Random Thoughts about Preaching and Being Preached To
Canadian Christian writer and blogger Tim Challies has put together some “random thoughts” on preaching and being preached to –
“There are few matters more foundational to pastoral ministry than preaching, and few matters more common to the Christian experience than being preached to. Most pastors will preach thousands of sermons over the span of their ministry, and most congregants will listen to thousands of sermons over the span of their lifetime. This means we should think about preaching often and well!
In this article, I’ve simply collected some random thoughts on the subject and have alternated them so that half are for the ones preaching the sermons and the other half are for the ones listening to them. …”
Here are extracts from the first four –
“In my experience, sermons tend to grow in quality more by subtraction than by addition. Often, one of the best things a preacher can do to improve his sermon is to strip away 20 or 25% of his content as a final step in the preparation process. …
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Being obviously attentive as you listen to a sermon can be a great gift to the preacher. The preacher gains more than you may think from your looks of appreciation (or disgust), your attentive eyes (or tired ones), and your quiet amens (or groans). …
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The appropriate length, style, and format of a sermon can change over time and between contexts. We should expect that sermons preached at an Anglican Church in Sydney, a Baptist Church in Topeka, and a Dutch Reformed church in Cape Town will differ in many ways. … The challenge of any preacher is to preach the sermons that are suited to his congregation and not some other.
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It is good to listen to a sermon with an open Bible … the preacher assumes you will have an open Bible so you can follow along with him. This is difficult to do when you did not bring one or will not open it. …”
– Be encouraged to take the time to read and ponder them.
How to put together ‘an excellent’ funeral
This week from The Pastor’s Heart –
“Not every funeral is great. Sometimes they go too long, sometimes the gospel is not clear, sometimes the content overlaps.
How do you create a funeral service that God would be pleased with, connects well with people, honours the deceased and serves the bereaved?
• David Cook is former Principal of Sydney Missionary and Bible College,
• Sandy Grant is Dean of St Andrew’s Cathedral Sydney, and
• Gary Coleman is former Chaplain to the Motor Racing Industry.”
– Watch here. Some very helpful advice.
Recommended:
At a Time Like This – Some answers for loss and grief by Simon Manchester.
Judging the Unrighteous — Exclusion from the kingdom of heaven
From Phillip Jensen –
“If ever there is a passage of the Bible that has caused controversy and division today, it is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
There is not much doubt as to what the passage says or means, yet the application of this passage in the church and in society has led to great conflict.
In today’s episode, Peter outlines something of the background of the conflict within the Anglican Communion over the last two decades, before we turn to the real pastoral importance of this passage in the lives of the leaders.”
– Peter and Phillip Jensen discuss this very sobering topic at Two Ways News.
Preaching to Meet the Need
At The Expository Preaching Trust, Bob Thomas remembers the preaching of Graham Miller (pictured) as an example to consider and follow –
“Dr Graham Miller, friend and mentor of many young ministers in his day, and now in Glory, told a group of us once that he never had queues of people lining up at the Manse door to seek counselling or ask questions – and he attributed this to the fact that he was answering their questions in his preaching.
Those of us who sat under his preaching could testify that it was profoundly simple and simply profound, firmly tied to the passage of Scripture he was expounding in careful detail as he preached serially through a book of the Bible, and that it did indeed do what he claimed it did – answered peoples’ questions along the way and to their satisfaction. …”
Photo: Banner of Truth.
(Some of Graham Miller’s audio messages, recorded in 1959, can be found here.)
321: Seeing Life Clearly
From The Gospel Coalition Australia –
“Glen Scrivener’s How to See Life in 321 is a unique contribution to the plethora of evangelistic books available.
In this book, Christian doctrines such as trinity, sin, salvation, and union are given their initial conceptual meaning through simple stories and explanations.
The book and corresponding online course are divided into four sections : ‘Jesus: Our Guide’, ‘God’s Three-ness’, ‘The World’s Two-ness’, ‘Your One-ness’.
Each section comprises two chapters; the first begins with an illustrative story, and the second provides a deeper look at the illustrated idea with personal application.
There is a brief and helpful frequently asked questions section at the back of the book which gives general answers for those who are asking whether Christianity is true. The FAQ answer on divine hiddenness is an important contribution given people no longer assume the existence of God as compared to by people attending a Billy Graham crusade sixty years ago …”
– Jospeh Hewitt enthusiastically reviews Glen Scrivener’s How to See Life in 321.
“If your church is looking a resource to give non-Christians who do not want to read a gospel just yet, How to See Life is probably the pick of the bunch.”
Image: Speak Life’s 321 course.
Australian Journal of Law and Religion — Volume 7
From Associate Professor Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia –
“The latest volume of the Australian Journal of Law and Religion has been published (and is freely available online.)
The Table of Contents is below – always worth reading! In particular I would like to commend the prize-winning essay by Jacob Carson, a former student of mine, on the important issues around teaching of religion in public schools.”
– Read about it (and download your copy) here.
Widows in the household of God
From the Priscilla and Aquila Annual Conference 2026 –
“A deep dive into 1 Timothy 5:3-16.
Working closely through the passage, Lionel Windsor addresses key questions and tensions – how it relates to the rest of Scripture, what it means to honour widows, and how the church is to order its life as God’s family.
The talk highlights the importance of honour, responsibility, and care, and challenges the assumptions we often bring to age, family, and independence.
We are reminded that the church is not simply a gathering of individuals, but a household shaped by God’s word – where men and women are called to honour one another and live out the implications of the gospel together.”
Church in Wales — Weighed in the balance and found wanting
“The Governing Body of the Church in Wales faced an important test this week.
It was a test of their commitment to inclusivity and the respect of individual conscience. It was a test which revealed far more about the future for faithful Anglicans in the Church in Wales than the vote that came later.
The challenge came in the form of a procedural motion. It was merely a request that the vote on the Bill to incorporate an order of service of blessing same-sex relationships into their Book of Common Prayer should be taken by ballot, rather than the usual show of hands. For those unfamiliar with the way Governing Body does its business, a counted vote requires individuals to hold their voting card up to be counted. There is no option for electronic voting and no formal record is made of how individuals voted.
It should not have been controversial. …
Faithful Anglicans in Wales are used to putting up with being being scorned and marginalised. They will now need to come to terms with the fact that the much vaunted conscience clause is limited to an individual’s right not to ‘participate in a service.’ It does not stretch to being able to have nothing to do with such services. If asked, clergy must enable a service of blessing to take place by passing the couple on to the diocesan bishop, or ensuring that another member of their team, or a visiting clergy person, offers the service. Lawyers clarified too that clergy, or congregations, cannot refuse to allow their buildings to be used to bless what they believe God cannot bless.”
– Anglican Futures has published this opinion piece on this week’s meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales.
Related:
Evangelicals ‘need prayers’ after Church in Wales votes to make same-sex blessings permanent – Christian Today.
The liturgical shape of authentic Anglicanism
Original published in The Australian Church Record’s Easter 2026 Journal, Andrew Leslie reflects on authentic Anglicanism –
“When you look beyond the Sydney Diocese at national or global Anglicanism—and you can get a glimpse of this within the Sydney Diocese too—you might imagine that the denomination is so diverse in liturgy, in theology, and in practice, that defining ‘Anglican’ could be like asking, how long is a piece of string? And you’d be right.
In the face of that reality, it might be tempting just to sit on your hands, or throw them up in the air, or perhaps even make a virtue of the increasingly fragmented, almost totally amorphous comprehensiveness of global Anglicanism—as if to be authentically Anglican amounts to little more than ‘everyone does as they see fit in their own eyes’, to borrow from the book of Judges!
Forty or fifty years ago, people would often try to solve the riddle by saying that at least the denomination has some kind of global coherence through communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. But now even that’s no longer a given. …”
Image: Archbishop Thomas Cranmer by Gerlach Flicke.
Judgement of the Unrighteous
From Phillip Jensen –
“1 Corinthians 6 opens with a very challenging issue of disputes within the congregation. The Corinthians seem to have blown up these minor disputes into lawsuits against each other.
This raises for us a plethora of issues about resolving disputes inside the church and when it is appropriate and right to take issues beyond the church into public law courts.
I’m sure you will find this issue as complex as Peter and I discovered in our conversation.”
– Listen to Phillip and Peter discuss – at Two Ways News.
JUST WAR & the US, Israel, Iran and Ukraine – with John McClean, Rob Smith & Grant Dibden
From The Pastor’s Heart –
“How should Christians think about war? How does the Biblical Framework of Just War help us understand how we should react to what is happening in the Ukraine, Iran, Israel and south Lebanon.
We go back to first principles drawing on the work of Augustine of Hippo Thomas Aquinas – asking when is it right to go to war — and how must war be conducted? And how do those principles evaluate what’s happening in today’s conflicts?
Joining us are:
• John McClean, Vice Principal of Christ College Sydney,
• Rob Smith, theologian and ethicist and
• Grant Dibden, Anglican Bishop to the Australian Defence Force.
Together we explore how Just War thinking has shaped Western military ethics and whether it is quietly being sidelined.
Plus we examine what the Just War doctrine says about individuals conduct in war, in light of the controversy surrounding Australian Soldier Ben Roberts-Smith.
And how should Christians respond when the emotional weight of real-world conflict hits close.”
Are you a stalled learner?
At SydneyAnglicans.net, Russell Powell speaks with Col Marshall about his new book, Warriors of the Word –
“The premise of the book is that I observe in my own life, and in others – particularly through those mid-years of being Christian – a stalling that takes place, some stagnation. Having learned a lot as a younger Christian, possibly, been involved in church life, even led in various ways. But feeling like it’s all a bit dry and repetitive and not learning much more.
So I wanted to unpack what causes that stalling and then what to do about it around the theme of learning Christ, seeing that that’s the focus of who we are, knowing our Saviour, knowing our Lord. …”
And you can order the book from Matthias Media.
King’s Birthday Conference 2026 set for Monday 8th June
Save the date – From Two Ways Ministries –
“We are only two months away from our annual King’s Birthday Conference!
As in previous years, KBC 2026 will be held on the public holiday Monday, 8 June, from 1:30 -5:00pm at Moore Theological College.
Mark your calendar and stay tuned for more information about registration.”
Revelation 12 and Easter
Mark Powell at AP, the Australian Presbyterian online journal writes,
“It’s easy to become so familiar with the person and work of Jesus that we fail to appreciate the cosmic significance which it had. In particular, what did Christ’s person and work look like from a heavenly perspective? This is where Revelation 12 is so helpful with its ‘unveiling’ regarding the true spiritual significance of what took place in history approximately 2000 years ago.
While I’m sure not many preachers would choose this particular part of God’s Word to preach on at Easter, Revelation 12 has often been viewed by scholars as ‘the centre and the key to the entire book’. In short, as Greg Beale summarises: ‘As a result of Christ’s victory over the devil God protects the messianic community against the Devil’s wrathful harm’.
That’s a message which surely goes to the heart of what the Gospel is all about! Too many preachers shy away from the book of Revelation, so I would like to exhort us to lean into its contents as a powerful way of preaching the victory of Jesus who is the Christ. …”
One thousand people got baptised in Perth on Good Friday. Why?
Steve McAlpine wants us to notice what is happening –
“Most Easter holidays the Swan River would be filled with the sounds of jet-skis and power-boats. This Good Friday, the sound of singing and prayer. There, against the backdrop of those aforementioned skyscrapers, Jesus was proclaimed, no doubt to many a curious onlooker.
Now this does not mean that across the Western world the Sunday roads are blocked as people race off to worship God.
The churches may not be full, the Quiet Revival data may be flawed, but if you’ve been watching this thing for three decades and only seen a trickle of gospel interest, then suddenly BOOM!, you know for sure that something is happening. This is not wish-fulfilment. …”
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…