Illustrations, as their name demonstrates, are not the focus of a sermon’s message but serve to help important points of teaching or application be clarified and understood. They must not distract or confuse, nor should they focus attention on the preacher or alienate hearers from the message. This article about illustrations by Barry York is …

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We clean out our church store-room constantly. The main reason is so that folk can’t give in to the temptation to put materials that have passed their use-by date back into service. In Accidental Preacher Will Willimon writes of an early pastoral appointment in a church that had a Congregation of four hundred accommodated in …

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The temptation to adjust preaching from offering Christ to offering helpful advice about how to live you best life now has an old pedigree. The temptation should be resisted at all costs. We live by the word of God alone. From Accidental Preacher by Will Willimon. I’m old enough to remember when preachers were expected …

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I hope if you hear a sermon tomorrow it does not offer counsel about therapeutic change, but an invitation to spiritual reanimation. From Accidental Preacher by Will Willimon. We mainline, non evangelical, noninvasive preachers pat a congregation on the head as we murmur, “There, there, God loves you as you are. Promise me you won’t …

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