Fred Craddock on Lazarus and the Rich Man

Though One Rise from the Dead from Hershael York on Vimeo.

Illustration-a-day: Christ sends none away empty except . . .

The famous Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse once said, “Christ sends none away empty but those who are full of themselves.”

Five quick suggestions for making this week's sermon better

Jim Martin over at God Hungry blog gives five suggestions for better preaching. They're good. Check them out here.

Review: The Text this Week (www.textweek.com)

Website: http://www.textweek.com

Publisher: The Text this Week owned and operated by Jenee Woodard.

Cost: Free.

Offerings: The Text this Week serves as a resource center connecting the preacher to a wealth of articles, online commentaries, artwork, children’s sermons, prayers for worship, and more for each text in the lectionary.

Leading contributors: All of the links are provided by Woodard.  Since this site is focused upon lectionary preaching, her links connect primarily to other lectionary based resources (Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, etc.).

My Thoughts:  One of the most difficult things about the Internet is its vastness.  There is so much information!  Admittedly, most of it totally worthless.  Google a biblical phrase and most of what you get in return has nothing to do with the Bible.  How do you find the good stuff that’s buried beneath so much garbage?  For lectionary preaching you lean on Jenee Woodard and her website The Text This Week.  What resources exist on the web for preaching on this week’s lectionary text?  Woodard has done most of the legwork for you, sorting through who knows how much garbage to find you relevant links to the biblical text.  Her gathering includes tools for preparation – commentaries, journal articles, possible illustration sources (her favorites being movies and art).  Beyond preparation, Woodard provides dozens of links to resources for worship planning – prayers, litanies, dramas, etc. 

For as many resources as she connects to (and she connects to a lot!) Woodard keeps her site clean and easily navigable.  She indexes her work by its place on the lectionary calendar, by scripture reference, and even by art or movie reference.  While the site clearly is set up with the lectionary preacher in mind, the non-lectionary preacher could easily use her scripture index as a way of aiding his or her own sermon preparation.

The only downside of The Text this Week is that Woodard is so thorough in her gathering of resources that one can feel overwhelmed with the number of links just on her page.  But that’s a little like complaining about having too much of a good thing. My guess is that preachers who frequent The Text this Week slowly discover their favorite links and return to those over and over again.  Overall, Woodard’s efforts serve as a great kindness to preachers hoping to discover a shortcut to finding good resources online.    

Illustration-a-day: Delight is incomplete until it is expressed

From about September 1st through the first weekend in February, an amazing thing happens in towns all across America. In coffee shops, and in homes, in Sunday School rooms, and in restaurants, men (and a handful of women) who otherwise find it difficult to express emotion, will pour forth their souls concerning the simple, almost silly events, of high school, college, and professional football. If their team loses, it can be horrendous, but if their team wins – oh, how their faces can dance. But what is interesting, is not that people get excited about football, but that they can so enjoy reliving the game. You can take two men, both of whom witnessed the game, and one will say to another, “Oh, could you believe the catch that so-and-so made?” The other, almost interrupting, will reply, “That was amazing wasn’t it. He was all the way stretched out for that one.” The first will contribute, “I didn’t think he had a chance – great catch – great catch.” “Sure was.”

We may laugh, certainly my wife has laughed at me, but reliving a football game is part of what completes a football game. It really isn’t over when the clock stops, it must be rehashed, reexamined, and the good plays must be praised. It is almost mandatory, isn’t it – that good things must be praised? If you go to a good restaurant, you almost feel compelled to tell others about it. If you hear a good joke, you almost feel compelled to share it. Praise, is simply a part of life. Even non-religious people are full of praise. Whether about football, fine art, or fine scenery, people like to praise things.

Thinking on this very same truth, C.S. Lewis noted, “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you are for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with (the perfect hearer died a year ago)” (Reflections on the Psalms, chapter 9) Praise completes our enjoyment. What a wonderful way to put it.

Great tip from WorkingPreacher.org - start your sermon after the introduction

Rolf Jocobson gives three suggestions for improving one's preaching this week. My favorite tip - cut the introduction and get to the text quicker. I know that I often spend too much time on my introduction.

Illustration-a-day: The Bible is offensive

This week, I was ironing some clothes, not something I do all that often, which led me to do something else I don’t do very often, channel surf. The reason I don’t channel surf very often is because we don’t have very many channels – twenty-two to be exact – the most basic cable package you can order. But, there I was ironing, flipping through my less than two dozen channels and nothing was on. I can tell you nothing was on because I landed for a few minutes on a reality show called Wife Swap. That was my best option. The premise is simple, two very different families trade moms for two weeks to see what conflict can ensue. In this episode a farmer’s wife, I believe from the panhandle, switched places with a rock and roll mom from California.

They let the moms scout out the houses so they can judge how much better of a mom they are than the other one. Anyway, Rock and Roll mom moving through the house, notices how clean it is, how cutesy - notices that Jesus is in every room. When she comes into the room she’ll be staying in she immediately affixes her gaze onto a Bible that’s been placed at the end of the bed. She looks into the camera and says, “You know, that offends me. It’s like they’re saying I need saving or something – like I’m not a good person already.” I don’t exactly know what the farmer’s family was saying by leaving the Bible on the bed (I didn’t watch any more of the show), but I do know what the Bible says – none of us are good people. We all need saving. The Bible goes so far as to call our righteousness “filthy rags.”

Is that offensive? You bet. The gospel is offensive.  But offending is what we need, if that’s what it takes for us to recognize our state before a Holy God. We all need saving. Not from the things we think we need saving from. No doubt Rock and Roll mom had probably been judged by Christians about her tattoos and her taste in music and all manner of other things – those aren’t the things she needs saving from. And Christians who think that are judgmental folks who misrepresent the kingdom of God. But don’t let us think for a moment that because some people misjudge us that judgment isn’t real. God will judge us. His judgments are real, accurate, and fair. We are a broken, sinful people. None of us are ok - whether we’re farmer’s wives from Texas or Rock and Roll moms from LA.

Review: Preaching Today

Website: http://www.preachingtoday.com/

Publisher: Preaching Today is a part of Christianity Today's online offerings.

Cost: $69.99 a year (or $9.95 a month); there is a 30-day free trial.

Offerings: 11,000+ sermon illustrations; almost 1000 sermons; 600+ articles/podcasts on improving your preaching; and more.

Leading contributors: Haddon Robinson, Mark Buchanan, John Ortberg, Leith Anderson, and a whole bunch of other evangelical pastors.  It does include a few sermons/articles from mainline pastors like Barbara Brown Taylor, Will Wilimon, and Fred Craddock.

My Thoughts: Obviously, there are plenty of free preaching resources out there on the web (some of which we'll cover soon).  My experience with many of them is that while helpful, they can be difficult to navigate and sometimes spotty in what they deliver.  I've even found that to be true with some of the pay sites.  Not so with Preaching Today.  Your $70, about the cost of two nice commentaries, gains you access to a well organized, easily searchable, treasure trove of preaching resources. 

By far, Preaching Today has the most expansive illustration database on the web.  It is easily searchable by keyword, subject, even biblical reference.  Now, as is always the case with illustrations gathered by others, many of the 11,000+ illustrations on Preaching Today will be illustrations that you will never use because they don't ring true to who you are or your style of preaching.  That's OK, many will.  And Preaching Today allows you to mark those that do resonate with you so that you begin to build your own file cabinet of illustrations within their system.

One especially rich source of illustrations on the site is to be found in the weekly "News that Illustrates" sections compiled by editor Craig Brian Larson.  In these short articles (which can be received as e-mails) Larson lists four or five news stories a week that might be rich sources of illustrations for upcoming sermons.  I like this section quite a bit because far from giving the preacher canned illustrations, the "News that Illustrates" section encourages the preacher to make his or her own connections between the sermon and current events in the world.  Surveying these over the past year or so have helped me to develop my own ability to read the news with an eye on the pulpit.

While my guess is that most ministers who subscribe to Preaching Today do so mainly for the illustrations, the best part of the site may very well be its articles.  Seasoned practitioners have provided a wealth of articles on every thing from the technicalities of the sermon to preparing the preacher's own soul.  Like the illustrations, the articles are easily searchable and often grouped together in ways that create an online workshop for the preacher to work through at his or her own pace.  It would take forever to work through all the articles, but reading two or three a month not only helps keep me constantly thinking about ways I can improve my preaching but also provides me with encouragement for the task.

Not everyone has $70 to invest in such a resource, but if you do, I recommend giving Preaching Today a try.

Illustration-a-day: First duty of every soul

"The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master" - P. T. Forsyth

Flub a line in your sermon yesterday? You probably weren't the only one.

Question of the Week: What online resources do you use most often?

Preachers today live in a world that is incredibly different than our predecessors - at least from the standpoint of the accessibility of resources (no doubt people, their sinfulness, and the good news of the gospel remain the same!) Through the Internet we have access to resources that preachers of a previous day could only dream of having. Sometimes, however, the vastness of information and resources is overwhelming. How do you know what's out there? What's good? What's worth spending $79.99/year on?

My goal over the next few weeks is to start reviewing many of the online resources for preachers. But let's start with your suggestions. What websites do you find most helpful for your preaching? They don't even have to be "preaching" websites - just websites that for whatever reason, help your preaching.

Illustration-a-day: Judgment is a good thing.

N. T. Wright, one of the top Christian thinkers of our day, reminds us, that while the word judgment carries negative overtones for a good many people in our postmodern world, “throughout the Bible God's coming judgment is a good thing, something to be celebrated, longed for, yearned over. It causes people to shout for joy and the trees of the field to clap their hands. In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, and oppression, the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are firmly put in their place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be. Faced with a world in rebellion, a world full of exploitation and wickedness, a good God must be a God of judgment.”

N. T. Wright,Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church(San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008), 137.

A Pastor's Sunday Morning Prayer

Every Sunday Lord, I tiptoe
around the fire, hoping
to speak just enough of You
that we leave a little warmed
without being consumed
even though, I know, the Word
that incarnates the air about me is
a consuming fire.

How can I play with such a fire
and not get burned?

....

You are the Word, Lord, speak today
else my words are spoken in vain.
Remind me, even though I die
a thousand deaths upon this pulpit
if I do so believing in you
yet shall I live -
though maybe not to preach another day.

Illustration-a-day: God's stubborn kindness

"The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compassion is our liberation." - C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

The content of Christian preaching: not a 'how' or a 'what' but a 'who'

Instrumental in my call to preach was the story of Peter and the apostles being miraculously set free from prison in Acts 5. There the angel of the Lord opens the gates of the prison and leads them out commanding the apostles, “Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life” (Acts 5:20, NASB). When I read that verse as a teenager, it was as if the angel were speaking to me. My life’s task was to be the same as the apostles to stand and speak “the whole message of this Life.” That verse has continued to shape my theology of preaching.

Preaching is at its essence the proclaiming or heralding of a message. What is the content of the whole message of this life? It is the good news of Jesus Christ. It is the message concerning “the unique life God provides through Jesus.” It is the announcement of the kingdom of God that has become manifest in and accessible through Jesus Christ. It involves the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and the promise of his return. In a word, it is preaching the Word, who is Jesus Christ. I am continually struck by Christ’s preaching. It has one theme, the kingdom of God. Matthew’s report is paradigmatic, “From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (4:17, NIV). In the book of Acts, the followers of Christ are also spoken of preaching about the kingdom of God (Acts 8:12; 19:8; 28:31). The content of their preaching is the same as that of Christ. And yet, when Luke provides us insight into the actual words of their sermons, their preaching of the Kingdom is primarily a preaching about Christ! Peter, Stephen, and Paul all proclaim the kingdom by speaking of who Jesus is and what he has done. One can conclude, as William H. Willmon has put it, “Preaching like Jesus is preaching Jesus.”

Preaching, then, is not just any word. It is a word about and from God, specifically the God who has made himself known in the person of Jesus Christ, and who makes himself known today through the Holy Spirit. True Christian preaching focuses not upon how we can have better marriages or bigger bank accounts or healthier self-images. True preaching announces the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. So the Christian word is a limited word; we do not speak on anything and everything. We speak of Christ. We speak of his kingdom come. But this limited word is the word the world so desperately needs. Again, it is the whole or entire message of this life. Jesus is the only word that matters eternally. He is the only word that lasts. Without him, all other words cease to be. So while there is a place to speak of having healthy marriages, or more sound financial practices, or better parenting skills, I doubt that place is the pulpit. In the pulpit, we must speak the word that only the church can speak, the word we've been commanded to speak - the Word, who is Jesus Christ.