Permanent Relevance (Part 1)

Have you ever heard a church leader say, ‘Beloved, let us aim to be as irrelevant as possible?’ Of course not. Everyone agrees that relevance is important. Like King David, we must “serve the purpose of God” in our “own generation” (Acts 13:36). Like the sons of Issachar, we want...

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How to Spot a Good Sermon (Part 2)

The ‘Big Five’ Criteria for Evaluating Preaching Why is it that some sermons can meet all of the criteria on a typical evaluation (crit’) sheet in a preaching class or homiletics lab, and yet they are boring and ineffective?  And why is it that some of the greatest preachers and...

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How to Spot a Good Sermon (Part 1)

Evaluating sermons has been a favourite pastime of Christians for centuries. Yet despite all our experience, it is still rare to find those who are good at biblically critiquing a sermon – whether their own sermon, or another’s. We are so easily sidetracked by the peripheral concerns over the preacher’s...

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