Preaching Beyond the Walls: An Interview with Ralph Douglas West

Ralph Douglas West is pastor of the Brookhollow Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, better known as The Church Without Walls. He will be one of the featured speakers at the 2011 National Conference on Preaching, May 9-11 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He recently visited with Executive Editor Michael Duduit.

Evangelizing the Church

If you are like me, there may have been a time in your preaching ministry when you thought the gospel was really only for evangelizing unbelievers and did not need to be a part of every sermon on a weekly basis. After all, aren't we to be moving on from the milk of elementary teachings to mature spiritual meat? If we address the basic gospel on a weekly basis, are we not hindering the growth of our people into deeper biblical truths?

Finding Timothy: Raising the Next Generation of Preachers

Here I sit, nestled in an ultra-hip chair at a West Tennessee Starbucks. Over a steaming cup of bold coffee, I fire questions at Andy, a 21-year-old college student who takes pride in his rugged, half-shaved face. I pick this young man's brain because he is one who is jealous for my job; he aspires to the office of senior pastor. Not a youth pastor, or children's pastor or college pastor-though each of those is a high and worthy calling-Andy is one who ultimately wants to feed and lead a local church. This guy intrigues me because his breed is becoming so scarce.

Preacher to Preacher: We Preach Christ Crucified!

That all too often is the problem for many of the people who hear us preach. As youngsters, we drew crosses-let's face it, drawing a cross is something any child can do. Almost all of us own a cross or have purchased one as a gift for someone we love. So, if I were to ask a Sunday School class how much a cross costs, the answer likely would be that it has to do with the material used, and it could be anywhere from pennies to millions of dollars.

Engaging Well: Staying Faithful in Faithless Times

Many years ago, the apostle Paul confronted a Christless culture in Athens, Greece. Yet his challenge on that day is identical to the challenge we face in our culture. How do we remain faithful in faithless times? How can we connect with culture without becoming trapped or ruined by the culture?

Preaching Points: The Preaching Life

As Annie Dillard has beckoned us to consider The Writing Life so Barbara Brown Taylor has set forth the challenge to preachers to consider The Preaching Life. I only take up the matter because I always have believed we who preach walk past Sunday's need and never see it. If we were more alert, would the paragraphs of next Sunday's sermon begin to stack themselves all around the text we wanted to preach?

Back Page Pulpit: What’s on Your Mind?

I never knew I had so many friends until I enrolled in Facebook. In case you've been living under a rock (like the guy in that AFLAC commercial), you've heard about the phenomenon that is Facebook, now with more than 500 million registered participants. They even made a movie about it-The Social Network-which apparently consisted of one smart Harvard kid taking an idea from some other smart Harvard kids and turning it into a bazillionjillion dollars.

Authentic Preaching

In a recent article for ChurchLeaders.com, Kevin DeYoung writes about four indispensable qualities for good preaching, and one of those is: "Authenticity: This is the hardest quality to describe, and it takes the longest to acquire. I'm not usually a fan of the buzzword authenticity, but I use it here as a blanket to cover a number of ideas."

Learning from Critics

In a recent commentary for Baptist Press, LifeWay CEO Thom Rainer talks about ways he has learned from his critics. Among his seven suggestions:

Spectacle or Spectacular?

James Emery White is Senior Pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte (and one of our featured speakers at May's National Conference on Preaching). In his Church and Culture blog, he recently wondered, "whether we are increasingly succumbing to the idea that we have to use sensationalism to penetrate a post-Christian culture and draw crowds; the shock series title, the car giveaway, the celebrity interview. Is it media attention we're ultimately after? Is that what grows a church?"