This is the audio from the Ash Wednesday chapel service at Anderson University School of Theology and Christian Ministry. The two texts are Isaiah 58:6-11 and Ps. 51:9-10, 16-17. I suspect the readers used the Message. I did not specify a translation for them to read from. I mention it here only because in places […]
Posts in the preaching category:
Sermon: I Will Praise the Lord
“I Will Praise the Lord” is a sermon based on Leah’s response to her circumstances, specifically the fact that even the blessings of God were not enough to make Jacob love her. Sermon text: Gen. 29:15-35: 15 Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell […]
God’s Call is Forever
Do you ever feel like asking God why you were the one chosen to do something? Why not send someone else? That is what Moses did. Moses was so persistent that God’s anger burned against him. Here is what came of that interaction. Watch on YouTube. Text is Exo 4:1-16.
Worship in Spirit and Truth
The primary text of this sermon is Jn. 4:21-26. Other texts are Ps. 51:16-17, Isa. 58:2-4, Jer. 29:13, and Heb. 4:14-16. This sermon was preached in Muncie, Indiana. Click to listen or right click to download: Worship in Spirit and Truth
“What Can I Do for You?”
This is the sermon I preached in Muncie, Indiana, on the text of Lk. 18:35-43. Click to listen or right click to download: What Can I Do for You
To Seek and Save the Lost
The text of this sermon is Lk. 19:1-10. The sermon was preached in Muncie, Indiana. Click to listen, or right click to download: To Seek and Save the Lost
God’s Favor
This sermon, preached in Muncie, Indiana, defines God’s favor as it is experienced by Hannah, David, Mary, and Jesus. Click to listen, or right click to download: God’s Favor
narrative preaching about the hemorrhaging woman
When I preached about the woman with the twelve-year hemorrhage, I dramatized… I talked about her going to doctor after doctor, dealing with pain, etc. I said, “I got used to the pain… But I never got used to the aloneness. People stopped coming around because they didn’t want to hear it… I never got […]
What are we singing?
It has become fashionable to rewrite the words to songs so that they are gender inclusive or otherwise politically correct. Sometimes this has a fairly neutral effect. Sometimes it destroys a song’s theological meaning; and sometimes it is quite powerful. As a songwriter and a minister, and also as a person who is a member […]
sermon preparation strategies
During my fourth semester of seminary, I took a course in homiletics (preaching, for those who are not fond of fancy words). In some seminaries, these courses include a component that requires students to analyze other people’s sermons. Mine did not; but I often found myself listening to other people’s preaching in order to determine […]
holy places
Holy places… I think of these as “places that are holy.” In Hebrew the phrase would be translated literally, “places of the holy.” This implies a slightly different meaning. The place itself is not holy. It is a place where the holy is encountered. Without God’s presence, or without the interaction between God and person, […]