The pastor lives under a divine charge to preach the word. He does not have the right to proclaim his own message. He is a herald assigned to declare the message of the King. Every pastor has multiple responsibilities. But the pastor’s primary, central, and definitive function is to preach the word of God. A faithful pastor will not compromise the centrality of the pulpit. It is my desire and determination to be a faithful pastor. Therefore, I strive to guard the dignity of the pulpit that has been entrusted to me. How I live, study, and preach are shaped...

The late Dr. Gardner C. Taylor (1918-2015) was the beloved pastor of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn for 42 years. Along with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, Taylor organized the Progressive National Baptist Convention and was its first president. He was the author of many books. Gardner Taylor was even received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Above all, Gardner C. Taylor was a bold, powerful, and eloquent preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is remembered as "the dead of American preachers." One of my favorite Gardner Taylor Messages is entitled, "In His Own Clothes," based on...

I finished preaching through the book of Ephesians at the Shiloh Church yesterday. Finally. I fell in love with Ephesians as a teenager, during my first pastorate. Having read Be Rich by Warren W. Wiersbe, I decided to teach through Ephesians during our midweek Bible study. It was my first time teaching through a book of the Bible. Both I and the congregation learned a lot. And I anticipated the day I would preach through Ephesians. Some years later, I preached for Dr. A. Louis Patterson Jr. at the Mt. Corinth Church in Houston. During our time together, I discovered...

I had a strange experience recently. As I preached our 7:45 Sunday worship service, a fly buzzed up to the pulpit. He landed near my Bible. He jumped on the microphone. He sat on my sh oulder. That thing was everywhere! The little fly was a big distraction. I have preached in many churches where a lot of distracting things happen in the service because of open windows. But there are no windows in the church where I serve. So I thought, “Where did this thing come from?” More importantly, I hate bugs! Loathe them. Any of them. All of...

Some preachers take off strong. They get to cruising altitude and pilot the sermon without turbulence. Then they land smoothly at the same airport from which they took off. It was good flight. Homiletical policies and procedures were followed. And the congregation enjoyed the ride so much that it never noticed they did not actually go anywhere. These craft-first preachers are lauded as great communicators. But they fail to preach the word, to the detriment of the crowds that sit under their preaching. Other preachers focus on the God-intended meaning of the text. The process is saturated in prayer for...

A young preacher friend recently texted me. He was asked to preach a funeral for a family. It would be his first. And he wanted to know if I had any advice to offer him. I responded by mentioning a podcast I did on preaching funeral sermons: “Preaching Funeral Sermons.” I also offered offered several pieces of advice. It was a text-message. Not the way to elaborate. Yet I shared this advice with my friend: Brief. Gospel-centered. Be sensitive to family. There are other important factors to consider when preaching funerals. But these three pieces of advice are a good...

My big brother, Kevin Willis, was there to hear me preach my first sermon, at the Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. I was a boy preacher, eleven years old. It was some years before he heard me preach again. Kevin was in town to preach a meeting. He was scheduled to preach at 3:30. And I had a preaching engagement later that evening. Of course, I went to hear my brother preach. And he came to hear me after he his meeting. I was "on" that night. I preached one of my "sticks" - a familiar sermon I had...

I went to the office early to work on my Thanksgiving sermon before the rest of the team arrived. I stopped by the Waffle House on the way. As I sat at the counter, a man in a nearby booth asked, “Is that Psalm 100 on your file.” It was. I was working on several projects at the same time. And I had marked Psalm 100 real big across the folder. I told the man I was working on Psalm 100 to preach for Thanksgiving. With a confused look, he asked, “So do you write your own sermons?” When I...

My father – H.B. Charles, Sr. – was a faithful preacher. He was not, however, an expositor. His messages were thoroughly biblical. But they were not expositional. My dad was more a textual preacher. He would often lift a verse and keep turning it to show the beautiful gospel implications in it. But the main point of the text was not necessarily the main point of his sermon. I was not led to Christ by expository preaching. The preaching that nurtured my faith was not expositional, either. Much of the preaching that continues to feed my soul is not classic...

Biblical preaching seeks to explain the meaning of a passage of scripture and exhort the hearer to respond to the truth. Faithful preaching is truth-driven. The goal of the preacher’s exegetical study should be to find to truth of the text. The passage may mention anxiety, prayer, thanksgiving, peace, and even refer to the Lord Jesus Christ in the same text. But that passage is not about all of those different things. Only one truth is the dominating theme of the text. The others truths support the main idea of the text. Having discovered the message of the text, the...

I have two fundamental goals for every sermon I preach. First of all, I strive to be faithful to the text of scripture. Likewise, I strive to be clear in my presentation of the message. I was in a recent conversation with a fellow pastor about these pulpit goals. He agreed with my philosophy. Then added, "Well, you know there are only three types of preachers..." After he named the three types of preachers, I asked him to repeat them slowly. He did. Then I asked my new friend for permission to share them. He graciously consented. What are the three types of preachers? Some preachers...

The following is a guest post written by Kevin Smith, Teaching Pastor at the Highview Baptist Church and preaching professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary - both in Louisville, Kentucky. Some preachers are not effective because they are unprepared. Faithful, biblical preaching is hard work, which requires preparation. Part (not all) of that preparation involves studying and learning. We must study the Word, even as we study ourselves for the purpose of greater godliness (1 Timothy 4:16). We must study the congregation, in order that we may properly feed them the Word of God (1 Peter 5:2). We must...