Articles

While your church is holding a service or study in your facility, would you like members and guests who aren't able to attend in person to be able to watch that event from their mobile phone or iPad remotely?

Any pastor finds himself doing these things, observing life, reading as widely as possible and gathering ideas along the way. The challenge is organizing these ideas from various sources so that they can be retrieved later. This has been a challenge for me personally in ministry.

A recent article in the New York Times Magazine (July 25, 2010) points out the new dilemma posed by the Internet: Some things are impossible to forget. The article recounts the story of Stacy Snyder, a 25-year-old teacher-in-training, who four years ago posted a photo of herself on her MySpace page. (For those who are relatively new to social networking, MySpace is to Facebook as a little country church is to the Crystal Cathedral. Come to think of it, Facebook and the Crystal Cathedral have way too many windows.) As the story explains, this picture shows Stacy "at a party wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup, with the caption 'Drunken Pirate.'"

G. Campbell Morgan once observed, "The preacher should never address a crowd without remembering his ultimate citadel is the citadel of the human will. He may travel along the line of the emotions, but he is after the will. He may approach along the line of the intellect, but he is after the will.

Much has been written in recent years about the issue of plagiarism in preaching. So it's helpful to recognize this is hardly a new issue. About 1330, the Franciscan monk John of Werden offered a compilation of sermons called Dormi Secure.

Dallas Teague Snider, a speaker, radio host and personal coach, offers this advice to her clients:

"I would say I'm learning first and foremost to trust the Word of God to do the work," Platt says. "As I look at what God is doing in my own life, as well as the lives of this church that He's entrusted to me to lead, it is clear that only His Word can bring about transformation and life change."

David Platt shares the five components of his Radical Experiment, which aims to "put some handles on tangible ways that we can put obedience to Christ into action in ways that we're seeing unfold in the gospels."