One of those Monday morning wet blanket emails I received was from a non-member frequently attending our church. It appeared to him that the volume of my preaching was harmful to the human ear. Accompanying this electronic declaration were various line and bar... Read More »

“Worship isn’t God’s show. God is the audience. God’s watching. The congregation, they are the actors in this drama. Worship is their show. And the minister is just reminding the people of their forgotten lines.” — Soren Kierkegaard Who are we pre... Read More »

The primary and defining characteristic of the growing Christian is love. Jesus Himself says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciple... Read More »

I will admit it. I am a stubborn student of preaching. I have never been to Missouri, but in many ways, my preaching ministry must have distant relatives in the “Show Me State.” In each of my preaching classes, I was taught the importance of preaching wi... Read More »

Each time a preacher steps behind the pulpit, a myriad of thoughts can flood his mind. Spurgeon wrote concerning the multitude of thoughts that can invade the mind of the preacher. “We cannot tell how many thoughts can traverse the mind at once. I ... Read More »

I studied Speech Communication in college. Essentially this means I took quite a few courses that required public speaking, generally in the form of a presentation of some kind. Near the end of my undergraduate study, I was able to teach an introduction to pub... Read More »

A pastor and congregation spend hundreds of hours together in the sermon experience over multiple years. Most of us preachers have a particular delivery style that we typically use. Your familiar style can be very comfortable for the congregation because they ... Read More »

Even with a commitment to expository preaching that is faithful to the biblical text, there is nothing in the pages of scripture that mandates the preacher preaching every sermon in the same exact mode of delivery. Indeed, there may be times when the occasion ... Read More »

When my wife and I moved to Seattle, Washington, in 2015 to plant a church, we realized we must understand what our people loved if we were to love our city well.  Seattleites love their pro teams.  So, we jumped on the bandwagon and began going to Seattle M... Read More »

Two of my favorite classes in my M.Div. were the rhetoric courses taught by Dr. Barry McCarty—in fact, this post is a re-working of a section of a paper I turned in for his class. For me, they were a fun exploration of the English language and communication.... Read More »