Day 2 of Cutting It Straight is the longest, fullest day of the conference. It was a long but blessed day! The day started with a message by Daniel Henderson on gospel-driven prayer for gospel-driven work (Acts 4:23-31). Henderson leads the 6:4 Fellowship, a ministry that encourages pastors to base their leadership of the church on prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4). In his message, he reminded us why it happens after prayer! During our first breakouts of the day, I led a class on the principles of interpretation. To cut it straight, you must know the...

Cutting It Straight 2019 is off and running! We off of to and blessed start Tuesday (9/17). The conference kicked-off with a challenging and encouraging message from 1 Samuel 14 by  Breonus Mitchell, who leads the Mt. Gilead Baptist Church in Nashville. General sessions on preaching, worship & arts, and women's ministry followed. Tony Merida model gospel-centered preaching from Romans 8:31-39. Brian Croft talked to pastors and worship leaders about what it means to gather God's people for worship. My wife, Crystal Charles, gave a talk to the ministers' wives and women's ministry leaders. Crystal loves to lead outreach efforts. She...

  Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. – 2 Timothy 2:15   This week (September 17-19, 2019), the Cutting It Straight Expository Preaching Conference will take place at the Shiloh Church in Jacksonville, Florida, while I serve as pastor. The purpose of Cutting It Straight is to train, model, and promote faithful and clear Bible exposition in the preaching and teaching of God’s word. It also seeks to help ministry leaders develop a biblical philosophy of ministry as they do...

  Welcome to The On Preaching Podcast, the podcast dedicated to helping you preach faithfully, clearly, and better.  In this episode, we discuss how to structure a sermon. Good, clear, sound and sermon structure is key to effective preaching. But sermon structure must stay in its place. You do not want to preach a jellyfish sermon, with no structure. And you do not want to preach a skeleton, with no life. How should you structure your sermon for effective preaching?  Structure the sermon based on the text. Structure the sermon around one main idea. Structure the sermon for clear communication....

  Welcome to The On Preaching Podcast, the podcast dedicated to helping you preach faithfully, clearly, and better.  In this episode, I want to talk to you about what expository preaching is not. Many preachers reject expository preaching, without really knowing what it is. Others seek to practice it, without really knowing what it is. But you should not react to a caricature of expository preaching. And you should learn a craft before you try to practice it. Here are fifteen myths about expository preaching to help the preacher rightly understand and faithfully practice expository preaching. Expository preaching is not whatever...

  Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handing the word of truth. – 2 Timothy 2:15   Cutting It Straight | September 18-20, 2018 | Jacksonville, FL    More than five years ago, several friends and I sat up discussing our burden for biblical preaching. Preachers have many conversations like this, trying to fix all of the problems of the world. Well, our conversation did not fix the world. But that conversation did conceive the Cutting It Straight Expository Preaching Conference. There are many good...

We are only weeks away from the Cutting It Straight Expository Preaching Conference. You still have time to make plans to join us for three days - Tuesday thru Thursday (September 18-20, 2018) - of preaching, teaching, worship, fellowship and encouragement. The Cutting It Straight Conference exists to train, model, and promote biblical preaching and teaching and a biblical philosophy of ministry in the body-life of the local church. Join us!   [embed]https://vimeo.com/287174296[/embed]     Click here to register for Cutting It Straight 2018!