Long ago when Methodism was still a movement, John Wesley gave his “helpers” a list of 12 rules to follow. These “helpers” were lay preachers who were just starting to travel around and preach in various places. Here’s a copy for you to refer to and draw encouragement from.
Most associate pastors passively wait for preaching invitations to come their way. But if you truly want to grow as a preacher, you can easily preach more often by actively searching for new opportunities to share God’s Word with others.
My mentor didn’t give me a handy ten steps to learn how to preach without notes, but over the last year I’ve learned from many others who’ve made the journey before me. Here are the five most helpful things I’ve put into practice.
Each Advent season, God invites us anew to reflect on the beauty of the incarnation—the mysterious act of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Jonathan Andersen offers 14 Christmas sermon illustrations to help us contemplate Christmas, complete a sermon, or come close to the feet of Jesus in worship.
Are camp meetings an irrelevant, American practice from centuries past? Jonathan Andersen offers 5 reasons why they are needed now more than ever. They include rest, community cultivation, reorientation toward God, the passing on of tradition, and profound Christian formation.
Austin Fischer narrates this journey—into and out of Calvinism—in his newly published book Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed. Fischer’s journey will engage readers of all theological persuasions, but it is his theological arguments for leaving Calvinism woven throughout his narration that will force readers to set the book down after each chapter and ponder the questions, “Who is God?” and “How do I know?”
A few weeks back I was sitting in a cafe in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala when a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in two years shocked me. She said, “It’s so good to see you
It wasn’t until years after my first experience with the global church that I began to understand how desperately Christians in America need Christians whose culture and language differ from our own. This new understanding
