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Don’t Avoid Imprecatory Psalms: How to Preach the Cursing Prayers
Many pastors quietly avoid the imprecatory psalms. It’s understandable. We often don’t know what to do with them. Maybe we’ve even seen them weaponized. But our avoidance is problematic. Paul’s charge is unambiguous: “Preach the Word” (2 Tim 4:2)—all of it, since “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable” (2 Tim 3:16–17; emphasis […]
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Want to Build a Pastoral Internship? 4 Steps
We are to raise up faithful leaders who will be able to instruct the church in sound doctrine. One way to accomplish this task is through a pastoral internship: a definite amount of time given to training aspiring leaders for the prospect of pastoral ministry. While no two internships (or churches, for that matter) are alike, the essential ingredients remain the same.
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When Autism Comes to Church: Practical Advice for Parents & Pastors
Our son M was formally diagnosed in 2015 with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and sensory processing disorder (SPD).
We already had two daughters and noticed that our bouncing baby boy was very different from his siblings. We initially put this down to boys being boyish. But then we began to notice certain things. Sometimes M struggled to match his energy for the task he was doing, whether at home, church, or kindergarten. At the same time, M also had the ability to engage in laser-like focus on some thing or topic that was well beyond his age. He had a peculiar mix of unruly raucousness and hypnotic concentration that was hard to explain.
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Is Your Preaching on Samson Weak? Consider Its Fourfold Sense
Certainly, the quadriga is of great interest to those who study historical theology and the history of exegesis, but one may wonder, Just how practical is it? Will it help me in my week-to-week sermon preparation? In this article I hope to show the usefulness of the quadriga for regular preaching. Throughout, I will use the figure of Samson in the book of Judges as a test case.
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Is Ecclesiastes Messianic? Preaching Christ from the Vantage of Vanity
Preachers and teachers of God’s Word carry an immense responsibility. We must handle Scripture faithfully with the goal of pointing our listeners always to Jesus, the true hero of the entire Bible. This goal feels particularly challenging when we open a seemingly dark book like Ecclesiastes. Major themes of Ecclesiastes are futility, meaninglessness, absurdity, and […]
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5 Steps to Starting a Prayer Ministry in Your Church
What if the very discipline Scripture commands us to practice “without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17) is the one many Christians find hardest to sustain? Prayer is an integral part of Christian life and ministry. Yet, especially for new believers, it is often accompanied with awkwardness: “What words do I use? Is there a formula? Am […]
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7 Challenging Personalities & How to Lead Them in Small Group
What have I gotten myself into? Most of us who lead small groups have had that moment. Leading people is a bit like parenting: It doesn’t come with an instruction manual. It’s rife with unforeseen scenarios that are as unique as the people who make up the group. Some situations are garden variety that become […]
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Does Your Church Have a Discipleship Culture? How to Cultivate It
At its simplest, Christian discipleship means helping others believe and obey Jesus. A culture of discipleship emerges when it becomes normal for a church to collectively value helping one another follow Jesus. This shared value will consequently shape the norms, expectations, and practices in a congregation. The aim will be to see every member (disciple) discipling and being discipled—leaving behind no undiscipled disciples.
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What Is Worship Music For? 5 Reasons to Sing
Singing has always played a key role in the church’s liturgy. In Old Testament times, King David organized prophet-musicians to glorify Yahweh with lyres, harps, and cymbals (1 Chron 25:1). The apostles of our Lord Jesus sang psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and encouraged their use in the church (Eph 5:19). Song lyrics became the topic of heated disputes in the early Christological and Trinitarian controversies of the church, and they’re often a point of contention in contemporary worship wars.
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Easter Sermon Ideas: 40 Passages for Proclaiming the Resurrection
Many have called Easter the Super Bowl Sunday for pastors. It’s the biggest Sunday of the year for churches, with attendance numbers often at their highest. Pastors want to bring their A-game every Sunday—but especially on Easter. Each year, we proclaim the same message: Jesus’s resurrection. But how do we preach the same message year after year without preaching the same sermon year after year?