Sermons are culture-shaping events. As we craft church mission, vision, and values, it’s important to see how sermons shape churches and communities. To address the issue, we’ve assembled a panel of some of the best culture-shaping preachers we know: Gina Colburn, Lenny Luchetti, Amber Livermore, and David Drury. As you read the conversation, think of […]
Tag: preaching
Categories
Preaching in Series
If you preach regularly, you probably preach in sermon series. It creates efficiencies of sermon study, overlapping insights leading to greater depth, focuses the preaching plan for that season, and allows the listener to zero in on one area of their life instead of pin balling back and forth across many zones. It isn’t the […]
Categories
7 Gestures Preachers Should Avoid
Since I started coaching preachers nine years ago I have been finding ways to describe to preachers what we see in the seats. Over and over again a few patterns crop up in all kinds of preachers: young, old, big church, small church, women, men, gifted, and not quite as gifted preachers. Since I have […]
For 30 years I was privileged to preach to believers gathered as the Kentwood Community Church family. The well stayed deep and the inspiration fresh over those three decades. I thankfully avoided the burn-out viewed as an occupational hazard of long-term preaching. The 35-year milestone in full-time ministry provides a good opportunity to reflect on […]
Categories
Are You Burning Out Preacher?
We have been talking to a lot of pastors about burn out. We even helped launch a conference called “Flourish” last year to address clergy well being and flourishing. In coming weeks, we will focus on burnout from multiple directions. First, we will hear a few sermons that seek to address the root of burnout. […]
Categories
Honest Preaching
Redundancy is, as defined by Dictionary.com, “superfluous repetition or overlapping, especially of words.” © 2009 Danielle Scott, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio Honest preaching, is, well, redundant. Aren’t we, as preachers, supposed to be honest? Isn’t truth-telling inherent within the very nature of Biblical proclamation? Can you stay in ministry and be effective long […]
We have received a wide variety of responses from Wesleyan ministers and people outside the Wesleyan church in response to our series on plagiarism. Ministers have said everything from “Why is this such a big deal right now? I for one have never struggled with this” to “I am so glad you are dealing with […]
Categories
Quoting and Citing with Ease
Referencing sources verbally in sermons is actually easier than you might think. Often pastors slip into the plagiarism of preaching realm because they feel like referencing sources makes their sermon sound like a paper. You do not have to sound as though you are giving a presentation in a freshmen speech class to cover your […]
Categories
Preaching and Plagiarism
How much copying is too much? When does inspiration by others turn into stealing other’s intellectual property? If a sermon is inspired by God, can a preacher own it? If we get a spark of an idea from another preacher, can we use it without mentioning them? Or does the barest mention of someone else’s […]
Categories
Serious Fiction and Good Preaching
A friend of mine teaches an entire class on reading for the sake of preaching. Reading great literature has always been a way to help foundering preachers find their footing with words. Recently a set of controlled studies intimated that people who read “serious fiction” have a higher emotional intelligence than the average population. People […]