Thanks for reading my blog this week. You can sign up for email updates of feature posts under the picture to the left. Shout-out to Pastor Fred Williams and the Turkey Creek Baptist Church of Dublin, GA, for the opportunity to preach during their summer revival this week. Read the two posts I wrote this week: "If You Catch Him Right..." and "On Sermon Outlines."  Kevin DeYoung: The Preacher at His Best Russell D. Moore: What Martin Luther King Can Teach Us About Preaching Eric McKiddie: 3 Reasons Your Church Needs Sermon Illustrations Jay Dennis: Pornography and Pastors  Jonathan Leeman:...

Every sermon should have a destination. It also needs a clear path to get there. A sermon outline charts the path for the sermon to reach its intended destination. Good sermons have effective outlines. A sermon is more than an outline. But it is not less. The outline gives structure to the message. That structure supports the substance of the message. Similarly, your body is infinitely more than a skeleton. Yet it is built on and around the connecting bones of the skeleton. There are different philosophies about the use of outlines in sermons. More preachers are using an inductive...

There was a pastor I listened to during the early days of my ministry. I really enjoyed his preaching. And I would commend him to other preachers. This pastor was not well-known to many of the preachers I talked to. And they would ask me what his preaching was like. "He can say it," I would respond, "if you catch him right." A friend gave me a lot of tapes of this pastor over the years. Some of the messages were stellar examples of Bible exposition. Others, not so much. He sometimes used the text to make a point the...

Thanks for reading my blog. Saturday Shout-Outs is my weekly bulletin board. You can sign up for email updates of future posts under the picture to the left. Thanks to Pastor Lawrence Vaughn and the Mt. Sinai Church of Port Arthur for the opportunity to preach their summer revival. So here's the "accident" I had this week. I bumped my head on a speaker shelf in the auditorium before church Wednesday night. Hard. Really hard. Very painful. A little bloody. Extremely embarrassing. Thanks for your prayers and concern, Shiloh! I appreciate those who have shown initial interest in the expository...

Thanks for reading my blog this week. Saturday Shout-Outs is my weekly bulletin board You can sign up for email updates of future posts under the picture to the left. A big shout-out to the members of the Shiloh Church for your generosity that will let us bless many families during out Back-to-School weekend. You make it happen! Thanks for the Metropolitan Baptist Church of Milwaukee for your kindness this week. Shout-out to Pastor Corey Pruitt and the Mt. Enon Baptist Church of Dayton for the opportunity to take part in their Fire on Fridays series. I signed the contract this...

One of my pulpit heroes preached at my church. We didn't really know one another. Yet he agreed to come. I was beyond excited. I have absolutely no recollection of the service or sermon that night. But I will never forget the conversation afterward in my study. Food had been prepared. And a few preachers hung around to eat and chat, including several denomination leaders that had come to hear our special guest. The denominational leaders began to encourage me to get more involved in the work. It felt more like pressure. They dropped the hook with tempting bait. If  I...

I had a more than 10-hour flight from Rome to Atlanta Saturday. Then another hour home. Wiped out! I should not preached. I was really tired. But I pressed on. I was so glad to be home with my family and to worship with the Shiloh Church family. I was also glad to have our guests, including the family reunion that joined us for worship. Praise God for the four persons who were baptized today! Shout-out to our Pastor of Outreach, Reginald Bryant, for teaching my Bible Study Fellowship for me over the past several weeks. I preached from Colossians...

Thanks for reading my blog this week. You can sign up for email updates of future posts under the picture to the left. I have spent this week in Rome at the Proclaimers Place preaching seminar. I have been challenged, inspired, and strengthened by the study of scripture, discussion of preaching, and visits to historic Christian sites. I was reminded this week that the bow that is always bent will soon break. I have always been reminded you need batting practice, as it were, to work on your swing to be more effective in the batter's box (pulpit). This week has been very...

I am in Rome, Italy, this week, studying scripture and preaching with a small group of pastors. This is the ninth annual Proclaimers Place study conference.  It is my third time attending. The last two I joined were in Oxford, England. We are studying four passages this week - Matthew 16:17-20, Hebrews 12:1-3, 2 Corinthians 5:1-8, and 2 Timothy 4:6-22. We study one passage a day, doing group exegesis and discussing how to craft the text into sermon. The sessions also include general discussions about homiletics. The Roman Empire sits in the background of the entire New Testament. And it is...

I am on my way to Rome, Italy, for a weeklong preaching conference. A small, intensive study group will study texts all week and visit related sites. Please pray for safe arrival and fruitful study. We had a great day at Shiloh today! It is a joy to pastor such wonderful people. I missed teaching my Bible Study Fellowship group today. It was my privilege to lead the congregation in the Lord's Table today. We also extended the right-hand-of-fellowship to our new members. In place of our normal scripture reading, we read the Apostle's Creed together. Very moving to hear...

Thanks for reading my blog. Saturday Shout-Outs is my weekly bulletin board of things that caught my attention. You can sign up for email updates of future posts under the picture to the left. Thanks to Pastor John Adolph for the opportunity to preach the 2013 Family Conference at the Antioch Baptist Church in Beaumont Thursday. Thanks to Pastor Jeffrey Reaves for inviting me to close out the 2013 Servant Leaders Summit at the Good Shepherd Baptist Church in Richmond Friday. I am excited to participate in Southern Seminary's 2013 Expositors Summit with R. Albert Mohler and Alistair Begg. I...

Thanks for your prayers and expressions of concern this week. I started the weak not feeling well. But I am doing much better. Praise God! A big shout-out to the pastors of the Shiloh Church for stepping up in such a great way this week! Shout-out to Tim Challies for commending my post: An Essential Part of Planning Your Preaching I am looking forward to the 2013 Thriving Summit in Philadelphia (October 11-12) I hope to see you at The Expositors Summit at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, October, 29-31. Every preacher should read Steven Lawson's little book, The Kind...