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EXPOSED BY COVID

Posted on Apr 29, 2022 in BLOG |

EXPOSED BY COVID

“We were exposed to COVID, but COVID exposed us,” one Christian leader told me recently. COVID certainly exposed the increasing politicization of the church and the elevation of our rights over the cross. Still, even more significantly, COVID exposed our flawed ecclesiology, as he pointed out. The fissures of a bad ecclesiology were already cutting deep into the western church. COVID merely exposed them.

A Pew Research Center study published on March 22, 2022, revealed that large numbers of people are not coming back to in-person church attendance despite the decline of COVID. Of those who attended in-person church services once or twice a month before the pandemic, only 67% have returned to church, and 36% of those combine in-person and online attendance each month. One in five people (21%) who had attended regularly before the pandemic now appear to substitute virtual church for in-person church. You can read the full study here. You can read James Emery White’s analysis of the study here. White predicts:

They are not coming back.

Subtraction: The Key to Powerful Preaching

Posted on Mar 17, 2022 in BLOG |

Subtraction: The Key to Powerful Preaching

Why is it harder to preach an effective 15-minute sermon than a 45-minute sermon? Answer: every word and every sentence count much more in 15 minutes than in 45 minutes. There are no wasted minutes. The truth is that many of our 45-minute sermons have distracting, unnecessary and extraneous information in them. We waste minutes because we have minutes to waste.

I watched a YouTube video on landscape photography this past week to learn some tips on composition. Andy Mumford is a professional landscape photographer, and he made a statement in the middle of the video that was so clear and powerful I wrote it down and posted it on my desk.

COVID AND CONFLICTING CONVICTIONS

Posted on Jan 11, 2022 in BLOG |

A Christian brother launched a volley of convictions about masks and vaccinations at me in our telephone conversation. He did so without knowing my convictions, and he did not care to find out. He assumed that his convictions were right, so he had the right to express them. Last year, a local church advertised that they opposed the government mask mandate “by Christian conviction” as if those on the other side have no convictions. The reality is that many Christians hold opposite convictions about vaccinations and mask-wearing, leading to a divided church in a partisan world.

SECONDHAND SERMONS

Posted on Nov 17, 2021 in BLOG |

“I don’t have the time for sermon preparation with all the other pastoral responsibilities that demand my attention.”

“Other preachers say it better than me, so why not use their messages to reach my people better?”

“The communication experts know how to craft a message that will attract people much better than I do.”

“If we are going to reach more people, we need to be spending more time studying people than we do studying the Bible.”

A THREE-LEGGED STOOL

Posted on Sep 7, 2021 in BLOG |

A Three-Legged Stool

A THREE-LEGGED STOOL – All expositional preaching rests on a three-legged theological stool, 1) exegetical theology, 2) biblical theology, and 3) pericopal theology. These three legs are all necessary for expository preaching.

FIRST LEG: EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY

In 1981, Walter Kaiser sounded a grim warning about a growing crisis in evangelical preaching. The crisis has only grown worse since he warned us about it 40 years ago. The crisis in evangelical preaching is the loss of exegetical theology as a foundation for our sermons.[1]