Why Leaders Need to Be Readers by Rick Warren -- We need to balance both input and output in ministry to be healthy. You can’t constantly give unless you’re filling up your tank. You can do this through many tools—from reading books to listening to podcasts to participating in conferences. I heard someone once say, [...]

Do You Have the Heart of a Pastor? I want you to think of someone that you believe is a great leader.  Go ahead… think of someone that you respect as a leader.  Have you got their name in your mind?  Now, answer this question.  What qualities do they posses that make them a great [...]

Communicating More Like Jesus: Part 4 By Rick Warren - During this series of blog posts we have discussed how there has never been a more appealing an interesting preacher than Jesus. We looked at two areas: First, Jesus began with people’s needs, hurts, and interests. Jesus usually taught in response to a question or [...]

Communicating More Like Jesus: Part 3 By Rick Warren In part one and two we discussed how there has never been a more appealing and interesting preacher than Jesus and the importance of modeling him when we preach. Jesus began with peoples needs, hurts, and interests. Second, JESUS RELATED TRUTH TO LIFE I love the [...]

Communicating More Like Jesus: Part 2 By Rick Warren In part one we discussed how there has never been a more appealing and interesting preacher than Jesus and the importance of modeling him when we preach. Jesus began with people’s needs, hurts, and interests and our basic message to the lost must be good news. [...]

Communicating More Like Jesus: Part 1 By Rick Warren There has never been a more appealing and interesting Preacher than Jesus. WHY NOT MODEL HIM? Jesus’ preaching attracted enormous crowds, and the Bible often records the positive reactions of those crowds to his teaching. Matthew 7:28b (NIV)...the crowds were amazed at his teaching. Matthew 22:33 [...]

10 Distinctives of Emotionally Healthy Preaching: Part 2 By Pete Scazzero Emotionally Healthy Discipleship impacts preaching in multiple ways. Over a 24-year period, I organized these learnings around a series of ten questions that I ask myself, and others, when preaching a message. In last week’s blog post I introduced the first five questions: 1. [...]

Emotionally Healthy Discipleship impacts preaching in multiple ways. Over a 24-year period, I organized these learning's around ten questions that I ask myself, and others, when preaching a message. In this blog, I deal with the first five of those questions that ensure we make room for God to do His transformative work in us [...]

As we begin the new year we are diving into the practical topic of preaching and teaching God’s Word. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth…”(AMP) [...]

Lights are everywhere this time of year. In Southern California where I live, you’ll see the first lights go up in the early fall as stores start decorating. Then the cities follow by getting theirs up. Finally, as we finish up Thanksgiving leftovers, many of our neighbors are adding Christmas lights to their homes. Christmas [...]