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When our church gathers for worship on the weekend, I am passionate about preaching the Word to help God's people become more like Christ and reflect God's design for the church. But I'm also concerned about helping nonbelievers understand the Word so that they can see Christ in all of his glory. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, challenges preachers with this observation: "If you speak and discourse as if your whole neighborhood is present eventually more and more of your neighborhood will find their way in or be invited." So what does this look like?

The other day, I received mixed signals on my preaching. First, a young couple told me that they were attracted to our church because of my preaching. An hour later, someone else made it a point to say, “I loved your Father’s Day sermon. It spoke to my heart.” Four hours later, I received an e-mail informing me that a couple was leaving our church. The straw that broke the camel’s back was that the husband thought the Father’s Day sermon was too negative!

About a year and a half ago, we had a weekend at our church where we explored spiritual formation, and Dallas Willard was one of the people who spoke to a group of our leaders.

After he was done, we walked out to the car, and he was just shuffling along, singing to himself a hymn.

What struck me as I watched him was how different he was than what I'm like after I speak. There was nothing inside of Dallas that was asking the questions I tend to gnaw on: "How did I do? What went well? What didn't? Did people like that?" Why do I dwell on such things? Because if they liked it, I can feel good about myself, and I can feed off of that. And if they didn't like it, then that's bad, and I'm kind of sad.

How can male preachers connect with female listeners? This is an urgent issue for preachers who are committed to ministering God’s Word to their people. Preachers communicate truth through personality, but sometimes personality gets in the way – especially in the area of gender. I recently heard a woman say: “I can’t listen to that pastor because he comes across as arrogant.” Another complained: “If I have to listen to one more sports illustration, I’ll scream!” What’s a male preacher to do?

As Pottermania rages at a fevered pitch (with the release of both a new movie and the final book in J.K. Rowling's series), perhaps you are wrestling with what to do as a preacher – if anything at all! The choice is yours, of course, but we thought we would offer a few helpful resources to help you navigate the world of Harry Potter and how it intersects with our own:

An upcoming issue of Preaching Today Audio (Issue #289) features a workshop by John Ortberg on preparing your soul for preaching. Because of limited space on the disc, I had to cut quite a bit of great material. Wonderfully enough, the folks at Leadership have put together an article of some of the material we weren't able to use! Here's something ripe for reflection that Ortberg shared early in the workshop:

The theologian Abraham Kuyper likened the human soul to the tabernacle in the Old Testament. You have an outer court, which is the public domain. That's where you work, where you shop, and where you go to school. Preaching is often done as an outer court activity. I prepare the words ahead of time. I think through what I want to say. I'm very aware of the fact that I'm doing this as a public activity.

You also have an inner court. This is the place where you invite family, friends, and people that you love deeply. You share a deeper level of your life in the inner court. Not everybody gets to the inner court, certainly not your whole church.

This Sunday I’ll begin exploring topics developed in Proverbs 10-31. My sermon is titled “Living Out God’s Wisdom in Your Words.” While Bruce Waltke argues that verbal and thematic threads (poetics) give preachers a reason to exposit sections like 10:1-16 or 26:1-12, I still concur with Tremper Longman who argues that the proverbs in chapters 10-31 are arranged in a more or less random fashion (with obvious exceptions like 31:1-9 or 31:10-31). But this approach of pulling together and then presenting the various proverbs on a given topic – words, relationships, wealth, etc. – raises a vital question. How do you make your sermons from Proverbs 10-31 do more than dispense good advice or offer help for self-improvement?

Last Sunday, I preached Proverbs 8. What a magnificent chapter! As I reflect on the sermon, I’m aware that it accomplished a double-duty. Its main duty, of course, was to expose the meaning of the text and apply this meaning so that hearers can participate effectively in Jesus’ mission to the glory of God. But my sermon did something else. It did what all sermons do – for better or for worse!

In one church that I pastored, we had one large family with a divorced father who struggled with drunkenness. He had a warm and humble spirit, and I liked him very much. When he came to church,

A few years ago, I overheard a pastor say, “I don’t spend a lot of time studying. That’s why I went to seminary.” Yet Paul offers this challenge in 1 Timothy 4:15-16a: “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely.” The term “progress” sets the expectation that pastors will keep advancing. The people they serve will see growth in their doctrine (literally, their teaching) and in the Christian life from which it flows. My question for today is, what can you do to make progress as a preacher/teacher of Scripture?

FaithVisuals has just posted a provocative interview with Shane Hipps (author of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church). The conversation is guided by this centering question: "Is video technology in church manipulative?" At the midway point, Hipps – who has a history in the world of marketing and advertising – makes this observation about the use of media:

Visual multimedia are probably the favorite medium of the greatest manipulators in world history: advertisers. And I know because I was one! One of the things we discovered was that the absolute best way to move people against their better judgment was through emotion, not reason. Everything we did was to try and give emotional experiences, evoke emotional impressions, and basically ignore the nuts and bolts of the superiority of our product.

Paul’s counsel in 1 Timothy 4:16 is critical for preachers in the 21st century: Watch your life and doctrine closely. The people to whom you preach must see your progress in these areas (4:15b). Let’s focus on the first area today. The expression “your life” in 4:16 is literally “yourself.” This reflects Paul’s exhortation in 4:7 to train yourself for godliness. Preachers who pay attention to their lives will provide examples in the areas of speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity (4:12). So what can you do to watch over your life and make progress in it?

I’ve driven over 5100 miles during the last two weeks of family vacation. Miles pile up when you drive from the Chicago area to eastern Oregon via Montana and Idaho! I spent some of the miles reflecting on life and ministry. Part of this reflection took me back to a Scripture passage which captured my attention as a young preacher. I’m referring to 1 Timothy 4:11-16. It seems that God’s Spirit is prompting me to revisit it again. As a preacher in mid-life, I need it more than ever!

Preaching Today: Could you tell us a bit about your planning process for preaching?

Leith Anderson: Each July, I plan the following year's preaching schedule, including titles, texts, themes, sermon summaries, benedictions, and thematic elements for the services. Once that's determined, the elders and pastors of Wooddale are free to comment on the planned year. With a mostly finished product in hand, then, I create a folder for each sermon. Throughout the year, materials are added to the folder, building up a reservoir of commentary notes, illustrations, pertinent articles, and other creative ideas.

I’ve been in Idaho the last few days for a family reunion. On Sunday, July 1, I attended a worship service at a small church in northern Idaho. My father-in-law, James Perkins, was the guest preacher. At age 80, he still preaches two or three times a month. It was a privilege to learn from him. God’s Spirit used the sermon to encourage and challenge me. James’ sermon also reinforced a couple of convictions I hold as a preacher – convictions about what it takes to preach sermons which God’s Spirit uses to encourage and challenge listeners.