Articles for Pastors

Knowing how to preach well does not come easy. As someone who elevated the sermon to the central position of the worship service, Martin Luther has some interesting perspectives. Here are three hallmarks of his preaching that have heavily influenced the church today.

Challenge your members to live beyond themselves and to discover their strengths and abilities.

"One of the most frequent questions I get is how to keep up with culture. My stock answer is to read voraciously. Then the follow-up comes: How can I become a better reader?"

"The good news is that struggling with God is normal. You are not alone."

Rather than placing impossible demands upon vulnerable people from a comfortable distance, we need to become better missionaries.

"I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I became the old guy on our church staff."

"When someone needs approval from others, the person is willing to sacrifice conviction and do anything to earn that approval."

It does little good to use membership as a metric in most studies of large numbers of churches.