Category Archives: preaching

My Top 10 Books: Spring/Summer 2013

A key to good leadership, and good preaching, is reading broadly. I continue to read a few of these books very slowly over time (e.g. The Interior Castle and The Writing Life). Others I have read in a couple of days (e.g. Making Friends Among the Taliban). Enjoy! Interior Castle – St. Teresa of Avila Making Friends Among the Taliban – Jonathan P. Larson The Little Way of Ruthie Leming – Rod Dreher Fill These Hearts – Christopher West Resilient Ministry: What Pastors Tell Us About Surviving and Thriving – Bob Burns 24/6 – Matthew Sleeth The Writing Life – Annie Dilliard Dead Man Walking – Sister Helen Prejean Delighting in the Trinity – Michael Reeves I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)…” – Brene Brown Grieving a Suicide – Al Hsu

The Boston Marathon Tragedy

Yesterday’s attack at the Boston Marathon was tragic. What can we say to others? to ourselves? Where was God? I offer you two fragments that help me in times like this. 1. Be comfortable in being silent. Job’s three friends “wept aloud, tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was (Job 2:11-13). It is when they started talking that they got in trouble! Notice their presence “with him,’ i.e. Job, in his suffering. 2. The ultimate knowledge of God is to know that we do not know. Thomas Aquinas was a brilliant theologian who had written 20 very large volumes about who God is and how He works. On December 6, 1273 something happened to him that brought his teaching and writing to an end.. Read more.

Silent Sermons – Every Week!

Imagine a church service where there were two sermons: a 20 minute “Sermon of Silence” followed by a 20 minute “Sermon of Words.” A new friend from Melbourne, Australia visited me this past week. She teaches field education in a seminary, using Emotionally Healthy Spirituality as one of her texts. She shared the work of South Yarra Community Baptist Church, along with their ministry called Laughing Bird Liturgical Resources. (Don’t you love that name!) Without the silence, the Scriptures can’t penetrate our lives. Without Scripture, silence is empty. While I am not quite ready for 2 sermons each week at New Life, there is something here from God for us in our frenetic, multi-tasking, always-plugged-in world.

10 Trends for 2013

Where we live impacts us. I have been the pastor of a multiracial, international church in New Life in Queens, NY for the more than twenty five and a half years. It is the soil out of which I see the world and the larger church. Thus, I offer the following trends, or concerns, that I believe we need to carry to God in prayer: Evangelicalism will continue to lose young people in their teens, 20’s and 30’s who are genuinely searching for an authentic transformative experience with God. The issue of same-sex marriage and partnerships will increasingly dominate our youth ministries. We will be very slow to equip our youth leaders and ministries with a well-thought, nuanced, theological response. There will continue to be little interest for Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox believers to learn from one another. Marriage discipleship will remain non-existent or superficial in our churches. The high divorce rate, along. Read more.

The Pastor as Museum Curator

A museum curator knows he or she can only display a very small sampling of the artifacts to depict a certain era or time period. Among the perhaps hundreds, or even thousands of possibilities in their storage area, they must choose the few that are most significant. We are much like curators. One of the most important leadership functions is to edit – whether it is in deciding what to not include when we teach/preach, the focus of a staff meeting, the most significant emphasis for a given season, or what is presented in our lobby space to represent our values and vision.

Ten Distinctives of Emotionally Healthy Preaching

I spent a good part of this week reflecting on more than twenty-five years of preaching as I spoke this morning at a Preaching Rocket conference here at New Life in NYC. Others, like Andy Stanley, have done an outstanding job describing the craft around preaching. My task was to consider the unique applications of emotional healthy spirituality to the preaching/teaching task. The following are the ten questions to which I return over in preparation my own sermons and work with our NLF Preaching Team: Am I contemplatively grounded in God Am I centered in myself? Am I allowing the text to intersect deeply with my family of origin? Am I preaching out of my vulnerability and weakness? Am I allowing the text to transform my spiritual journey? Am I surrendering to the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension process? Am I taking sufficient time to think through clear and pointed applications? Am I thinking. Read more.

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