I preached my first sermon when I was 19, I preached for a few years in our small Brethren Gospel Hall in Bradford and a couple of other local churches including a struggling AOG church which I helped out with getting my first experience of revitalisation/replanting. The elder there wanted to try and use some… Continue reading On younger pastors and preachers
Tag: application
When did you last hear a pastor talk about heterosexual ethics?
In my survey about what pastors talk about I asked when was the last time you heard a pastor address the matter of sexual ethics. I divided that into ethics concerning heterosexual relationships and same-sex relationships. The results are interesting because among those taking part, sexual ethics were highly likely to have been addressed in… Continue reading When did you last hear a pastor talk about heterosexual ethics?
When did you last hear a pastor talk about mental health issues?
In my recent survey about application and what pastors talked about, I asked respondents to indicate whether or not they’d heard pastors address particular issues within the last 5 years. One issue concerned mental health. This is such an important subject to address within our churches because as we preach and pastor we are so… Continue reading When did you last hear a pastor talk about mental health issues?
Who condemns?
Yesterday in his guest article, Ash Cunningham wrote: This week Karen Ingala Smith published research detailing the ‘Femicide’ statistics in the UK, including the 81 women killed by men since the brutal murder of Sarah Everard. As Ingala Smith herself points out, neither the police nor the government have analysed the data, it has taken,… Continue reading Who condemns?
When was the last time you heard a pastor tell their testimony?
This was one of the questions I asked in my survey about what pastors talk about. Here are the results. Now it could be that people have heard a pastor’s testimony, maybe not from the pulpit but for whatever reason its not registered. Yet that itself is a sign of salience. It matters that congregations… Continue reading When was the last time you heard a pastor tell their testimony?
When did you last hear a pastor addressing abortion?
I’m planning over the next week or so to look at how we as churches address some of the ethical and pastoral issues that matter to people in our congregations. Last week, I ran a twitter poll asking my followers about when they’d last heard a pastor talk about particular issues. The first issue was… Continue reading When did you last hear a pastor addressing abortion?
Do we need to make Scripture relevant?
Over the weekend we saw a crisis start to take shape. It was in effect self-inflicted. Warnings that there might some pressure on fuel supplies led to panic buying and over the weekend the pumps ran dry. In this article on Sunday, I commented that it would be peculiar if the crisis we were facing… Continue reading Do we need to make Scripture relevant?
Preaching in the middle of a crisis
Over the last couple of days, I ran a little survey on twitter asking people when was the last time they’d heard pastors addressing specific contemporary issues. You can see the results here and I’m planning to share a few articles later this week with further analysis and discussion of them. One thing that came… Continue reading Preaching in the middle of a crisis
The ugliness of greed
I’m following up on our study of Romans 6:15-23 where we talked about sanctification. There I suggested that in response to sin’s temptation we should ask three questions: In what ways are we tempted to see the sin as attractive and desirable? In what ways is it in fact ugly, dangerous and destructive? In what… Continue reading The ugliness of greed
How much application?
We are usually told that we need “more application” and that our sermons shouldn’t become boring technical lectures, so this article from Chris Thomas may prove a surprising read to many. For balance, you may want to read this from Steve Kneale showing that there are still people arguing for more application. I also want… Continue reading How much application?
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