For preachers with ears to hear and eyes to see, good stories are all around us.

For preachers, the inspirational element of good stories is particularly vital. But how do they do it?

People enjoy listening to stories. We probably should tell stories. But why? What is it about stories that resonates and how can we tell them better?

Speaking a specific message of grace in the Absolution is a chance to bring the healing balm of the Gospel not just to generic ills, but to the particular pain point exposed by the Law on this day.

As we “seed” the sermon, we see week-by-week how the creative act is finally not ours at all. Though we can do our level best to prepare the soil, the words and thoughts and ideas take root and bear fruit according to gracious forces well beyond our control.

More than once, as I have listened while driving, this podcast prompted me to pull over in order to make some notes.

Those fifteen minutes in the pulpit are a labor of love on behalf of God’s people. You are trying to cook up something that will satisfy, if not delight, and not just homiletic milkshakes but solid, Scriptural steaks.

In the pulpit a preacher who is making eye contact, preaching by heart, speaking “to” you and not merely “at” you, you feel like you can trust this guide.

The castaway senses he needs something more. And what he needs more, much more, than mere help with acclimating himself to life on the island is a message which transcends the island.

Preaching ought, therefore, to be regarded not as the second-class stepsister to academic theology, but as its pioneering elder brother.

Whenever you preach the Word of God, with whatever preparation, it is evermore the Spirit who preaches.

Too often sermons are like treadmills: Lots of work that takes us nowhere. Better for your sermon to be like an escalator: Move your people onward and upward in faith.