I just discovered an exciting website that encourages expository excellence. John Brand from Edinburgh, Scotland brings this useful site to those of us who preach around the world. One great feature of the site is a “sermon clinic” in which readers can...

It’s time to start making plans for participation in this year’s meetings of the Evangelical Homiletics Society, to take place at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School on October 14-16, 2010. I’ve been attending EHS since ...

Calvin Theological Seminary has launched its Center for Excellence in Preaching. Directed by Scott Hoezee, this new Center runs parallel to Calvin’s successful Institute of Christian Worship. The Center offers an array of resources, conferences, and weekly o...

The following review was originally published in the Journal of the Evangelical Homiletics Society.

Several months ago I enjoyed a lunch with Paul Scott Wilson. We spent a good deal of our time discussing his work on proclamation in preaching. It w...

Lifeway Research recently asked more than 1,000 protestant pastors to “name the top three living Christian preachers that most influence you.” Number one on the list? Billy Graham, and who can argue with that? Graham has personally preached the gospel ...

One of the more helpful resources I have discovered recently is TED Talks, an array of video podcasts from the Technology, Entertainment, and Design group of conferences. Billed as “Ideas Worth Spreading,” these short videos f...

If you are anything like me, you have found yourself whip-sawed in recent years between the traditional and emerging churches. My recent comments on the Piper/Wright debate are a case in point. As much as I appreciate John Piper’s emphasis upon the legal aspects o...

Now this has potential!

YouVersion, the top downloaded Bible app for iphone and Blackberry has just announced an intriguing new product. YouVersion Live
offers a way to allow ordinary preachers to get much more interactive in their preaching. The fol...

Some of you might be interested in the opportunities for pastoral sabbaticals and grants offered through the Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence at Beeson Divinity School and Samford University. One of my students had a tremendous experience with this program....

I’m back from my various travels this summer and am digging into the opportunities of the new year. One of my discoveries has been an excellent website on the development of optimal powerpoint presentations. The following are several points regarding best pr...

I’ve been finding twitter to be a useful way of staying in touch with trends in preaching, church, and culture. I don’t agree with everyone I “follow,” but I like to hear what these folks are thinking. Here are some of the more helpful twit...

Pete Phillips of the University of Durham is leading a symposium on Christianity in the Digital Space at the University of Durham. This is an exciting new initiative sponsored by CODEC, a research institute focusing on the interface betwe...

I’m thrilled to announce that I just received copies of a Korean-language translation of my book, Choosing to Preach. Translated by Ung Joe Lee and distributed by Scripture Union, this will be a significant help and blessing to my own Korean students, pastor...

I was delighted to receive this week the autobiography of Fred Craddock, one of the most influential homileticians of the 20th century, Craddock, author of As One Without Authority (1971, 2001 Chalice Press), inspired a significant new interest in inducti...

Hermeneutics sounds like it ought to be a dry and boring subject and it would be if it were not for the fact that it is so important to the real-life issues of our time. I am often amazed by the cavalier approach taken to the Scriptures by people who claim to hold...

I discovered an older source on the subject of comedy and preaching by Joseph Webb. I’ve increasingly noticed a tendency toward humor in preaching, and decidedly so among the biggest and most successful preachers in North America. As I’ve observed R...

Those of us who’ve been around the evangelical movement for a number of years are well familiar with “the four spiritual laws.” The four laws were a handy way of presenting the gospel, developed by Bill Bright and utilized around the world to sig...

The editors at Inter-Varsity Press have been hard at work, producing excellent resources for those of us who are dedicated to the ministry of God’s Word. While these books do not directly address the business of preaching, I have read them and feel them wort...

If you’re looking for a great preaching series for the coming year, I recommend you have a look at Scott Daniels’ _Seven Deadly Spirits: The Message of Revelation’s Letters for Today’s Church." The seven churches have long provided pre...

I’ve recently noticed a new resource being used on church webpages as a way of offering sermons to a wider public. Sermon Cloud offers churches the opportunity to “syndicate” their Sunday sermons for downloading, podcasting and a wider distributi...

Much has been written about the practice of preaching. Little has been written about the teaching of preaching. Tom Long, Lenora Tubbs Tisdale, and many of their colleagues at the Academy of Homiletics, have sought to do something about this with the publication o...

I started “twittering” this weekend. I’m a little late to the party, but as a communicator, I found the opportunity too much to resist. I’ve actually found it fascinating to follow the thoughts of some very interesting people. Perhaps I may...

I don’t hear a great deal of doctrinal preaching these days. I hear a lot of pragmatic preaching, a lot of exegetical preaching, a lot of narrative preaching, but not so much preaching that intends to explicate the great doctrines of the Scripture for the ed...

As an avid iPhone user, I have been exploring various Bible software options that I can utilize on the go. While there are many options, I’ve worked extensively with three of the most popular, two free and one paid application. The two free apps, YouVersion ...

This morning I finished reading Eugene Peterson’s new book, Tell it Slant, the latest in his four-volume series on spiritual theology. As with the second book in the series, Eat this Book, this work is well-recommended for preachers. As peo...

Courtesy of preachingtoday.com, here is a link to N.T. Wrights 2008 Easter sermon. Last year in this space I published a review of Wright’s Surprised by Hope.

“The point is,” Wright says in his sermon, “that Easter has burst into our...

William Young’s The Shack is a bona fide publishing phenomenon. In the middle of January, Christianity Today reported that the book had held the No.1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list for Paperback Trade Fiction for an astounding 33 consec...

As preachers, we need to understand the times we live in. The problem is we live in such perplexing times. We believe it is important that we speak into the real issues of our day, but so often when we do we display our ignorance. It’s difficult enough for u...

One of my students, Keith Whitaker, has suggested another way of utilizing facebook by preachers (see my previous post below). Keith sets up facebook groups for the discussion of his sermon. He lets his listeners know about the group and people have opportunity to...

A press release I received today, states the following…

Louisville, Ky., January 13, 2009 — Students pursuing a call to Christian preaching now have unprecedented support and leadership through the Academy of Preachers. Founded by Christian lead...

I’ve been getting a little more serious about facebook recently. On one hand, I’m delighted to be able to reconnect with so many old friends from different periods of my life. At the same time, I’m wondering if I haven’t fed a time-eating m...

For more than forty years now, anyone interested in thinking creatively about homiletics has had to think about narrative as a primary option for both sermon form and content.