Creating Messages That Connect: An Interview With Alan Nelson

Nine years ago, Alan Nelson became the lead and founding pastor of Scottsdale Family Church, a congregation he planted nine years ago in the northeast valley area of Phoenix. Since then, the church has grown to an average attendance of about 1,000, and Alan has written ten books about ...

Communicating With Creativity

Last summer I got in touch with my feminine side and took a day trip with my wife, Lisa, to the world's largest flea market in a little town called Canton, Texas. That day, I watched in amazement as thousands of shopping fanatics, in triple degree Texas heat with perspiration dripping off ...

Pulpit Or Picket?

What happens if preachers go out on strike? That's a question some churches in Canada may have to answer if a group of pastors is successful in unionizing the 4,000 ministers in the United Church of Canada, that nation's largest Protestant denomination....

Preaching for a Decision: Interview with James Earl Massey

This interview first appeared in the September-October 1992 issue of Preaching. James Earl Massey will be one of our featured speakers at this year's National Conference on Preaching in Nashville, so it is a timely moment to revisit our...

What Makes A Great Preacher?

As the story goes, on a Sunday night a young pastor was driving home, his wife beside him. It had been a busy weekend at the church. The Sunday night sermon had lasted longer than usual since the preacher felt unusual liberty and unction in the pulpit. They drove in silence for some miles, he...

Preparing The Heart For Preaching

In Cambridge, England near the bus station stands Emmanuel College. Stone walls surround the college, but inside is a courtyard manicured like a golf course. In 1705 William Law entered that college. The fourth of eight children, William grew up in a Christian home, experienced death because...

James S. Stewart

Few smaller areas of the world have ever seen the prodigous renaissance in Biblical preaching that Scotland saw in the 18th and 19th centuries. With her divinity halls filled with converts from the Great Awakening and the Moody evangelistic crusades. Scotland saw the early dissipation of this...

The Envelope Please . . .

We're in the season of awards - the Emmys, the Grammys, and the "Big Kahuna" of awards shows: the Oscars. By the time you read this, the Oscars will have been presented (Feb. 27), but as I write this a few weeks before the big night, I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction: the best ...

Jesus In The Garden

Mark 14:32-42 An enclosed piece of ground was there at Gethsemane. The Lord seems to have left the main body of the disciples outside. He had a parting word of advice for them, however: "Sit ye here!" He said, "I am going to pray." The implication is that they would be well advised to do the same, especially...