I don’t, is the quick and simply answer! Furthermore, I wouldn’t advise anyone else to either. The question was put to pastors on twitter and I presume arises out of a culture where pastors and preachers are encouraged to go searching for potential little stories and quotes that they can easily select from in order… Continue reading How do you collect and organise sermon illustrations?
Category: Preaching and Teaching
Able to teach: How do we assess?
I’ve been writing a little here about taking a different approach to training and equipping for Gospel ministry. I’ve argued that we need to start by thinking about outcomes, what are the competencies we are looking for in someone who will be planting a church, pastoring, working as an evangelist in the community, involved in… Continue reading Able to teach: How do we assess?
Clone wars … when preachers sound the same
On Friday I wrote about whether or not Christian publishers should be putting new books out there when the topic concerned has already been covered helpfully and sufficiently by another book. This was in response to this tweet from my friend Alistair Chalmers. One of Alistair’s main reasons was that he observed as he read,… Continue reading Clone wars … when preachers sound the same
On preachers borrowing from others -responding to John Benton and the evening service debate
John Benton has written on the London Seminary blog about why pastors should continue to fight for the Sunday evening service. I don’t want to rehearse all the arguments relating to this now. First because Steve Kneale has already done an excellent job here and secondly because I’ve engaged with the arguments previously. Like Steve,… Continue reading On preachers borrowing from others -responding to John Benton and the evening service debate
Sinners in the hand of an angry God? A response to Beth Moore
Sinners in the hands of an angry God is the title of a sermon by Jonathan Edwards, the New England preacher and pastor associated with the Great Awakening. It is a controversial one in our day and age. Steve Chalke particularly objected to it in his book, The Lost Message of Jesus. Now, Beth Moore… Continue reading Sinners in the hand of an angry God? A response to Beth Moore
Preaching on difficult passages
When I wrote about the preacher’s job not being to “explain the Bible passage”, I commented that although we can trust Scripture to be clear, this doesn’t mean that all Bible passages are uniformly easy. So, what should the you do when asked to preach on what looks like a difficult Bible passage? Here are… Continue reading Preaching on difficult passages
What is the preacher meant to do … and how should we introduce them?
The other day, I wrote about one of my bugbears which is the way in which sometimes preachers are introduced as being about to explain God’s Word. You can read here why I don’t like that phrase. This prompted the legitimate question “then how should the service leader introduce the speaker?” My answer would be… Continue reading What is the preacher meant to do … and how should we introduce them?
Stop saying that the preacher will explain the passage
I’m going to fess up to one of my bug bears. It really irritates me when a service leader announces that such and such a person is “now going to come and explain the Bible passage.” Please can we get out of the habit of doing this. First of all, it gets the idea into… Continue reading Stop saying that the preacher will explain the passage
Crucified (Mark 15)
Jesus is handed over to Pilate because the Jewish leaders don’t have the authority to order his execution. Given their hesitancy around a public showdown with Jesus themselves, it also neatly hands the problem over to the Romans. Note the cowardice of a night trial and then passing the issue so that they don’t get… Continue reading Crucified (Mark 15)
What do you do with difficult Bible passages?
Our church have been working through Mark’s Gospel both in our Sunday morning services and at our midweek life group. Most of Mark feels like plain sailing (well, there is the occasional storm). However, there are a couple of more challenging texts. I suspect that the ones that stand out are Mark 10 which raises… Continue reading What do you do with difficult Bible passages?
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