Posted on July 21st, 2008 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Summer offers a different pace of life for most of us and life at church is no different. Even preachers need vacation, meaning that pulpits everywhere are filled with unfamiliar faces.
In many such churches, summer relief comes from associate staff, offering an excellent opportunity for youth pastors, worship pastors, and other such leaders to have [...]
Posted on June 27th, 2008 by Dr. Kenton Anderson I’ve noticed something about some of the better-known preachers of our time. They’re all funny! People like Rick Warren, Rob Bell, Andy Stanley, Erwin McManus – these guys will crack their listeners up. They know how to tell a story that is both insightful and entertaining. Listening to them is not only helpful, but it [...]
Posted on February 28th, 2008 by Dr. Lyle Schrag One of my greater joys comes from time shared with my “A-Team” which I affectionately call the tiny band of brothers and sisters in our CLD Affinity Group. The group has grown over the years to several dozen, each called by God into a wide array of ministry in the church. They study hard. The [...]
Posted on November 28th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson I’ve just completed Eugene Peterson’s improbably titled, Eat This Book and I cannot recommend it highly enough. This “conversation in the art of spiritual reading” both values Scripture while helping us see its accessibility. The book argues for the validity and necessity of exegesis for spiritual growth. It describes in detail the practice of Lectio [...]
Posted on November 19th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson One of the problems I have observed is that some of us think we preach better than we actually do. Truthfully, most of us probably suffer from that problem. If I’m honest, I’d probably have to admit that I have a higher sense of the effectiveness of my own preaching than what the listeners might [...]
Posted on November 8th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson _Preaching with Variety: How to Re-create the Dynamics of Biblical Genres_. By Jeffrey D. Arthurs. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2007, 978-0-8254-2019-1, 238 pp., $15.99, paperback.
Several years ago I embarked upon a project. Having been given a short interim preaching opportunity at a nearby church, I decided to choose a different biblical genre for every sermon [...]
Posted on October 30th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Yesterday my wife participated in our pastor’s sermon by illustrating his sermon with a simultaneous sermon painting. What’s that, you ask? Let me try to explain.
Brian Stewart was preaching from Philippians 2:15 about how we are to shine as lights for Christ in the places we’re located. He had a lot to say about light [...]
Posted on October 25th, 2007 by Mr. Mark Naylor The following is a response from my wife, Karen, to a couple of recent blogs found on this site:
In his Oct 17 blog "The Foundation for Hearing God," Loren Warkentin wrote:
We Christians have become acculturated to this [fast-paced] style of living and I believe it has affected our spiritual lives. We are easily bored. If [...]
Posted on October 22nd, 2007 by Dr. Brian Rapske It’s that time of the semester once again. The Registrar’s office has asked each professor to indicate whether they are requiring an examination that needs to be scheduled into the examination week for their courses. The schedule is out and professors and students are all now aware of when each examination will need to be [...]
Posted on October 19th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson J. P. Moreland of Talbot Seminary was the keynote speaker at this year’s meetings of the Evangelical Homiletics Society. He took the opportunity to offer a proposal for “apologetic preaching.” While such an approach is not new, Moreland seemed to suggest that apologetics could and should take a much higher place in our thinking about [...]
Posted on October 1st, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson I heard Jeff Arthurs from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary read this little parable at an Evangelical Homiletics Society gathering many years ago. Afterwards I asked him for a copy so that I could share it with my classes. It was published in 1919 by William Eleazar Barton, otherwise known as “Safed the Sage”. The piece has [...]
Posted on September 20th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Having heard hundreds of students preach in my various classes, I’ve discovered that there is a limit to a person’s “dynamic range.” Like a musician that can sing over multiple octaves, some preachers are capable of hitting the high notes as well as the low notes, speaking loudly and confidently at one point of the [...]
Posted on September 19th, 2007 by Dr. Larry Perkins No, this is not an attack on any Bible translation. But it is a serious question — how do our translations of the Bible influence the forming of our Christian worldview? We believe that God intended his Word to be translated into every language. Yet as we make the transition from Greek or Hebrew text [...]
Posted on September 11th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson We have a new lead pastor at our church (Parkland Fellowship) and we couldn’t be happier. Yesterday, Brian Stewart offered us a dramatic recitation of the entire book of Philippians, from memory! I had memorized the book of Philippians some years ago, but I had never had the courage (or the wisdom) to offer it [...]
Posted on August 16th, 2007 by Dr. Lyle Schrag It’s one thing to study how to put together a great powerpoint slide presentation. It’s something else to see a great presentation. I’ve discovered that I learn best by seeing the best. And now, there is a site – and community – where I can study. It’s called Slideshare: www.slideshare.net. They have great examples of [...]
Posted on August 1st, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Mike Mawhorter sent me a link to this article by David Allis which I found to be one of the more helpful of the current critiques of preaching: CLICK HERE
My response is that much of what he says is truthful. Preaching, for instance, is expensive. Preachers often can’t be trusted. At the same time, I [...]
Posted on July 23rd, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Here is a link to some fascinating new research on the increased incidence of second-career pastoral leadership, particularly in conservative protestant denominations. It appears that pastors are starting older and that they usually have had a career before they come into ministry. In general, I find this trend encouraging. Pastors with real life experience ought [...]
Posted on July 12th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Preachers need to have thick skin. Whenever a person gets up in front of a crowd to speak, people are going to evaluate what they have to say - which may be a mild way of describing the kind of scrutiny under which a preacher is placed. Roast Preacher is the most common dish served [...]
Posted on June 12th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Thomas Long has written a tremendous piece on pulpit plagiarism that you can find here in it’s entirety: Stolen Goods. The article traces the arguments for and against using materials developed by others in the pulpit. Long comes down on the issue of honesty and integrity. He writes… A good test of this point is [...]
Posted on June 1st, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson I received this message from one of my former students, Shawn Barden, last week. Shawn is pastoring a great church in Fernie, BC. His message encouraged me and I thought it might encourage you as well. Hey Kent Just wanted to share a note that might make you smile and feel encouraged. On Wednesday last [...]
Posted on May 23rd, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson I had another interesting conversation with one of our Doctor of Ministry students last week. Robert Campbell is a pastor from Corona, California and is working on the question of whether or not a pastor can have friends in the congregation.
Campbell contends that spiritual formation happens within community and that the pastor needs to be [...]
Posted on May 14th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson …churches are institutional in the way that they operate, because they are venues for the organization of corporate worship, outreach, and discipling among people. No matter how loose, structures eventually harden and at that point a church has to make some difficult decisions about its long-term validity and relevance.
I had a conversation over lunch with [...]
Posted on May 3rd, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson One evening my wife offered me a meal that didn’t look familiar to me. Something about the look on my face must have suggested something other than full appreciation. “What’s wrong,” she said. “It’s everything that you like.” True enough, the dish only offered ingredients that I normally enjoyed, but they were offered in a [...]
Posted on April 9th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson The other day I had the pleasure of hearing my good friend, Dr. John Auxier preach. John is Dean of Trinity Western University and an expert in marriage and family counseling. He is also a very fine preacher. His sermon was taken from John 11 and 12, [...]
Posted on March 14th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Last week I was part of the examination committee for a Doctor of Ministry dissertation written by Pastor David Acree from Lethbridge, Alberta. David’s dissertation examined the matter of the preacher’s sense of readiness to preach. I’m pleased to say that he passed the exam and will graduate this spring. The question is interesting. Every [...]
Posted on March 6th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Recently, I preached the same sermon at two consecutive services. In between the first and second services I took some heat from an older man who suggested that “if anyone came into the service confused, I left them more confused.” I tried to offer a gentle response, hoping to clarify what may have been a [...]
Posted on February 26th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson Last week I was talking to my students about the challenge of helping listeners overcome their objections to the sermon’s big idea. I likened the challenge to fishing. I’m not much of a fisherman, but I know that once you’ve got the fish on the hook, you don’t just bring the fish into the boat. [...]
Posted on February 16th, 2007 by Dr. Kenton Anderson I ran into the same problem with two of my students yesterday. Both of them submitted sermon plans that required a little help. When I suggested alternate and more appropriate ways of approaching the text, they both agreed with me. The problem, they said, was that the texts and themes had been assigned to them [...]