As you may have noticed by now—because I’ve told you already—this issue marks the completion of 25 years of publication. During those 25 years, we’ve had lots of great articles, interviews and sermons.
However, as I finish the editorial process for this milestone issue, I am thinking not of the articles that have appeared, but of all those interesting articles and sermons we never had a chance to publish. Despite the potential of making lots of my preacher friends mad—something I’ve done with remarkable regularity for a quarter century—here are some of the items we never quite got the chance to publish.
For example, there was…
• John MacArthur’s famous sermon, “Oops. I was wrong”;
• Rick Warren’s landmark article, “A Call for More Traditional Worship”; and
• Haddon Robinson’s fascinating piece, “Time for Some Little Idea Preaching.”
If only we could have published…
• George Barna’s article “I Don’t Care What Anybody Else Says. Here’s What I Think”;
• Billy Graham’s sermon, “Why I Became an Evangelist—So I Could Avoid Deacon’s Meetings”; and
• Chuck Swindoll’s funeral message, “Insight for De-Living.”
Wouldn’t you like to have read…
• Ed Young, Jr.’s article, “Put All that Stuff Away and Just Preach”;
• Tim LaHaye’s well-known sermon, “When Theology Gets Left Behind”; and
• Andy Stanley’s ground-breaking article, “Creating a Satellite Church on Your iPhone”?
Then there were those other amazing offerings that never made it to print…
• John Piper on “Why I Believe in Topical Preaching”;
• Mark Driscoll’s famous article, “Forget Seattle. I’m Moving to Atlanta”; and
• Who could forget Tim Keller’s autobiographical sermon, “Just a Small Town Preacher”?
Just thinking about it makes me look forward to all the similar items we won’t get a chance to publish during the next 25 years.