Preachers' Posts

03/15/2024

A preacher has dedicated his entire life to God and the church. He spends his time studying God’s word, thinking about God’s word and trying to figure out how to convince everyone else that the church is our priority and that everything else is filler. He reminds you not to let the filler, the people things we do, distract you from what we’re really here for. He knows that the church is our only way to make it to heaven. It is more important than family, than events, than vacations, than sports, than education, than any plans we think we have for the future. He encourages you to be involved in the works the congregation affords because it will help you grow spiritually. He wants you to make the “optional” church events a priority because being together as brethren matters. He is somewhat saddened when you choose not to participate. He wants you to spend your time with your brethren. He pushes you to study for yourselves. He worries that the only Bible many are learning is what they hear from him. He truly loves each soul and wants to help them, even when they resent him for making them feel uncomfortable about their choices. He knows who the people that resent him are and he is still kind to them. He gets unsolicited advice about his job from those who have never been in his shoes. He worries about the fishbowl his family lives in. He puts off asking for physical needs because he would rather get a “yes” about his ideas that would help the local congregation and promote the truth. There is so much more...

When a preacher’s wife writes this kind of thing, some will assume it is pointed at their personal congregation and get offended. This is written from years of experience serving alongside many congregations. It is written because of the many conversations I have had with other preachers and their wives. Take it for what it is intended to be: helpful.

A preacher is a man who loves God more than most. I didn’t say you don’t love God, I said he loves God more than most and he is trying his hardest to convince you to do the same. But he is a man just the same and he needs the same mercy extended for his flaws that you want for your own. You probably see his flaws more often than he sees yours. Love him, encourage him, check on him. He’s only trying to help you get to heaven.

Holly McCormack - preacher’s wife

11/07/2022

Preachers care about souls. Preachers agonize over how to reach people with the precious good news of salvation. Many will reject the warnings and demand soft-serve moral teaching without a call for change or commitment. But others will receive that word and know that they must change and obey the gospel. Preachers are instruments of God (Rom. 10:14-15) who preach the truth not out of spite, but out of love. If your preacher teaches the truth and loves the lost take a few moments today and let him know how much you appreciate him for that. (Thanks to Michael D. Greene for posting this quote from John T. Lewis earlier.) Life is good. God is very good!

From Mike Baker

07/08/2022

Preachers often seek validation from people, when they should be seeking it from the Lord!

07/08/2022

To my preacher friends: Regardless of the responses that come from our efforts Sunday, my hope is that when we stand in the pulpit to preach God's Word that we did our best and that God was glorified by our words!

03/16/2022

05/15/2020

Quote on Preaching:

“I preach as a dying man to dying men as if never to preach again.”

— Richard Baxter

05/15/2020

Quote on Preaching:

“Don’t go to the pulpit unless you are prepared.”

— Marlin Connelly. Brother Marlin recently passed away. He preached the Gospel for many years.

05/15/2020

Quote on Preaching:

“He who does the Lord’s work without talking to the Lord tries to do the Lord’s work without the Lord’s help.”

— James Meadows

09/23/2019

What I Love About Being A Preacher
Neal Pollard
I am in a preacher-family. My father has preached for 55 years, still doing it every week despite being retired. My brother has been preaching for over 20 years. My brother in law has been preaching over 25 years. Now, my three sons preach. God has blessed me with the opportunity to preach since 1987 in Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Colorado, and now Kentucky, working full-time in all but the first state. One of my mentors, the late Wendell Winkler, urged us to "live to preach" rather than merely "preaching to live." I have to say that I love the life of preaching. It is truly a holistic experience.
Each day holds new opportunities in such a diverse array. Many days, the plans of the day are upstaged by unexpected circumstances. It may take you to the hospital, may bring you a counseling situation, may lead you to a Bible study, may mean making an unanticipated visit, or may wind up with a religious discussion. You may write an article as the result of some study or question. Your personal study may bleed into Bible class and preaching material. It is an ongoing, ever-changing life that constantly enriches the preacher. For rigid schedule-keepers, there is the opportunity to grow through the flexibility inevitable to the personal work of the preacher. For the undisciplined, there is the opportunity to grow through the focus indispensable for the productivity of the preacher.
By submitting to these multi-faceted occasions, a man is afforded so much ability to grow. We can grow in our ability to relate to others, grow in our efforts to reach lost souls, grow in our love for the church and her members, and grow in our talent to preach and teach the gospel. But, the man who does all this from a pure heart fervently gains something that overshadows everything else. He will come to rely on his God and forge a real, ever-closer relationship with Him. This, in turn, sustains the preacher in the escalating challenges of doing this eternally-impacting work.
I have often said that there is no greater work than preaching. The preacher will be disappointed by himself and by others, but never by God. Despite the disappointments, he has the prospect of a joy I truly believe cannot be found in any other occupation. I love getting to experience that anew throughout my life, and it has gotten sweeter through the years.

08/21/2018

I was present at MSOP for this seminar. I was very enjoyable and so I want to share it with you.

Tom Holland Preaching Seminar

03/23/2018

OBSERVATIONS AFTER 50 YEARS OF LOCAL PREACHING

At the end of 2011 I completed 50 years of local preaching. Recently I thought about changes that have taken place over those years. Gospel meetings have changed. Some of my first meetings in the early sixties lasted eleven days and included two Sundays. In those days we stayed in homes of members and had breakfast, lunch and dinner with a different family each day. Other changes have taken place such as more and more preachers are becoming elders. Forty years ago we were afraid to make a preacher an elder for fear he would take over the congregation. Preachers are staying longer in congregations. It was just accepted that a preacher would stay two or three years and then move to another congregation. Now it is not uncommon for a preacher stay in one congregation for 10, 15 years or longer. However, some things have not changed in 50 years. Here are some of those:

1. The Bible hasn’t changed. It is still the powerful word of God (Heb. 4:12). It is still the lamp to our feet and light to our path (Ps. 119:105). The Bible will still keep us from sin (Ps. 119:11). The message of the Bible is just as relevant as ever. It will teach us what to do to be saved (1 Cor. 15:1-4) and how to love one another (1 Cor. 13). “Forever, O Lord thy word is settled in heaven” (Ps. 119:89).

2. The world hasn’t changed. Men are still sinful (Ecc. 7:20; Rom. 3:10, 23). Read Romans chapter one and see if things are any different today. Men still rejected the creator and exalt men – this is the humanism we see around us today. S***m and Gomorrah were wicked cities (Gen. 18 & 19). Do we not see the same today as homosexuality is becoming more rampant?

3. People haven’t changed. Men are still greedy and covetous (Lk. 12). Some are unkind, rude and crude.

4. The faithfulness of good brethren hasn’t changed. It is wonderful to see the wonderful works of congregations and good Christians (1 Pet. 4:16). Paul describes some of them in Romans 16. We have Christians today who faithfully give themselves to the work of the Lord. Faithful gospel preachers who mount the pulpit each Sunday and preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.

5. Opportunities to preach the gospel haven’t changed. It is easier today to carry out the preaching of the gospel but the opportunities are there as they were fifty years ago. Since men are lost without Christ then we must follow his example (Lk. 19:10).

It’s wonderful to be a gospel preacher.

Larry

08/30/2017

OLD SCHOOL

We were having a light supper with one of the elders and his wife in their magnificent home one Sunday night after church. Another elder and his wife had been invited to join us. We were seated at the table, enjoying delicious food and delightful conversation. Suddenly, the wife of the other elder said to me, “Hugh, I think your preaching is a little bit old style. I think you need to update your preaching.” To say the least, I was taken aback.

We had been with the congregation only a few months, but I had been preaching for thirty years, twenty-five as a full-time minister. I had already served several excellent congregations of Christ and had always had good, successful works everywhere I had preached. I guess I was so naïve that I had not thought all that much about my “style” of preaching, though I realized different preachers had different ways of presenting their lessons, some more effectively than others. I had always tried to be thoughtful, gracious, poised, dignified, kind, and yet courageous in my preaching—and, above all, Biblical! I tried never to enter the pulpit unprepared, though I would be the first to admit that, like any other preacher, my sermons were not all of equal quality, nor did all of them always resonate with everyone in the audience. Rare is the preacher who can please all of the members of his congregation.

I had always preached (and still preach) with the conviction that the power is in the message (the gospel), not in the messenger, and that the word of God has within it the power to convict, to convert, to instruct, to admonish, and to comfort those who hear it. Upon questioning, the critical elder’s wife could not name anything unscriptural that I had preached. Unknown to me at the time was the fact that her unmarried daughter was chasing the husband of one of our members, but her concern was not in seeking help for her daughter’s sinful lifestyle, but in chiding me for my preaching style! Perhaps she felt that some of my preaching was striking a bit closer to home than she would like. I don’t know.

More recently I heard a gospel preacher and Bible professor in an informal interview with another preacher refer to some preachers as “old school.” I suppose he meant by that the same thing the elder’s wife meant by “old style.” Some people seem to think that “new school” preachers need to use a lot of humor and contemporary human interest stories in their preaching. I am not opposed to illustrative stories in preaching, even humorous stories, and have been known to use them myself, but I am convinced that some preachers are frustrated comedians. They need to decide which they want to be—preachers or comedians. Most of them do a poor job of being either when they try to be both! Charles Spurgeon, the famous Baptist preacher, is reported to have once said, “A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.”

I am all for relevance in preaching. I am all for being fresh in one’s manner/style of presentation. I am all for preachers examining their manner of presentation and being willing to adapt to the times, but not at the expense of abandoning truth. I am all for addressing current, “cutting edge” issues, but not at the expense of forsaking “the old paths” (Jeremiah 6:16)! And I understand “the old paths” to be any matter addressed in the word of God that mankind is perennially in need of. God’s word is always “cutting edge” (cf. Hebrews 4:12)!

It is my duty (and the duty of every man who calls himself a gospel preacher) to follow the example of the apostle Paul who said, “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26-27). I have honestly endeavored to do that throughout my life as a preacher (now extending to almost 65 years), and I intend to continue to do that. But in doing so, I run the risk of being told (as I was by a fellow who worked with me on a television program in the same city where the incident in paragraph one occurred) that I am too “Bible-y”!

“Old style”? “Old school”? What about Bible style? What about being schooled in the Bible and preaching it?

“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (II Timothy 4:1-5, NASB).
Hugh Fulford
August 29, 2017

06/22/2017

Sharing this from Chris Hurley

Who ministers to the minister? Many times the preacher can feel like he’s all alone on a deserted island, left to deal with the stresses and strains of ministry in isolation. He may have a wife he can turn to, but he doesn’t feel…

06/21/2017

From WVBS - Curtis Cates, "Passion For Souls"

06/21/2017

From WVBS - Maxie Boren, "Building Bridges in the Church!"

This sermon is presented by Maxie Boren as part of the Gospel Preachers Living History Series. This sermon was one of his favorite to deliver. Maxie Boren faithfully served the Lord's church for many years, so please enjoy 'Building Bridges in Church.'

06/21/2017

Need some more articles from preachers on "What Preaching Means to Me?"

06/21/2017

"If I could live a thousand lifetimes, I'd want to be a preacher in every one of them." Gus Nichols

03/24/2017

THE JOY OF PREACHING
B. J. Clarke
There are many honorable professions, but no profession offers any greater joy and fulfillment than that of preaching. There are many joyous reasons why you should consider becoming a gospel preacher:
(1) Preachers know the joy of turning men from vanities to the living God (Acts 14:15). We have a message of hope for those who are living in emptiness. The joy of preaching is to draw men to the living God (John 6:44-45) and the gift of eternal life He offers (Rom. 6:23).
(2) The joy of preaching is to bring glad tidings of good things to our
hearers (Rom. 10:15). There is enough bad news. The Gospel is good news that a Savior came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).
(3) Preachers know the joy of helping to save them that believe (1 Cor. 1:21). “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God…the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 3:23; 6:23). Yet, it pleased God to reveal salvation through preaching (1 Cor. 1:18-25). What a joy it is to help the lost to find their way to God!
(4) The joy of preaching is to offer peace by Jesus Christ to those who have no peace. The preacher is devoted to “preaching peace by Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:36; Rom. 5:1-2)!
(5) Preachers know the joy of proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8). Christ became poor so that we might be spiritually rich (2 Cor. 8:9). The joy of the preacher is to explain how men and women can become joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17).
(6) The joy of preaching is to help present every man perfect in Christ Jesus (Col. 1:28). If we faithfully preach God’s message, then we anticipate the time when we, and those converted by our preaching, will receive the crown of life (2 Tim. 4:6-8), and enter the heavenly kingdom (2 Tim. 4:18; Tit. 2:13).
All of these joys can be yours if you decide to preach the gospel.
His servant and yours,
B. J. Clarke, Director, MSOP