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"The art of saying commonplace things elegantly, pompously, grandiloquently, bombastically, is not lost among us, although its utter extinction were 'a consummation devoutly to be wished.'"
(Lectures to My Students, 84)
Technorati Tags: Spurgeon
Ed Stetzer writes an excellent piece on preaching so your audience can hear. He summarizes his thoughts on contextual preaching in this way:
Too often we say, “I want to make the Bible relevant.” No need. It already is. Our job is to present it in ways that help the hearer see that it is relevant—in this and in every culture. We do so by starting at their understanding and taking them to Scripture for the whole answer.
(read the article here)
Justin Buzzard interviews Graeme Goldsworthy on his blog. Graeme Goldsworthy has had a tremendous influence on the development of my own theology-- particularly through his books According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible and Preaching the Whole Bible As Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching.
I would commend all of his books to you, and if you're not already familiar with him, Justin's interview is a great place to get started. Read the interview here.
(I was able to pick up the UK edition of Goldsworthy's new book, Gospel-centered Hermeneutics, but haven't had a chance to read a page of it yet.)
What is the one thing people need from their pastor? (VIDEO)
(see additional samples from the DVD, Brothers-- Feel, Think, Preach God, @ the desiringgod blog)
Resurgence has reposted an excellent sermon that Chris Seay preached in 2004: The Studious Saint. I have listened to this sermon on numerous occasions and have been challenged with something new each time.
I highly recommend this sermon for two primary reasons:
(1) Chris's exhortation for the church to embody wisdom is rarely heard and impossible to over-emphasize
(2) This message served as my introduction to the excellent poetry of Taylor Mali. Here is the link to the poem that Chris quotes, entitled Totally Like Whatever, You Know?
RELATED//
The Tao of Enron: Spiritual Lessons from a Fortune 500 Fallout (my favorite book of Seay's)
Faith of My Fathers
Ecclesia Houston
Resurgence
Technorati Tags: ChrisSeay, mp3, TaylorMali, Resurgence, SermonAudio
Without question, my favorite message from Reform & Resurge conference is finally online!
Download "The Weight of Pastoring & The Knowledge of Christ"
Matt Chandler is lead pastor of The Village Church (check out their sermon audio archive). I first heard Matt when he spoke at an Acts 29 boot camp last year and have been thoroughly blessed by his passion and his preaching.
UPDATE: The video is up as well. You can watch it if you'd rather.
Technorati Tags: MattChandler, Reform&Resurge, Resurgence
Katie and I had the privilege of spending last Sunday with the people of Oikos Fellowship in Bellingham. I have planned on writing a "review" of Oikos (similar to the 10th Ave Alliance review I wrote when Katie and I first moved here), but have been prevented from doing so on a number of occasions. For now, I will let the following comment I made to the folks at Oikos suffice for my review: If we had known about this church before we moved to Vancouver, we wouldn't have moved to Vancouver-- I would have gladly commuted to school.
In addition to the privilege of hanging out with these people (which we have done on several occasions), this time I had the distinct privilege of preaching at Oikos. It was a humbling experience for me for a million reasons-- two of which I will mention here. First, according to my notes, the last sermon I preached was October 24, 2004. It had been a long time, and I certainly felt rusty. Second, the text I was preaching (James 1.22-25) was especially humbling to me-- lest I deceive myself and think that preaching a text means that I live it.
For those who were there on Sunday-- or any others who might be interested-- I will post posted some extra notes/quotes HERE.
(FYI- for all my trash talking about the length of Pete's sermons, I clocked in at just under 48 minutes!)
Technorati Tags: Bellingham, Bellingham Church, Oikos Fellowship
Charles Spurgeon preached on James 1.22-25 in 1879. You can read his sermon in Vol. XXV of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (the following page references are all from this volume).
Spurgeon arranged the text and his sermon around the theme "Two Sorts of Hearers." Spurgeon refers to these two types of hearers as the blessed and unblessed. Some of my favorite portions of his sermon are quoted below.
Technorati Tags: Spurgeon
In his introduction to Colin Gunton's, Theology Through Preaching, Christoph Schwobel discusses "four interrelated aspects that make up the task of preaching theologically"
First of all, preaching theologically means preaching biblically, attempting to find the message for today's church in the patient engagement with the biblical texts.
Second, preaching theologically means preaching pastorally, so that preaching becomes part of pastoral care in the community of the church.
Third, preaching theologically also means preaching doctrinally, it means to recover the meaning of doctrine as guidance and aid for today's church.
Fourth, preaching theologically means preaching congregationally, acknowledging the place of the sermon in the life of a concrete congregation so that it can provide orientation for the way in which listening to the word of God, be it as preacher or as listeners, shapes the common lives of believers.
(Theology Through Preaching, Introduction, 7)
If you were to make a reading list entitled ESSENTIAL BOOKS ON PREACHING, what would be on your list? I'm spending the first half of the summer re-reading/reading all the books I have on the subject of preaching. Below are the books that are my plan for June-July:
Between Two Worlds: The Challege of Preaching Today, John R. W. Stott
Lectures to My Students, Charles Spurgeon
Preaching & Preachers, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text, Sidney Greidanus
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method, Sidney Greidanus
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, John Piper
The Supremacy of God in Preaching, John Piper
I know many people who are huge fans of Chappell's, Christ-Centered Preaching, and I'm planning on picking this one up. What else am I missing?
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