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Bishop William Willimon says truth telling is critical to faithful leadership. In this episode he speaks about a pastor’s call to preach unabashedly the truth of Jesus Christ without losing sight of the importance of managing congregational life in this disruptive, revealing time.
How can you teach the New Testament in ways that make it come alive to modern people? In this episode we speak with New Testament Professor Shively Smith about innovative approaches to teaching the gospel that disrupt our staid and familiar notions of the biblical text.
Lovett H. Weems Jr. writes that preaching at the time of a national holiday offers opportunities and dangers. He says it is important to approach…
How can preachers maintain a sense of presence and engage their audience when COVID-19 has their congregants viewing worship via livestream? Read these tips on…
Charley Reeb says preachers should take a lesson from TED Talks — the 18-minute internet videos that have reached over a billion people worldwide. The…
New Testament professor Bill Brosend says that preaching in the age of fake news and alternative facts can be like walking a tightrope. But it’s…
Charley Reeb, author of two books on preaching, says that preachers better connect with people in the pews when they realize they are in the…
Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, author of Sacred Resistance, says it’s up to preachers to address the pain, injustice, confusion, and chaos in our days even when it…
Charley Reeb, a Florida pastor known as a gifted preacher, says that it’s often easiest for listeners to stay focused when a sermon is organized…
Mike Schreiner and Ken Willard describe ways to get more traction from each week’s sermon by layering its message into other materials that reinforce the…
How can you connect with more people and engage current parishioners better through preaching? In this Leading Ideas Talks, Lewis Center Director Douglas Powe speaks with Pastor Charley Reeb, author of That’ll Preach!: 5 Simple Steps to Your Best Sermon Ever (available at Cokesbury and Amazon).
Preaching is a critical component within a broader strategy for stewardship ministry, says church consultant Margaret Marcuson. She provides six tips for more effective preaching…
What do those in the pews need from a sermon? Larry Buxton says it’s more than platitudes and common sense. An effective sermon needs to…
The secret of great preaching, according to Charley Reeb, is to engage your listeners. Stop thinking about what would impress your seminary professors, he says,…
Many preachers shoot themselves in the foot when they start off with hackneyed or formulaic phrases that fail to capture the fleeting attention of those…
Perhaps the most important component to giving an effective speech is asking the right questions. There are three very simple questions your talk, speech, or…
Early in my own ministry, I always found stewardship season anxiety-producing. While I got better at it, I still found the fall campaign difficult. One…
How can the issue of money be addressed honestly and effectively from the pulpit? Two new books guide preachers in defining a homiletic posture that…
For several decades now, many have watched in amazement as churches grew far larger than had been the norm previously in the United States. While…
Scott Cormode writes that pastors need to provide the theological categories to make spiritual sense of money and the issues that it creates. There are…
This article is reprinted by permission from Leading Ideas, a free e-newsletter from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary available at churchleadership.com.