Articles

Get encouraged & inspired through a variety of topics from ministry life to church leadership development to trending ideas for church growth.

Toward Wedding Sermons with Substance

Francis C. Rossow

A wedding sermon, whenever it is included in a Christian marriage ceremony, provides a pastor with unique opportunities. To begin with, it enables him, through the Gospel that he speaks, to contribute to the ma... Continue Reading...

What Christ Means to Me<br/>(Text: Phil. 1:21)

John Bishop

The Apostle lived only to serve his Lord, He would have agreed with Hudson Taylor who said: "Christ is either all in all or nothing at all."For Paul, Christ had been the beginning of life, for on that day on th... Continue Reading...

John Wesley: Plain truth for plain people

John Bishop

What were the elements of John Wesley's power as a preacher? One can discover some of them in his printed sermons, of which he said: "I design plain truth for plain people. I labor to avoid all words which are ... Continue Reading...

Evaluating the Interest Factor in Your Preaching (Third of five parts)

James W. Cox

1. Are the physical conditions where you preach favorable?The most elementary factor in gaining and keeping interest in a sermon is the ability of an audience to listen with a reasonable degree of comfort. True... Continue Reading...

The Presence of God as Stranger in the Preaching Event (Third of five parts)

Wayne E. Oates

A remarkable discovery occurs in the preaching event when you and I probe some very ordinary life situations to their biblical depths. We find the Eternal God appearing as Stranger in the stress and strain of t... Continue Reading...

Singing the Bookshelf Blues

Michael Duduit

Any minister who has ever moved from one home or office to another knows the scourge of every ministerial move: packing and unpacking the books.My move from Louisville to Birmingham at the beginning of 1987 inc... Continue Reading...

The Presence of God Over Against and Alongside the Preacher<br/>(Part Two of a Five-Part Series)

Wayne E. Oates

When the Old and New Testaments speak of the Presence of God two recurrent metaphors are used.The first metaphor is found in the words for "face": panim in the Old Testament and prosopon in the New Testament. I... Continue Reading...

Preaching that makes a difference

Michael Duduit

A few years ago Henry Ward Beecher became a good friend of mine.Over a year-long period when I was researching Henry's preaching and writing a dissertation (Henry Ward Beecher and the Political Pulpit, availabl... Continue Reading...

Henry Ward Beecher: Preaching to change lives and society

Michael Duduit

It was a century ago -- February 27, 1887-that Henry Ward Beecher stepped into the pulpit of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church for the final time. By mid-week, the 73-year-old pastor had fallen seriously ill; the foll... Continue Reading...

From Text to Sermon: the Proper Use of the Bible in Preaching

Thomas A. Jackson

In thousands of churches every Sunday someone enters the pulpit, reads from the Bible, and preaches a sermon.The impression is conveyed or the claim is made that the sermon is based upon the biblical text, as w... Continue Reading...