October 2011
16 posts
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“I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be...”
– Henri Nouwen
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Telling a good story
Stories are a vital part of every sermon or presentation. They engage the audience on an emotional level in a way that delivering information just can’t do. Here’s some of my ideas about how to tell a really good story.
When I first started preaching a few years ago, I fell into a trip which I think many others fall into. I prepared sermons packed full of important information, but...
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“Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it’s been.”
– Wayne Gretzky
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“While God’s words are eternal and unchanging the tools we use to access those...”
– John Dyer, From the Garden to the City.
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Why I still believe in the sermon
I still believe in the sermon. I know it isn’t necessarily cool or clever these days to think that. In an age when young people and young adults are leaving the church in huge numbers, a lot of people, especially youth workers, have suggested that the old method of preaching is outdated and needs replacing. But I still believe that preaching, when it’s done well, is an art form.
Last week I...
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6 Reasons why young people are leaving the church →
David Kinnaman (author of unChristian) and the Barna Group have just released their latest research, this time interviewing American young people who left the Church after the age of 15. Here are the six main reasons they found for young people / young adults leaving the church:
Churches appear to be overprotective
Their experience of Christianity was shallow
Churches appear to be against...
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The Ten Commandments of Steve →
The news of Steve Job’s death was a huge shock - for our generation he had become an icon of creativity, vision and leadership. The Daily Beast has 10 core ideas that sum how Steve Jobs led Apple into a new age of creativity:
Go for perfect
Tap the experts
Be ruthless
Shun focus groups
Never stop studying
Simplify
Keep your secrets
Keep teams small
Use more carrot than stick
...
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“An evangelical is someone who is transformed by the person and work of Jesus...”
– Kurt Fredrickson - Fuller Theological Seminary
Fredrickson’s is a definition of ‘evangelical’ that I can get excited about.
Check his post out about why the term evangelical has been hijacked by a group of judgemental people with their own agendas, and why we need to recover a...
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5 ideas to make your talk stand out
Every day, the people we lead are bombarded by thousands of advertising messages, videos, images and news items from different sources all competing for their attention. This makes the art of communicating with an audience or congregation that much more difficult and that much more exciting, as we need to find new ways to engage with people.
Here’s five ideas I’ve pulled together over...
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5 reasons to practice silent contemplation and how...
Practicing silent contemplation is something a lot of Christ-followers would associate with old, worn-out, traditional Christianity. I’ve found it to be a hugely significant part of my spiritual life - here’s why I think you should give it a go and how you can get started.
A couple of years ago, I went on retreat to a Catholic monastery, where I found spending time in silence was...
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“It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord left behind...”
– Leslie Newbiggin
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20 points on leading young adults →
Brad Lomenick has this great list of pointers for people working through the challenge of leading young adults (or Millenials - the generation who came of age around the millennium).