preaching on Caregivers

The Lord calls us to examine the wounds of the Risen One and to see there the depth of his love for us. Let us therefore approach the throne of God in confidence as we pray for the people of God in Ch...

The Scottish pastor Ian MacLaren (1850–1907), renowned for his stories set in rural Scotland, was once asked near the end of his career what he would have done differently. His response was both simpl...

Your Inner Life Matters While I have long recognized the significance of a pastor’s inner life, I hadn’t pondered the relationship between our inner life and the act of preaching until recently. Our ...

Kate's Crisis: Values vs. Church One damp afternoon during the fall of 2016 I was sharing a pastoral conversation with Kate, a professional artist in her late 20s. Over years of meals and convers...

God of our hearts, Lord of nations and Creator of worlds; Father, Son and Holy Spirit: When You redeemed us and called us each by name, You made us a family—united by your love and grace. Across towns...

The Master & His Workshop I remember first walking into my friend Andrew’s new workshop, housed in a colonial-style barn and situated on an expansive wooded acreage on the Eastern Seaboard. Thin...

People have an idea that the preacher is an actor on a stage and they are the critics, blaming or praising him. What they don't know is that they are the actors on the stage; he (the preacher) is ...

One Sunday morning in a more traditional worship service, a rather verbose minister stepped up to the pulpit and announced to the congregation, "I've been told that I'll be moving on to l...

God of Grace and God of Glory–rich in love and mercy, all powerful and everywhere present: We come to You at Your bidding, trusting in Your faithful compassion and not in our fruitless efforts to do w...

We pray, dear God, for our spiritual leaders. Increase in them the charism of faith that they might preach the Word of God with boldness. Increase in them the charism of wisdom that they might gui...

The only person who likes change is a wet baby. –Mark Twain (Attributed) To Change or Not to Change, That is the Question When do we decide to change ? I’m not a Tony Robbins acolyte, but I do l...

I’m not sure that I could have articulated the ground rules for the search for resilience the way I understand them today, but I must have intuited them nevertheless. Some of the basic ideas were thes...

There once was a popular shaman in India whom people would seek out for advice. People would stand in line for hours, waiting to hear the choices they should make in their lives or the changes that wo...

Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, a nationwide youth ministry, used to say, “It’s a sin to bore a kid with the gospel.” But what about adults? Is it okay to bore grownups with the gospel? I ask ...

It is a mistake to think that faithful believers in our time are not profoundly shaped by the narratives of modernity. We certainly are, and so when you unveil these narratives and interact with them ...

Preachers are not salesmen, for they have nothing to sell. They are bearers of Good News.

The Power (and Peril) of Words One time, I lied to the elders. (That’s another story except to say that they were blinded by trust.) It wasn’t a big lie—I said I’d done something I hadn’t—but I reali...

Preaching Angle: Preach the Word, Rest in God’s Work Maybe I tend to focus on the negative, but when I read the parable of the soils, I tend to focus on the soils that struggle (the soil too close to...

How do you choose what to preach on any given Sunday? Are you a… Lectionary Preacher ? Occasional use of the lectionary, select seasonal use of the lectionary, or full-throttle every Sunday and any...

Retired professor of homiletics Fred Craddock suggests a different vision of fruitfulness. Fred told me a story about a friend of his who wanted Craddock to go with him to hear “the greatest preacher ...

I came to believe that my job was not to receive and critique a sermon but to dig into it, to seize its power, to participate with its message, and to steal its fruit.

What your guest preacher needs to know to be successful ‘Tis the season for guest preachers isn’t it? Especially as we head into the Fourth of July. I had the great opportunity to preach for a congr...

Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: Preach the Word, Rest in God’s Work Maybe I tend to focus on the negative, but when I read the parable of the soils, I tend to focus on the soils that struggle...

A sermon that just informs the mind can give people things to do after they go home, but a sermon that moves the heart from loving career or acclaim or one’s own independence to loving God and his Son...

The scope of our art [preaching] is to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and give it to God, and to watch over that which is in his image—if it abides, to take it by the hand; i...

At the heart of it, preaching is the telling and retelling of Christ's story and our stories from creation to parousia. It is the remembering of the stories with a special kind of remembrance of w...

Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: Wheat and Weeds Grow Even in the Church God’s good creation grows food for all living creatures. God made the Earth, God made all the plants, and God made all ...

May the words of my mouth. And the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Unlike most of us, Francis of Assissi's love of preaching extended beyond just human beings. On one of his journeys through the valley of Spoleto, near Bevagna, Francis of Assisi came upon a large...

A Musical Compilation over the Decades of Our Lives Regardless of the medium that delivered the tunes to us: radio, jukebox, record player, 8 track, cassette tape, CD, Mp3, iTunes, Pandora, or Spoti...