The Ten Gifts Of Christmas

It's that time of year, when a pastor's thoughts turn to calories. OK, it's not that we really want to think about calories. It's just that with the arrival of the holiday season - that hectic period from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day - it's the rare pastor who doesn't face the challenge of Chr

What Contemporary Preachers Can Learn From Mr. Wesley

The formal occasion of this article celebrates the tricentennial of John Wesley's birth. John Wesley is know primarily today as both an Anglican church reformer and the founder of a sect - later to become a church denomination - the Methodists. What is important to note, however, is that neither

Mere Preaching: What We Can Still Learn From C.S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis died forty years ago this November 22. In his own way, he was one of the most influential Christians of the twentieth century. Most of the great theologians of his day are now passé. The sermons of the great preachers of his day are long out of print. Lewis once wrote that most o

Making God’s Word Plain

What the minister is to do with the Word - the Word from God that brings salvation and prepares the Christian to do God's work - is to preach it. And in his instructions to Timothy, the apostle Paul indicates what that preaching ought to include. In the first place, preaching must be eva

The Preacher As Reminder

It took me a long time to succumb to the peer pressure of getting a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), but finally I yielded. Everybody had them. I would sit in meetings and colleagues on both sides of me would be scribbling notes with their styluses and beaming them to one another. Across the ro