Tag «Preaching»

Five Essential Sources for Sermon Illustrations and Why They Are Important

Preaching is a grind I welcome every week. Expositing God’s Word is one of the toughest but most rewarding aspects of being a pastor. You can’t treat preaching like a sprint, rushing to get a response on Sundays. It’s more like a marathon, a paced lope in which long strides are made over time. Illustrations…

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Five Essential Sources for Sermon Illustrations and Why They Are Important

The post Five Essential Sources for Sermon Illustrations and Why They Are Important appeared first on Church Answers.

Preaching in the Wake of Mass Trauma: An In-Depth Interview with Kimberly Wagner

How would you preach next Sunday if tomorrow your community fell victim to a mass shooting or was devastated by a natural disaster? Ann Michel of the Lewis Center staff interviews Kimberly Wagner, Assistant Professor of Preaching at Princeton Theological Seminary, about approaching this increasingly unavoidable homiletical task in ways that hold in tension loss […]

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The post Preaching in the Wake of Mass Trauma: An In-Depth Interview with Kimberly Wagner appeared first on Lewis Center for Church Leadership.

Artificial Intelligence: Is There a Right Way for Pastors to Use AI to Create Sermons?

Plagiarism. That was my gut reaction the first time I heard about artificial intelligence. My visceral response was oversimplified and hyperbolic. The tool has enormous potential for good, but I remain more cautious about AI than optimistic. How mig…

What Pastors Actually Think About While They Preach

People often apologize to me for something that happened in a church service. I’ve heard lots of great apologies. “I’m sorry I fell asleep.” “I’m sorry I had to rush out.” “I’m sorry my kid lit his hair on fire.” I love church—both the people of God and the worship services. I love the oddities…

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Christmas Eve Is a Sunday This Year (The Big Opportunity)

The holiday season is demanding. Pastors and church leaders must move from one event to the next in rapid-fire succession. The whirlwind lasts from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day. Most pastors get a small break between Christmas and the New Year, and then it’s time to launch again. Ministry is a grind. The deadlines never end,…

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Seven Tips to Make Sermon Points More Memorable

My wife recently found a box of old church bulletins with notes from my previous sermons. She is a prodigious note-taker. These old bulletins contained thousands of sermon points. How many of them did she remember? I didn’t ask. Only a few congregants will remember specific points I make in a sermon several years afterward….

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10 Things that Surprise Rookie Pastors

I’ve worked with students and graduates in their first pastorates for almost three decades. Over the years, I’ve often asked them, “What’s most surprised you about the work of pastoring?” In no order of priority, here are some of their responses: “How hard it is to prepare a sermon week after week.” What was so…

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Reflections on My First Sermon after Twenty Years of Ministry

I preached Philippians 1. After standing in the pulpit for a few awkward moments, I said, “Hi.” “Hi.” The congregation responded. It was a Sunday night service on a holiday weekend. My pastor was on vacation. The smaller crowd was the core. They knew what they were getting. I was twenty-three years old. Only now…

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