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I love technological advances. In fact, I’ve often thought about the people who lived through much of the 20th century, how much development they must have seen during their lifetimes! With that in mind, some time ago, in a moment of reflection, I wondered what kinds of technological advances Ethan will see during his (and … Read more
One of the books I’m reading during this Lenten season is Off-Road Disciplines by Earl Creps. I think I first saw the book in the Cokesbury bookstore at Asbury Theological Seminary a few years ago. I thought it was a creative look at a different set of spiritual disciplines in the 21st century, specifically for … Read more
Sarah has been with us almost five months. When we first met her, she smiled and laughed a lot. But it struck us a few weeks ago, that she wasn’t laughing or smiling as much. We felt we had to work fairly hard to make her laugh. But I also realized today that Sarah is … Read more
Ilove hearing (not-yet-3-year-old) Ethan’s language develop. It’s fun to listen to the stuff he comes up with from time to time. And one thing is clear — he’s a preachers’ kid! 🙂 A couple days ago during breakfast, he was asking me if I was going to “another church” (we live next to West Side, … Read more
Are you doing the same things that you were five years ago? Does your ministry (we are all called to ministry as followers of Christ) look the same as it did five years ago? As you discover your God-given giftedness, have those gifts developed beyond what they were five years ago? Have you discovered any … Read more
I am writing a series of posts on preaching. This is the third one, and a follow-up to the last one, The Preaching Process. The first one is The Preaching Challenge. In the last post, I began writing about sermon preparation and mentioned that I have developed five words to help guide me through my … Read more
I will post my “5 Stages of Sermon Preparation” tomorrow, but I want to interrupt my series of posts on preaching with a thought from today’s sermon. We looked at Mark 15.1-15. In Mark 15, Jesus is brought to Pilate by the religious leaders with a charge of high treason (as opposed to blasphemy, which … Read more
I presented the sermon at last Thursday’s Community Lenten Lunch service here in Clearfield. My sermon followed the reading of John 6.1-15. A Group Workcamp is coming to Clearfield, June 20-26, 2010. Who would think that 430+ youth from all around the U.S. would want to come to Clearfield to home repairs, let alone pay … Read more
This post (and the next one) should probably come with the warning label, “Under construction.” And while I hope this process is well thought out, it doesn’t necessarily always play out so smoothly! So, with that out of the way … Sermon preparation must be understood as a process. But the challenge is that every … Read more
I have been planning to write more about preaching for a while. In fact, it’s been around 2.5 years or so since I wrote One Point Preaching (a review and interaction with Stanley and Jones’ book, Communicating for a Change) and StoryMapping (two of the most popular posts on the blog). So, I am going … Read more