Walking the Risky Road to the Manger 12.18.2025

    Just about everyone regardless of their faith commitment—whether secular or Christian—thinks of Christmas as a safe time of year. Whether you are more focused on the Biblical nativity stories and their descriptions of Jesus’ birth, or on your Christmas tree and fancy wrapping paper, you likely consider it joyful or at least happy. 

    It is true that some will enter this festive time of year with heavy hearts weighed down by loss or general sadness. Even for them the expectation of happiness, albeit violated, forms part of their angst. No one associates this time of year nor the Child whom we celebrate with any real, tangible, noteworthy risk. In this thinking virtually everyone is wrong. Let me explain why.

    If Jesus is who He claims to be, if these stories are God’s word for us as the historic Church has claimed, if in them we encounter a revelation of God unlike any that we could have imagined or expected, if Jesus is—in fact God in Flesh—then accepting or rejecting, believing or disbelieving, celebrating or dismissing the Christ Child is a very grave matter indeed. 

    Before the Great Church began to celebrate the feast of Christmas it observed the fast of Advent. In the structured anticipation of the coming of Christ there is a tangible recognition that His Advent changes everything. And when everything is being challenged, changed, and chosen anew there is risk. Real risk that we acknowledge every year at Christmas by making this perilous, risky, winding walk to the manger. 

    It has become a cultural expectation. Thanks to Chuck Dickens and a few other hearty souls who recognized the benefits of risky faith it has become embedded in our broader culture in such a way that virtually all unbelievers of any stripe feel oddly comfortable singing Joy to the World, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King!  I’m pretty sure our adversary never saw that one coming. Yet, in his sniveling, conniving way he has managed to twist this beautiful story into a silly caricature of the humble self-giving of the Word. 

    John did not include a nativity story in his Gospel. His story concerns the entry—invasion really of God’s own indomitable Word into human history, our muddled mess of time and space, of evil, worry, and disgrace. He did, in another place, tell the same story in a graphic, symbolic, terrifying fashion. In Revelation 12 the nativity of our memories is envisioned as a vicious dragon stalking a pregnant woman, seeking to destroy the child she carried. When Christians who already knew the story of Jesus’ birth read what John wrote in Revelation 12, it was not very hard to identify the characters. They knew the woman as Mary. They knew the dragon under many names, Rome, Caesar, Herod. And they had long worshipped the Child, the little Lord Jesus—not asleep on the hay but fleeing for His life. 

    God risked everything. Ev-er-y thing. Every single thing, to rescue us from our sin. If you think that you can sidle up to the cradle of the Christ Child and not even risk a splinter, you have not been following the story very closely. 

    Now we’re all in that wilderness. Either we pledge our allegiance to Jesus, or we pledge it to something or someone else. Each of us makes that choice. We either follow and suffer with Him, or we are a part of the dragon horde that began to hound Him in infancy, rejected Him in adulthood, cried for His crucifixion, and then maligned His body the Church. Risk? The term works, but it hardly covers the complexity, the depth, the pathos that faces the contemporary Christian. We are called to sacrificial discipleship. We are called to follow the crucified and risen Christ. Truthfully, there are many who are perfectly satisfied to bow their heads and shed their tears at the manger who will forget all about this Jesus in a few short weeks. So why even brave this walk to the manger if you choose not to follow the one who lay there? 

    The risk is not Santa Claus, the grinch, commercialism, secularism, or even sheer greed. The real risk is apathy. If you care enough to come to Bethlehem and see, if you are brave enough to traverse field and fountain, moor, and mountain—if you ring the bells and join the angels in singing Joy to the World…then for pity’s sake risk a faithful life. The snow’s going to melt. The seasons will change. The manger will be stowed away for another year. Jesus will still be Lord. And you are still going to have to decide. Will you take the risk of faith and continue to walk with the one who was in that Manger? Merry Ho, Ho, Ho, and all that. 

Leaning into the Legend 12.11.2025

    People like a good legend. Sometimes the legends are even (partly) true. Many other legends are grounded in realities which have been in some way been magnified to make a moral point, explain a difficult historical reality, or highlight heroic behaviors. This Sunday I will be using Father Christmas or as we call him in the US Santa Claus, to illustrate my message. This legendary figure is of course grounded in the historic life of Nicolas of Myra—St. Nicolas. 

    It’s easy to complain about focusing on the wrong thing during Christmas. Presents, and trees, and decorations, and cookies and all the other seasonal traditions which define a 21st century Christmas. There was a time that I felt the need to correct, browbeat, cajole, and enlighten everyone about the “true meaning” of this tradition or that. What a silly, pointless, graceless way to behave! If I ever engaged in this behavior with you, I am sorry, please forgive me. 

    I think it is far better to lean into the legends and leverage them for Kingdom purposes. Yes, red-suited Coca Cola Santa is a far cry from the real Nicolas sneaking around at night tossing bags of dowry-gold through the open widows of impoverished families. Yet that spirit of giving informed the evolution of the legendary Santa Claus whose presence (and presents) will be ubiquitous during the holiday season. 

    When we lean into the legends of Christmas, whether Santa, Rudolph, Ralphie, or Frosty we are not compromising our principles but inhabiting our cultural moment. Or perhaps I should say incarnating our cultural moment. That is really the issue. When we participate in all the hall-decking holiday cheer we have a seat at the table and can peel back the opaque wrapping of legend helping people discover the truths we really celebrate at Christmas. When we are gruff and humorless, when we allow our approach to these legendary accouterments of Christmas to be Grinch-driven rather than grace-driven we risk being thought of as cranks and scolds rather than warm and welcoming. During Christmas we don’t want to be the one who slams the door on Santa any more than we would slam to door to the inn on Jesus. To be blunt—no one has a Herod in their Nativity. 

How do we, then, lean into these legends. A couple of thoughts.

Childlike Wonder

    It took me several years to convince my custodial staff to leave the Christmas tree always illuminated in our Church sanctuary during the Christmas season. There is nothing I like more than walking in at 6.50 a.m. On a cold, dark December morning and being greeted by the twinkling lights of the season falling upon the greenery and the faces of the figures in the Nativity. Even at 63 years of age the sights, sounds, and smells of Christmas fill me with joy. 

    When we approach Santa and Rudolph with childlike wonder and lean into the legend, we make connections with those whose hearts sincerely long for something more, something better, something different from the painful realities of life. 

    The legends (fictions if you must) of Christmas can be steppingstones allowing us to broach deeper, spiritual subjects with those who feel discarded and abused by our society. They may not be ready for the truth until they have moved past their pain. The joyful wonder of our holiday celebrations may be the next, necessary step for hurting hearts to find the very real redeeming love of Jesus. 

Choose Whimsy

    I have a Peanuts illuminated sweatshirt my daughter gave me a few Christmases ago. I wore it last Sunday, will likely wear it this Sunday. I can, and mostly do, wear a Christmas tie every day from Thanksgiving to Orthodox Christmas (January 6). I’ve already watched the story of George Bailey, heard Linus Van Pelt recite the Christmas story, and viewed Rudolph. Are these life-changing, destiny defining, character forming toeholds for preaching? Nope. I like these whimsical things, and I choose to do them if only for whimsy’s sake.

    Maybe you like to Christmas Carol or Sled or decorate the exterior of your house. Go for it! Hiding from Christmas and pretending like it’s beneath us or some culturally compromising theological assault on our collective pride doesn’t sound much like Jesus. He was famous for attending wedding feasts and contributing to the catering. 

    Keep it personal, light, friendly, and real. People will be drawn to your Church because you will help them to feel like they are a part of something special. Something that comforts them amid the decay of culture. There will be some people who only sing Christmas Carols at your worship services. Some will only smile this Christmas season because someone at your Church makes them feel warm, welcomed, and loved. Let our Churches be the place that people laugh at Christmas. As people attend your church, become more regular, and start asking questions you can go beyond whimsy and wonder and begin to deal with serious, Biblical and Theological issues. But you cannot have conversations with people who are not there or who have left because you’re simply not approachable. 

Chase Wow

    Parties. Festivities. Hall-decking, Holly-jollies, Ho-Ho-Ho-ing, and wassailing. Go for it. The pattern of evolving Christianity was fasting and feasting. We don’t really practice the former and we misunderstand the purpose of the latter. Chase wow! Not exclusively—not instead of Biblical focus, but as a part of what it means for Christians to celebrate a significant part of the year. 

    Yes, there are limits. There are some things which are inappropriate with respect to time or place, but we need divine distractions to drag us away from the digital delusions that confuse clicks, likes, and followers with the actual wow of life-affirming human experiences. 

    Let’s make the Church the place where people connect. It may be a cookie, a cup of coffee, a carol shared in a darkened sanctuary, or a meal of celebration. Make chasing the wow a part of your Christmas season…or maybe stop using words like “festive.”

Conclusion

    Jesus is not less God because we let children have their pictures taken with Santa Claus or have a family movie night and watch Elf. If your Gospel is that fragile you probably never take it out for a spin anyway. A message that can be harmed by a child’s joy is of itself, quite likely harmless. Therapeutic Deism is as much a threat to the redeemed as it is to the reprobate. 

    When we lean into the legends, we can use them as springboards to impactful, Biblical messaging. It can be a heavy lift if every spiritual or biblical conversation, begins wholly untethered from actual human experience.  We human beings live our fallen lives within, and a part of the otherwise good world created by God. The stuff of earth is not all that there is—but it does matter. Some of the high horses that we insist on riding are actually Trojan horses for our own pride and prejudice. 

    Finally, If Christmas cheer during the month of December confuses the people in your community with respect to the Lordship of Christ, the Authority of Scripture, or the role of your Church—Santa Claus isn’t your problem. 

    

Preaching the Obvious 12.4.2025

Every person coming to Church this Sunday expects that you will be at least sneaking up on Christmas. You may not make it central to your message 21 days out, but you won’t ignore it either. There is a good chance that your building is already, or will soon be, decorated, plans have been set, parties scheduled and people’s minds are fixed on Christmas. 

    Our liturgical brethren will have begun the methodical march to Christmas with the first Sunday in Advent—last Sunday. Others will be considering big programs and promotional opportunities. I hope that you, as a preacher, have already begun to consider your approach and even compose your thoughts, if not your messages. 

    Christmas should not surprise us. In Post Modern U.S. Culture, it is a signal time of year both socially and economically. It is a great opportunity for ministry in general and preaching in particular because during the month of December people in our communities, who never otherwise darken the door of the Church, who have only a passing concern for Church, and barely a conception of what is taught in Scripture will, nonetheless sing songs that describe the birth of Jesus and all of the attendant highlights. 

    For that reason, Christmas preaching is exhilarating and challenging. The exhilaration comes from knowing that individuals who come only from some lingering sense of duty, may, by the intervention of God’s Holy Spirit, move through the season toward becoming genuinely interested in the claims of Christ. The challenge comes from preaching texts so familiar that virtually every auditor has some idea of how they could/should be handled. I describe this phenomenon as Preaching the Obvious.

    I want to consider a couple of risks that come from regularly approaching familiar texts as well as a couple of rewards that come from working diligently to come up with creative and refreshing approaches to this common material. The risks are Boredom and Triviality, and the rewards are Insight and Inclusion. First, we will look at the risks. 

Boredom

    There is nothing worse than a preacher who is so bored with his text and the task of telling the story that his/her boredom is evident. Don’t be that preacher. I will admit that familiarity with these texts can make it more difficult. But when we work through our own ennui and consider the good to be accomplished by faithful, prayerful, humble work we give God the space He needs to move. 

    In very real sense we can think of the Bible as a “Closed Corpus”. It’s already fully written. Our words of proclamation neither add to nor detract from the words of Scripture. We are explaining and clarifying. If we wanted to be petulant and childish any preacher with more than ten years of experience could be bored with virtually any text in the Bible. Our Christmas text(s) are only obvious because the Great Church has chosen to seasonally focus on the birth of Jesus at this time of year. 

    There are 162 games in a baseball season. The World Series always comes at the end. It is the most widely watched part of the whole year. Boredom tends not to be an issue. The game play may be at a different level than a July Thursday afternoon, but it is the same game. These 3 or 4 Sundays are more like the other 48 or 49 than they are different. Either you choose to be focused, excited, invested, and prepared or you don’t. If you get bored with the Christmas stories maybe there is a deeper problem that you need to address. 

Triviality

    The second risk is that we treat the material preached during Christmas as less important, even trivial compared to other texts or topics dealt with during the other seasons of the year. The seed of triviality like boredom is sown in familiarity. We know Luke’s Nativity. We know Matthew’s Nativity. We mix them. We confuse them. We misunderstand them. One thing we should never do is minimize them. There is no cross without the cradle. There is no Jerusalem noon darkness without the light in the stable. 

    We must take these well-worn, oft-told stories seriously as scripture. As well as we know them, they are God’s word to us addressed to our sinful condition. 

Insight

    Boredom with and trivializing of Christmas are problems for the preacher to solve in the Study and central to resolving those struggles is the understanding that what our hearers know, think, understand, and accept about the text is more important than our struggles. So, these two rewards need to be kept fully in mind during our study and preparation. 

    You have the chance to help believers develop greater insight into the life of Jesus, the clarity of scripture, and the real point of Christmas through your preaching. It’s not all about me (us). Those who listen have a stake in the preaching moment. Young Christians need insight into the long road of discipleship. They need to think of themselves like Mary and Jospeh walking an unknown path hand in hand with the Father. Other, more mature Christians need to know that their work—like Simeon or Anna’s is still valid and important to the Church. 

    You will have others that come to Church with unseen spiritual struggles. Some of your words will give the Holy Spirit purchase in their lives. Insight can very rarely be found when it is something we seek. It sneaks up on us when in the quietness of our heart the Word of God brings clarity. 

Inclusion

    Another reward accrues when people come to Church, maybe hurting or hopeless and they find that this story of Jesus can truly be their story. It is not just for holier-than-thou types, or people who grew up in Church. Christmas is a reminder that the story is about Peace for everyone who finds favor before God through faith in Christ. Christmas is a reminder that there is nothing exclusive about the Christian faith. Everyone is a prospective “whosoever” whose believing faith finds favor before God. 

    There is no more inclusive time in the Christian community than the Christmas season. Virtually every congregation expects and prepares for visitors. The real trick is to treat them, not as tourists but as family. Not as outsiders but as insiders who have not yet discovered the favor available to them as children of God. Peace on earth…goodwill to men is a good motto and a better mission. 

Conclusion

    The truths we discuss during the Christmas season are strangely familiar to our flailing culture amid a fallen world. Once upon a time they were well-understood. They were often rejected or romanticized by those who had decided that they had culturally outgrown all but the social dimensions of Christmas—but even the most ardent Scrooge’s knew what it was they were humbugging. Things have somewhat changed. 

    We can no longer assume that people who make their way to the Church house during Christmas season have any pre-understanding about what the Gospel nativity stories mean when they describe annunciation, incarnation, or angelic celebration. In a sense the preacher in 2025 has a blank canvass upon which to paint a picture of Christmas that provides space and time for the Holy Spirit to move in the lives of both believers and unbelievers to either deepen or provoke faith. 

    What a joyful task given us during this significant season! The task itself is no different, but the context—how it has changed. And the time is short. It is an abbreviated season of opportunity that we must seize before it passes and is merged into the typical, mundane concerns of a new year. 

    Preaching the obvious gives each of us the opportunity to explore again some of the founding ideas of the Christian faith. The incarnation. The love of God. The realization of God’s plan of redemption throughout the Old Testament as it finally comes to fruition in Jesus. It is only obvious because we know the end of the story. You will have people come to hear you preach who are wholly unfamiliar with the story, or who are confused about the story, or who only have heard hints about the story. Creatively and courageously preaching the obvious is gives us the chance to let God do something extraordinary with the ordinary.

Review and Preview 11.27.2025

    As I write this essay, I am winding down my “fiscal” preaching year of 2025. I will spend time this week continuing to focus on the practical, administrative, necessities for researching, writing, storing, and preaching 2026. That will include weekly messages, Sunday School lessons, Blog essays, Newsletter essays, Book manuscripts, Camp lessons, incidental outside preaching (Revivals), and other unplanned (funerals) preaching. None of those variables of circumstance and “deliverables” even take into account that all these writing products are outcome of intensive study. Often the arc of study requires months and weeks of intense research, note taking, writing, editing, and thinking. I find this work both invigorating and exciting. The old joke that “Preachers only work one day a week” is only true if the preacher does not work. Clearly it is not the case if you and I are diligent, committed, and enthusiastic about the task. 

    You will have noticed that I did not post an essay last week. Not going to apologize. I had 31 words written towards an essay during a busy week of external work. Sometimes a person must decide that enough is enough. I was afraid that there was no amount of editing that was going to save a draft that looked like it was written by a tired guy during a long week. I wanted to end my 2025 blog writing on a high note with a reminder that you can do this and that it is worthwhile. It’s better to under promise and over deliver. 

    I’ve been listening to Autumn music and have even slipped in some early Christmas music. Christmas is coming and Grayville First Christian Church is excited for the season. I hope that you have given thought to what you will preach and why. Christmas can be challenging because there are only so many texts which are thought “relevant”.  You can only preach Matthew and Luke’s accounts of the nativity so many times before you begin to get stale. I know I’ve been there myself. It’s always a challenge. One thing I often do is take these smaller, time-determined series, and compose all the messages as a whole. I have completed first drafts of all my Christmas sermons awaiting final week of preaching tweaking to be complete preaching manuscripts. Working this way allows for a single overarching theme to tie tother all the messages from Sunday morning December 7 to Christmas Eve Candlelight on December 24. 

    I saw a story last week that reminds me of why it is necessary to work both hard and smart. Peter Wollny is a scholar of the music of the Bach family. In 1992 he discovered two manuscripts which struck him as having been written by the greatest Bach of all: Johann Sebastian. Since that time, he has been working on verifying the provenance of these manuscripts to finally determine authorship. It was a background project in a long career filled with other scholarly endeavors. Like most tasks of this nature the task required both serendipity and synergy to bear fruit. Over the years he followed the trail of hints and clues that led to a student of Bach’s named Salomon Günther John. The manuscripts in question were clearly Bach’s music, but also clearly in John’s hand. Manuscript and author were correctly delineated and on November 17, 2025, Ciacona in D minor, BWV 1178, and Ciacona in G minor, BWV 1179 were debuted at St. Thomas Church Leipzig (One of the old Bach’s old haunts). 

    How did that happen? Work. Serendipity. Synergy. Be stubborn. Be resolute. Be determined. Be committed. It took 33 years for Wollny to successfully determine that the two manuscripts he had in hand should be added to the official catalog of Bach’s work. There were times that this project was on the back burner. There were times that he relied on the work of others. There were, I’m sure times of frustration. 

    Whilst music and theology are not the same thing (Though Bach himself taught both Theology and Latin to his Choristers), we need the same kind of patient endeavor to succeed. You will not always feel like doing the hardest task which needs to be done on the next sermon. I am sure you have other tasks that need your attention. Like any intellectual work there are things to file, notes to organize, and papers to (ouch) discard. Sometimes the busywork keeps us sane until we are ready to do the heavy lifting. 

    Anyhoo, I hope that you take advantage of some down time this week. Give thanks. Get ready for Christmas. Sneak off and do a little work. Spend time in prayer, review, reflection, and preparation. As the weather gets cooler, things are going to heat up. 

Voice 11.13.2025

     Everyone is different. One of the essential tasks for any preacher, particularly when young is discovering your own unique voice. If visibility is about gaining perspective in our work, then clarifying our own unique voice as a preacher is a part of the application of that process. 

    We might think of growing up as the quest of every youngster to discover who they are, what they can do, and the specific contributions their voice makes to the community of conversations in which we are all embedded. As we move into our adolescent years, we begin to discover our own unique viewpoint and way of expressing it. One of the primary tasks of adolescence is differentiating ourselves from our parents, teachers, and peers. We learn how to make judgements about what is true, beautiful, and good. We also learn to internalize these decisions and to describe and defend our judgements to others. If we did not go through this process everyone would be the same and what a boring world it would be! 

    For those who are believers, particularly those who are considering some kind of vocational ministry, we must we aware that Teachers, Elders, Deacons Youth-ministers, and yes, even Preachers can have a disproportionate impact on how we come to view the work of ministry. The best ministry models understand what parts of the job can be “taught” and what must be “caught”. If an individual gets through adolescence with a healthy understanding of who they are as a person and what their natural abilities are then they are ready to cultivate and develop their Spiritual Gift, discerning what their role in ministry is. At this point they should be discovering their own voice, and the educational process would, ideally, work to accentuate their strengths, minimize their weaknesses, and clarify that personal voice. 

    This is necessary because one cannot speak honestly or articulate the message of Scripture clearly if they are trying to use someone else’s voice. When people listen to you speak, when people attend to the Word of God as you proclaim it, they need to trust your investment, your individuated incarnation of the written Word, as you represent the “Word made flesh.”

    As you grow and mature, as you continue throughout a long ministry you will hopefully continue to cultivate your unique voice. It is for this reason that we work with patient diligence. This is why we study. This is how we grow. Looking back over my own many years of ministry here are some of the contributing factors that I have come to realize helped me to refine, inhabit and own the unique voice God has given me. 

Opportunity

    The best way to discover your own unique voice is to use it! The more you teach or preach, the more comfortable you will become with the whole process of moving from study to pulpit or lectern. Not that we should take those opportunities for granted, rather we should see them as the chance God has given for us to serve Him to the best of our ability. 

    These opportunities are not guarantees of success or accomplishment. No, oh no! When we begin, we all preach bad sermons. One signal difference is that when my peers and I were beginning in ministry we were given a lot of leeway, not only to succeed but to fail. Both to flourish and to falter. It takes both extremes to really grow into your own unique ministry voice. I am very concerned about where young preachers and teachers will be given the kind of long-term experience they will need to develop their own unique voice. Will they be given astute guidance during these important formative years or will they become discouraged when unduly criticized for not being ready or not being someone else?

Peers

    One element that helps an individual grow into their own skin, to find their own voice is being surrounded with peers who know them and value them for who they are. To this day I have individuals I studied with and learned with that are perfectly willing to give me honest feedback, not as an instructor or critic but as a friend. 

    This is indispensable. We need a group that we can share our experiences with—who are having the same experiences, who have roughly the same amount and kind of experience that we have and who are in position to grow with us as we become more mature in the faith. Peers are different from the next group that provides needed feedback…that would be 

Mentors

    Mentors are individuals who have been there and done that. They draw from a deeper pool of experience, and their guiding contributions are grounded in hard lessons honestly learned. We need both peers and mentors. Each will have a different perspective on this process of finding and cultivating our maturing voice of ministry. 

    Often people who mentor us will have gone through transitional processes in which they changed or tweaked their approach to ministry due to the wisdom of experience. Peers usually walk along with us; mentors have gone before and help us to avoid some of the pitfalls that brought them difficulty or grief. 

    Mentors tend to approach the relationship without anything to prove. They are in the relationship for your benefit and to serve as a resource to you. We need mentors who can simply say “I’ve been where you’re at. I’ve experienced what you are experiencing. Here is how I have grown through this issue and allowed the experience to clarify who I am and to add tone to my own personal voice.”

Time

    This whole discussion presumes that you will commit enough time throughout the course of your life and ministry to become in full the person and the preacher God made you to be. There are very few things that happen overnight. You will need to have time to not only fail, but to absorb and learn from those failures. You need the opportunity to try new things, to consider many options, to delve deep into your studies, and to engage in transformative conversation with as many ministry colleagues as possible. 

    Nothing helps us to discern our own voice more clearly than taking the time to listen to others and to conclude “Nope, that’s not me.” It is only as we grow into our unique Christ-given voice, our own personality that we really discover how to benefit and grow from all the other voices that we hear.

Plan

    And here Bob ascends Soapbox. Time spent with mentors and peers pursing the opportunities of ministry requires following some kind of a plan. If schools follow curriculum and syllabi then why would we expect the post-educational process to flourish if it is ad-hoc, provisional, or even haphazard. 

God needs you to be you. He has patience and everyone knows that the only way to get experience is to do the thing in question. If you want to maximize the results and show continual growth you need to be working your ministry, living your life, and cultivating your life according to an intentional plan. And I’m not talking about the basic facts of discipleship “I just want to love and serve Jesus!” That is a good start if a little naive. Once you start pushing 30 you need to really think through the issue of “How”, you aim to live, love, and serve Jesus. How will your voice contribute to the great cloud of witness without either becoming indiscernible from the voice of others or so unique that it sounds eccentric or even weird? 

    I wish I’d started working from a more clearly defined plan earlier in my ministry. It’s not that much would have changed—I think we each eventually become the person that God made us to be. But I can’t help but thinking that it would have been a little easier. 

Concluding Thoughts

    Jesus tells us that, “My sheep hear my voice.” We serve Jesus by serving His sheep. This works better —the whole operation is much smoother when we try and develop our own specific voice. The sheep will recognize Jesus. I believe that it helps them to hear the voice of Jesus in our voice if we develop our voice for the specific purpose of leading and feeding the flock. Are you speaking and being heard? Do they hear the voice of the Good Shepherd of the sheep when they hear your voice? Can they follow Him because you, the local Under shepherd of these sheep, this flock have developed your own distinct individual voice?

Visibility 11.6.2025

    Every once in a while, I think it is good to discuss tools rather than tasks. Specifically, I want to discuss why I use an outline tool to lay out my sermon calendar. There are many such available tools. I have several Outliners (They are sometimes called Outline Processors) that I am constantly updating, testing, evaluating, and calibrating to determine which tool to use for a given task. I have Outliners that I use for quick outlines of one-off sermons, articles, or even poems. I have other tools which excel at the huge multifaceted work that goes into a full year’s preaching. 

    For my sermon calendar I am currently using the Omni Corporation's OmniOutliner (OO hereafter) The primary reason is that I know that it can reliably handle all the information that goes into preparing and researching a year’s worth of preaching. I collected all the basic organizational information I needed to plan for 2026 in OO. I have a calendar, a list of holidays and special emphases, as well as a place for some basic preaching work. 

    Next, I have major subdivisions for AM Preaching, Other Preaching, Outside Preaching, Weddings & Funerals, Writing Projects, Sunday School. There are times I may create separate outlines for specific projects. Generally, however every single first draft for the year will be prepared in this one long outline. There is the ability in OO to focus on a single heading or node in the outline and every sub-node. This is in a sense where the magic happens. I am able to open the outline drill down in such a way that I can see every week, every text, every title, every theme laid out for the whole year. It is this perspective that I find invaluable for laying out a balanced congregational diet for the whole year. This tool allows me to visualize the entire year, not as fifty-two separate weeks, but as one continuous program of congregational discipleship. 

    Because of OO’s particular focus, the year’s work has a clear plan to follow including built in benchmarks. Because I know where I will be I can work ahead and write entire blocks of sermons or conduct forward pointing research with reference to the big picture for the year.

    And all of that brings us to the title for this essay and the goal to which it has been pointed. This kind of work tool and the investment in learning how to use it well provides me with a level of visibility that other tools either lack, or which require much more effort to implement. Could I use a word processor? Yes, I could but it would be more clumsy and correspondingly more difficult. I’m using the writing program Scrivener to write this very essay and virtually every year I try to move my sermon calendar into this application and find it too be more complicated than I had anticipated and much more frustrating to work with. With a repeatedly used template and consistent numbering and tracking schemes already set up on OmniOutliner, it took me about an hour to set up the structure of my 2026 Sermon Calendar and was able to begin the process almost immediately of analyzing and breaking down the Scriptures to fill out the meat of the plan. 

    Visibility is good. Visibility helps the preacher to have greater insight. Visibility helps with all the issues we discussed last month. From clarity to coherence, we need visibility to achieve consistency and certainty. Driving blind is not safe. Why would we think that restricted or obstructed vision would help us with preaching?

    The power of visibility is really evident when past yearly outlines are opened alongside my current year’s work as well as next years. Now, in identical collapsable format I can examine how several years’ worth of messages function together to provide a clear path to growing discipleship. It allows for a degree of visibility with far greater reach than opening individual word processing documents. Which I do, have done, and try to avoid, because all those open documents make for a clumsy work environment.

    I learn a lot from rereading those old sermons. Occasionally I recall different wording from when I preached the message, and I can compare the first draft outline with the subsequent editions and even the final copy. It is helpful to recall how thoughts are smoothed out, phrases tweaked, and sentences retooled. This is not to satisfy the cravings of the perfectionist but rather to determine if I have done the best job I can possibly do of explaining what the text says to God’s gathered flock on a particular morning. This process of turning back and reviewing one’s work is also invaluable when one returns to a text in a future sermon or in a different context. I can then take the basic structure and reframe it for the different context of a changed audience with different needs.

    This is invaluable not only for preparing one’s weekly work but for the long haul as well. Turning back, I can see the last year laid out behind me. Looking forward I can see the next year approaching in all its promise. Good, consistent preaching integrates good study habits with good writing habits. Checking our work, editing our work, reviewing our work, and revising our work requires perspective. Perspective is what we call visibility in other contexts, but it is the same thing for the preacher. We need to be self-aware about what we say and how we say it. The message we bear is too important to be neglected or trifled with. We must be good, dependable, trustworthy workmen and that means we know where we are going because we know where we’ve been. Eyes on the road, friends. God will use you to give guidance to the lost or confused.

Coherence 10.30.2025

    My theme this month, should I wish to state it in a single, pointed phrase, comes down to the following: “It should all make sense.” Clarity, certainty, and consistency all contribute to information hanging together, that is coherence.

    If you want coherence in the pew, you need coherence in the pulpit. If you want coherence in the pulpit there should be coherence in the study. Even if you function with a genius level intelligence you need to shoot for a coherent presentation of God’s Word. In fact, the smarter you are the greater the need for deliberation and reflection. What seems simple to you and me because of the amount of time we spend immersed in the text and surrounded with other print authorities we are in danger of thinking that things are simpler than they are, and less in need of explanation. 

    When someone speaks incoherently their grammar, articulation, and internal logic may be all still be perfect. The disconnect is with external reality, or for our work, between the preacher and the congregation. We need to remember that Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky was grammatically sound—but still incoherent. I occasionally ask myself “have I put the feed down low enough?” Not because my congregation is dull—they certainly are not! It is simply too easy to overshoot when you have lived with a text on your mind and in your heart for days or weeks. These four “C’s” we have considered in October all require a reflective approach to the work we do. We need to work methodologically slow, even when we are exegeting, reading, writing, and editing fast. This is a matter of having clear standards of coherence at the beginning of the process. Enforcement of those standards that assure clarity, consistency, and certainty is a matter of having clear processes. It won’t be because of luck or talent. 

    And that is why I write for you, every week, dear reader. As a diligent and conscientious preacher, you know that guardrails keep both bad drivers and good drivers safe. I expect that you are a good driver. Good drivers respect the guardrails because they understand the critical nature of the work of preaching and how easy it is to “leave the road.” 

    I do not wish to continue beating this horse any more than necessary, yet please allow me a couple of concluding reminders for your consideration. First, you are tasked with explaining the text. The cultural disconnect between then and now is real and must be addressed. Pretending it does not exist will make it more incoherent, not less. We must explain and connect using experience and analogy. There are few other ways to learn anything. Pretending that there is no cultural distance will confuse the intelligent and bewilder the simple. Pretending is easy. Explaining can be hard--hard but essential. You and I have to be constantly learning how to do it better. Treat your congregation as intelligent adults who will thrive if you help them complete a coherent picture of a specific text. Speak with clarity and certainty not with pride and unearned arrogance. You can strive for both humility and clarity. People will trust you because you will speak with a consistent voice. 

    A final thought. No one else can do it for you. Preaching is not like the theatre. After the singing, after the necessary human interactions, after we have all come around the Lord’s Table, you are going to rise, just you and Holy Spirit and proclaim God’s Word. This is a solitary task. This is a task of vital  importance. Do it to the best of your ability. 

    October is Pastor appreciation month. Many of us have had dinners and celebrations and other expressions of thanks. The one thing you do that requires the most time the greatest investment of treasure and a commitment to developing your talent is preaching. After all that gratitude, in light of the supreme sacrifice of Jesus, let’s do our best to proclaim a coherent, challenging sermon every single week. What better life could one ask for?