Preaching

Before I preach a sermon to others, I preach it first to myself.  It's another reason I love preaching. To fully understand this, you have to peek inside how I go about sermon preparation.  And, no, it doesn't involve high speed downloads from Max Lucado or Mark Driscoll. The first thing I do is settle on a Biblical text.  Here at Mountainview, we tend to preach thematic series and I will be assigned my topic and maybe a text to go with it.  Back when I did more preaching, I would often preach through books of the Bible and those books would provide my text for the weekend. Once I have a text, I read it.  I'm not kidding.  I'll read it in several different translations.  I'll look for key words, logical breaks, main ideas.  Then I'll start a Word document with the verses serving as headlines.  As I do…

When it comes to career advice, you've probably heard someone say: "Love what you do and do what you love."  That's good advice.  While there may be times that a job is difficult or unlovely, merely working for a paycheck is not enough to keep getting most of us out of bed every morning. I began preaching before I was old enough to drive.  It's true.  Several times I was asked to be a substitute preacher for a small church outside of Eureka, IL, and had to have an older friend drive me there. I went to college (and then seminary) to better prepare myself to be a preacher. Since the age of 15, preaching has been a part of my life.  Outside of my wife, kids, and black coffee, preaching is one of the things I love most in life. So, let me share with you why I love…

Here is the audio of my most recent sermon -- Beyond Words: Taking Faith from Lecture to Lab.  To view notes from YouVersion, click here.

Why do I love to preach? When describing how he approached preaching, Richard Baxter, the great reformer from 500 years ago, said, “I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”