02/15/2023
Starting this Sunday, I’m going to add a blog to our church web page each week. Though it’s not a novel idea, it is something that’s been tickling my brain for some time now.
There more than a few Sundays when I sit back and look over the week’s sermon and think, “That’s way too long, I’ve got to cut it back.” And because I’ve prayed through, studied, and word-smithed what’s on the page, it’s a lot harder than it should be to give up a scripture, illustration, or an application of God’s word. If you’ve heard me preach, you know that sometimes those things end up being used in the benediction. (I’ve had a few folks say that I have the longest benedictions that they’ve ever heard.) But even then, there’s bound to be something useful that ends up on the study room floor.
This blog is designed to catch those ‘outtakes’ and transform them into a way to follow up on Sunday’s sermon. You’ve heard me talk the talk, but the more relevant question is whether or not we are going to walk the walk. Another way to say it is: How do I go about applying the teaching or preaching I hear each Sunday to my own life and relationships? James says in the first chapter of his letter, verse 22, “Don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.” Or as it is traditionally translated, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”
I could have named the blog something like, If You Want To Take It One Step Further, or Here’s What You Can Do About it, or Never Forget Pastor Appreciation Sunday, but I settled on One More Thing… In the end, that’s what I’d like to offer my flock—one more idea, one more illustration, one more application that will make it easier for you to live out your faith in a confusing and sometimes hostile world. If it does that, then it will be well worth the effort.
May God bless you now with faith, wrapped in hope, and motivated by love—the kind of love we have been given in Christ Jesus.
Archived Posts
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
The Clothes You Wear
Sunday I talked about Joshua the High Priest having his filthy clothing replaced by a cleaned and beautiful garments. I also used the illustration of a boy becomes a dragon—who ‘wears’ dragon scales—and is stripped of those scales in order to be restored to a boy. In fact, I could have done the whole sermon around all the clothing imagery in scripture.
What just missed the cut for Sunday’s Sermon
Naaman’s servants may actually become one of the hidden gems of the sermon. They say, essentially: “If the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.”
One of the Longest Benedictions I Ran Out of Time to Share
Maybe you know the story of how Joseph and Mary accidentally left Jesus at the gas station on their way home from Jerusalem. Well, not the gas station bathroom in Jesus’ case. Joe and Mary are far down the road before they realize Jesus isn’t with them...
So many quips and quotes...
So little time to preach
I wonder what Mary and Martha’s phones might look like:
* Martha = the open browser with 27 tabs
* Mary = the single window that matters
* Psalm 46 = God saying, “Close the tabs.”
Quotable Outtakes That Didn’t Make the Sermon This Week
“When you try to control everything, you don’t just exhaust yourself—you quietly replace trust in God with trust in you.” & more
There is a challenge when it comes to preaching the Word of God.
Preachers are called to open up and interpret the word—inspired and written down thousands of years ago—and make it relevant to a very different world. On top of that there’s a degree of persuasion that goes along with the process.