What's the saying? Back In The Saddle?That's what I'll be this Sunday.After two weeks of not preaching, I'm ready to pick Upgrade back up by talking about . . . blood.I can't wait.The Blood Upgrade from Hebrews 9.Sunday.8:30. 10. 11:30.
Now back in the 1990s, I loved Promise Keepers.The stadium worship was authentically full color, the challenge to men was urgently necessary, and the response in our Mt. Carmel congregation was immediate and heartfelt. In our little church and around the world,...
Since I spent yesterday confessing songs to you that I probably shouldn't like but do anyway, I thought I'd fill in some other gaps today.Here are some secrets I should probably keep . . . but just for today, I won't:I wear two pair of socks to work everyday. A...
Every once in awhile, you come across a song that's a guilty pleasure.You secretly love it but you know that if word got out, there would be no end to the ridicule.Well, the word's getting out today. Make fun of me if you must, but please respect my honesty.Here...
If you speak the language of rock guitar, you'll love this video from the Chicago Music Exchange. Two million hits and counting:I'm amazed -- and a little embarrassed -- that I know so few of the riffs after #70.
God is so good.He takes series that I'm not sure about and does much more than I expect.That's been the case with Upgrade.Face it: Hebrews is a difficult book.So the messages have been complex and challenging both to deliver and to digest.And yet people have...
As a lot of you know, I write a sermon manuscript virtually every week.I am able to work several weeks ahead, so while I write one almost every week, it's not the one I'll deliver that coming Sunday. That one, of course, has been written several weeks...
If you've been following this blog at all, you know that I'm an enormous fan of the fiction of Ann Patchett. State Of Wonder and Bel Canto are two of the most beautiful and most engaging novels I've read in years.In The Getaway Car, a little e-reader memoir...
We preachers value the responses that people have to our preaching.After all, most of us didn't go into this so that our words could vanish into thin air, never to be heard, much less considered, again. Yet even the best preachers (so I'm told) get all kinds of...
What form of communication, exactly, is a sermon? Is it written or spoken? Heard or seen? Inspirational, educational, or informational? Is it a work of art or a medium of instruction?Really, does a good sermon elicit the same kind of response...