Praying for the Church: Receptive Hearts

The Church must have people with receptive hearts! In telling the parable of the soils, this is how Jesus described “good soil” … The seed scattered on good soil are those who hear the word and embrace it. They bear fruit, in one case a yield of thirty to one, in another case sixty to … Read more

Practice Doesn’t Make Preaching Perfect

There’s a myth that says, “Practice makes perfect.” But there’s also a fairly common rebuttal that says, “Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent.” Whether you are a musician, an athlete, a communicator, or whatever, just because you do something over and over doesn’t mean you’re getting better at it. You may simply be reinforcing … Read more

Prayers for the Church: Unpredictable & Uncontrollable

The Church needs to give up control and let God be in charge. It’s his Church after all. I read a prayer in The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson (see 5 Takeaways From “The Circle Maker”), which has stuck with me ever since I read it: “Lord, do something unpredictable and uncontrollable.” It’s a scary … Read more

Processing the 2013 Global Leadership Summit

The words awesome, incredible, amazing, and even life-changing can often be over-used to describe events or experiences. But I wouldn’t have a problem using these words to describe the 2013 Global Leadership Summit that took place in the last two days! The event was attended by more than 80,000 leaders across the US at more … Read more

Preaching With a Demonstration of the Spirit

Over the last few months, some words by the Apostle Paul have been shaping my thinking about preaching. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2.4-5 … My message and my preaching weren’t presented with convincing wise words but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power. I did this so that your faith might not … Read more

Finding Your Rhythm for Sermon Preparation

I recently wrote Rethinking Sermon Preparation where I talked about the nature of sermon preparation (God works on and in the preacher first so that the preacher can help hearers take a similar journey). This post is about finding your rhythm for sermon preparation. It’s easy to fall into a rut with sermon preparation. We … Read more