of these situations.The Presence of God becomes vivid in the most unlikely and strangest of ways in what would otherwise … Continue reading “The Presence of God as Stranger in the Preaching Event (Third of five parts)”

1. Are the physical conditions where you preach favorable?The most elementary factor in gaining and keeping interest in a sermon is the ability of an audience to listen with a reasonable degree of comfort. True, soldiers have heard a chaplain’s sermons under a barrage of artillery fire, but a certain urgency of need contributed motivation … Continue reading “Evaluating the Interest Factor in Your Preaching (Third of five parts)”

The Apostle lived only to serve his Lord, He would have agreed with Hudson Taylor who said: “Christ is either all in all or nothing at all.”For Paul, Christ had been the beginning of life, for on that day on the Damascus Road he had been born again. Christ was also the continuance of life. … Continue reading “What Christ Means to Me (Text: Phil. 1:21)”

What were the elements of John Wesley’s power as a preacher? One can discover some of them in his printed sermons, of which he said: “I design plain truth for plain people. I labor to avoid all words which are not easy to be understood, all which are not used in common life.”The kind of … Continue reading “John Wesley: Plain truth for plain people”

A wedding sermon, whenever it is included in a Christian marriage ceremony, provides a pastor with unique opportunities. To begin with, it enables him, through the Gospel that he speaks, to contribute to the marital welfare not only of the prospective couple before him but also of the married couples of his parish that are … Continue reading “Toward Wedding Sermons with Substance”

Everybody has moments he would characterize as his highest and greatest. One of mine is that Sunday morning when I preached my first sermon.It was in the little Methodist church at Walpole, Mass. I was a seminary student at the time, and I wanted that sermon to be a gem of scholarly eloquence. So I … Continue reading “The Kind of Preaching That Matters”

“This isn’t a ‘preacher story.’ This really happened!”It may be the punchline of an old joke, but it’s still enough to make many of us cringe because it strikes so close to home.There’s something wrong when a “ministerial estimate” refers to a wildly-inflated figure, and a “preacher story” is short for exaggeration or falsehood.You’ve read … Continue reading “Truth and Preaching”

I was startled when I read the February, 1987 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry. The lead article is entitled “Self-Portrayal by a Depressed Poet: A Contribution to the Clinical Biography of William Cowper.”William Cowper wrote hymns such as “There is a Fountain,” “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” “O for a Closer Walk … Continue reading “The “Dark Side” of the Presence of God in Preaching (Fourth of Four Parts)”

What does a sermon have in common with a performance by Marcel Marceau? More than you might think. What the mime artist does is to bring the inner vision of his thoughts and feelings to outward expression.The Scriptures tell us that David “danced before the Lord.” He was bringing to visibility his faith, his thoughts, … Continue reading “Evaluating the Delivery of Your Sermon (Fourth of Five Parts)”