In Preaching Articles: "First Things First"

If Your Church Is Drifting And Stuck, Should You Try To Change It From Within?

By Jonathan Herron on Jan 12, 2022

What do you do if you’re a frustrated support staff member of a visionless church? Do you try to change things from within?

Tags: Church and change, church planting, Church Death, pastoral leadership

Promote Jesus: Not Personality, Professionalism, Or Brand

By Joe Hoagland on Jan 18, 2022

The church can learn a lot from worldly business and marketing trends but many times churches and church leaders end up promoting the wrong thing.

Tags: Jesus, focus on GOD, Pastoral Character, church marketing

A Preaching Q&a With David Platt

By David Platt on Feb 15, 2025

Michael Duduit interviews David Platt about his sermon prep process and the most important things he has learned about preaching over the years.

Tags: Preaching, Learning, preaching

8 Ways To Make Your Church More Accessible

By Rod Arnold on Mar 14, 2025

Here are some smart, practical things you can do to connect with more people in your community and give them a chance to get to know your church.

Tags: Love, Forgiveness, Church, Compassion, Preaching, Together, Church General, Evangelism How To, preaching, church, love  (view more)  (view less)

Dangerous Assumptions That Will Kill Your Message

By Dr. Larry Moyer on Jun 22, 2021

Assuming the wrong things can cost us our audience. There are five dangerous assumptions in preaching. The damage they do may vary, but the fact that they are costly does not.

Scripture: 1 John 4:1-7

Tags:

Why Authentic Preaching Could Be A Trap

By Maurilio Amorim on May 15, 2020

Maurillo Amorim: "I hope we are not creating a culture that encourages people to be authentic about their sins but excuses them from doing the hard work of making things right."

Tags: Preaching, preaching

Do You Know Your Pulpit Blind Spots?

By Sherman Haywood Cox on Feb 13, 2023

Are you preaching the same thing over and over again but don't know it? Sherman Cox offers practical steps to avoid this often overlooked preaching rut.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:13

Tags: Preaching, preaching

Have You Fallen Into The 'passionate Preaching Trap'?

By Josh Reich on Dec 26, 2019

If you aren't careful, you will only preach on the things you find important...and you'll end up missing an enormous part of your church.

Scripture: Acts 2:1-13

Tags: Preaching, Spirit led, exegesis, preaching

7 Biblical Helps For Preaching On Divorce And Remarriage

By Kevin Deyoung on Sep 4, 2025

Kevin DeYoung: "The hard thing is to take a few biblical principles about marriage, divorce and remarriage and then try to apply them prayerfully and wisely to a thousand different situations."

Scripture: Mark 10:1-12, Isaiah 37:1-20

Tags: Preaching, Divorce, Principles, Remarriage, preaching  (view more)  (view less)

This Killed Kodak And It's Coming To Your Church

By Karina Kreminski on Apr 11, 2024

It saddens me that some people see the need for change in the church, yet God’s people keep doing the same thing as if minor tweaking will stop the decline of the Western church.

Tags: Transformation, Culture, Missional, church culture, culture  (view more)  (view less)

How To Avoid Settling For Good Enough Ministry

By SermonCentral .com on Apr 5, 2022

You can take a stand against “good enough ministry” in your church with a simple practice adopted from the business world: writing down how things should be done.

Tags: church organization, Excellence, details, church and business

Keep Learning To Lead: Five Practical Lessons

By Gavin Ortlund on Apr 29, 2022

Leadership is hard. I rank it up there with pain, parenting, and preaching as one of those things in life that we never fully master, but only hope to keep learning over a lifetime.

Scripture: John 13:15-16, John 16:12

Tags: Teamwork, Leadership General, servant leadership, Jesus' leadership

Top 10 Healthy Ways To Handle The Church Critic

By Charles Stone on Aug 17, 2022

“Two things you can’t avoid in ministry are…people late to the service and … church critics.” In this short post, I suggest 10 ways to handle the church critic.

Tags: church ministry, loving enemies, Disarming, criticism, Criticism, patience, offense, pastoral leadership, Pastoral Ministry  (view more)  (view less)

John Piper: Bible-Oriented Preaching Or Entertainment?

By John Piper on Aug 24, 2024

"There are few things that burden me more or refresh me more than saying what I see in the Bible. I love to savor it. And I love to say it."

Scripture: John 17:20

Tags: Scripture, Preaching, Entertainment, preaching

Allowing The Spirit To Take Control Of Your Sermon

By Leslie Holmes on Apr 17, 2025

Somewhere inside most of us who preach lingers the need to be in control. It's what we do best, but being in control is the worst thing we can be when it comes to preaching!

Tags: Holy Spirit, Preaching, Triune, Holy Spirit General, preaching  (view more)  (view less)