preaching Archives

Five keys to reducing the stress around sermon preparation

Posted October 22nd, 2020

In what can be the steep learning curve of creating meaningful online worship services, what pastor or worship leader would look askance at tips on making sermon preparation and preaching less stressful?

Is healing at the core of our congregations?

Posted August 11th, 2020

As a seminary student I heard a constant refrain from our professors: Jesus came to preach and teach. It was the pretext underlying our whole seminary education as they trained us to preach and teach.

Jesus, the first stand-up comic

Posted January 30th, 2020

Jesus had a way of telling truth that exposed human foibles and made people laugh.

Talking politics is not taboo

Posted August 28th, 2019

Politics are personal. As God’s people, we feel our politics. When we watch the news or read it on our iPad, we experience a potpourri of emotions. We get excited, angry, demoralized, indignant, frustrated and more. Some of us take a sabbath from Facebook, while others turn off Twitter.

‘Gravitating toward an ethos of possibility and hope’

Posted January 17th, 2018

To be relevant in the 21st century, the church must read scripture differently — to determine who is left out of the biblical texts and reach out to those people, the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, II told Seattle Presbytery Tuesday night in a thunderous sermon that electrified a full house at Mercer Island Presbyterian Church.

Stated Clerk tells Big Tent the church is primed for another Reformation

Posted July 7th, 2017

Recently returned from the World Communion of Reformed Churches global gathering in Wittenberg, Germany – birthplace of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago – Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Stated Clerk the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II recalled a conversation with a local pastor.

Mainline pastors more likely to preach on race than evangelical counterparts

Posted April 3rd, 2017

Close to half of Protestant senior pastors have recently preached on racial reconciliation and more have publicly prayed about it, but few find that their congregations are urging them to address the topic.