I believe in the 5 P’s of preaching: proper preparation prevents poor preaching. Better preaching begins with better preparation. Maybe you’re one of the gifted few with so much raw talent and charisma that you sneeze and a sermon pops out. But for the rest of us mere mortals, we need to put in the…
Christmas is coming. And for pastors that means one thing: It’s time to preach another Christmas sermon. If you’re in a bind this year, or just need a little inspiration to get you going, here’s the full manuscript of a Christmas sermon I preached a few years ago. And if you like the message, you…
Being a pastor is hard. There may be no calling that is greater or more difficult, especially when you carry the five-hundred-pound expectation of preaching a mind-blowing, original sermon every seven days. Because it’s so hard, many pastors make simple preaching mistakes that can be easily corrected. These common mistakes are often the difference between…
Do you have a fear of preaching? Or maybe you wouldn’t say it’s a fear, but your nerves are on edge. You are not alone. Public speaking is commonly listed as one of the greatest fears that people have. All eyes are on you. You are vulnerable. You are exposed. Your every word is critiqued. Or worse,…
Like most pastors, I learned to preach through trial by fire. It was either sink or swim—and I mostly sank. Bible college taught me a lot of theory but no practice. I was taught what to preach, but not how to preach. So my first couple of years in ministry were rough. I was always…
A split-second decision changed my life. In my early 20’s, I was in the semi-finals of a softball tournament, sprinting towards third base. Someone yelled, “Slide!” So I did. My left foot hit the bag and my ankle shattered with the sound of a snapped tree branch. People on the sidelines tried not to throw…
Preaching is hard, and learning how to preach can be scary. Very few people are excited by the idea of standing before a crowd of people, with all eyes on them, to deliver a thirty-minute talk. Public speaking was always on the top of my list of greatest fears—just below death, spiders, and talking to…
A recent Pew Research Center poll titled “Why Americans Go (and Don’t Go) to Religious Services” caught my attention this week. There’s a lot of information, but here’s what I gleaned from it: Among adults who attend church services at least once or twice a month, when asked to rank reasons they attend as very…
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