Compromise on the Scriptures, and a church has nothing to offer. Dare to preach the Gospel boldly and not shy away from graciously addressing difficult subjects, and the church seems to grow.

As preachers we need to help people see the simplicity of life, while addressing the complexity of life.

The challenge, in every season, is the same: to resist the temptation to reshape our calling around what is easier, safer, or more rewarding.

Christian faith isn’t grounded in a sanitised, sentimental version of events; but in the stark reality that God became flesh and bore the full weight of human brokenness to bring us life.

We may fool ourselves with the veneer we add, but Jesus knows our hearts, and he knows what is best for us.

At its core, repentance is relational. True repentance does involve a turning from sin, but that turning becomes a fruit of our turning to God.

Guarding your first love isn’t about going back to square one. It’s about moving forward with your heart fully surrendered to Him.

As we head into 2026, let’s prayerfully consider both our inability to influence and control everything and our desires for what we can shape about the year ahead.

When Christmas so saturates our understanding of everything that we dwell closely with the God who wants to dwell with us, when we preach we will be able to represent him better than ever before.

Surely our churches need to be encouraged to be good hearers of God’s Word as it is preached to them. But that same encouragement must also be pointed our way. 

Let’s be sure to bring the most real concerns of our time to the Christmas story and find in it a Saviour who has learned what it is to be human.

Pray for each other, spend time with each other. Just because a handful of people take turns in the pulpit does not mean you have a preaching team.

We should preach topically. But it shouldn’t be our default. And when we do it, let’s be sure to really let the texts be in charge of the message.

Let’s read God’s Word and let it lift our eyes and our hearts. We have a God who has stepped into time and history and who will again.

It is the preaching of a passage that has saturated the heart and mind and life and preparation of the preacher.

The fruit of the grace of God is not merely legal, as amazing as that is, it is relational too.

Too many preachers are worth less than a fig because they are simplistic, or so complex that the gold seems hard to mine. 

You can’t be a disciple from a distance. You can’t be disciple from merely observing externals. It takes that close relational bond to make the process work.

Pour out all the angst that is built up inside until there is nothing left.  And then ask yourself, is the fire still burning in my heart and shut up in my bones?  

Expository preaching should come from a passion for God’s inspired and relevant Word to be communicated clearly to specific people that they might respond to Him.

Here are my thoughts about some of the things people are saying about the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Let us be preachers who do not shy away from the work involved in our ministry, but let us also be preachers who never fail to pray at every stage in the process.

How can we have confidence in the Lord, strengthening our hearts as we wait for Him? 

We need to lean fully into God’s Spirit to do what our best efforts can never do, to transform us and our listeners as we preach the Word.

Some preachers use the text as a launching point – they read the text and then preach an associated thought from their own thinking or theology.