The Fundamental Things Apply 10.15.2025

 (Yes. I am behind. Not only here but on other matters)

    Basic things, done correctly, with long-lasting and predictable consequences. This is a functional definition of “Fundamental(s)”.  As the song says, providing an involved, overview of romance some things are so basic that they are beyond class distinction, cultural mores, and age. Whether falling in love, fielding a ground ball, or preparing a sermon “the fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”

    Romance can be analyzed but the fundamentals are to a great extent, not susceptible to study. The basic, fundamentals of baseball—throwing and catching are not only clear at every level of the game, without them you can hardly have a discussion—much less do any analysis. With preaching we need to decide where these fundamentals reside. Are they like the particulars of romance, so mystical that they are unavailable for study? Or are they like the fundamentals of baseball, preliminary, basic learnable skills that can be studied and taught?  

    Anyone who has ever heard a sermon—good or bad knows that they are not all created equal. This question then, about discovering, understanding, and learning the fundamentals highlights the central question—can I (or any other preacher) improve by working on the fundamentals? Can I make the basics so basic that they become a foundation for further improvement? 

    As you might guess, all this blog-writing I do is predicated on the notion that mastering the fundamentals and making the basics second-nature can improve our preaching. The fundamentals provide a starting point for improvement. They are not a magic potion, silver bullet, or enchanted beans. They are simple behaviors, habits, or activities that will keep your mind engaged on the task. Let me mention a few that you might easily overlook. 

Write it down

    Not just for later, but for now. Writing not only extends long term memory, but it also enhances current memory. When you study take some kind of notes. Make outlines. There is something about written communication that helps the mind flush out the unspeakable detritus that can clutter up public speaking. But to edit well, you can’t depend on memory. There must be a written record for you to consult and correct. 

Carry a notebook…

    On my desk and in my pocket, there is a notebook. Pocket-sized for out and about, a bit bigger on the desk. It will all get typed and eventually electronically filed for the future but much of it begins on good-old paper

…and a pencil

    Not much use (or sense) in having a place to write without something to write with. Every suit coat, blazer, or sports coat I own has a golf pencil in the right outside pocket. I have boxes of the things. If I get a new jacket—BAAM! Pencil in the pocket. If I’m not wearing a jacket, I put one in my pocket. You can’t write things down if you’re not ready. 

Practice

    You are going to need to field some ground balls. You will need to go through the playbook. Yes, you’ll need to practice. I’ve aways thought of camp or outside preaching as the opportunity to work on new skills, or to add new processes to the ol’ bag of tricks. Not drastic changes, just tweaks to the fundamentals that I practice every single week. 

    Some good practices are reviewing how you verbalize action. Have I grown to fond of adverbial fluff rather than choosing expressive verbs to begin with? Too many exclamation points instead of clearly articulated, focused messaging? How is my editing? Am I growing slovenly? 

    Good practice produces good preaching. Bad practice can produce serviceable preaching, but the call is to do the best job possible, not “something satisfactory.”

    After doing some good basic things, and spending time on growth-focused practice you will find that you are coming to the task of preaching with a mind less cluttered and ready to work. 

    Yes, work. The hard work of preaching takes place behind the closed door of your study where you reread what you wrote. Rewrite what needs recast. Review your previous work, consult with your colleagues (without copying them) and work out the more detailed tasks of preparing your sermons, lessons, and essays.

As Time Goes By 10.8.2026

    One of the great standards ever recorded is of course As Time Goes By. In fact, the song itself and the motion picture in which it appears—Casablanca—each mutually buttress the other. Neither would likely be much remembered except for this juxtaposition. I’m going to highlight some of the familiar phrases from the song this month as we continue to discuss the power of standards—contextual, procedural, and linguistic to strengthen the study and writing we do for sermons. 

    Time is an often forgotten, easily dismissed factor that contributes to our preaching. Consider Paul’s famous line in 1 Corinthians 13, not for what it says about the nature of love but for its unspoken assumption about the nature of passing time. 

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  For now, we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:11-12 ESV)

    Paul’s point is of course, that love is an aspect of increasing and deepening Christian maturity.  He does not state (but clearly assumes) that as children mature and grow to adulthood, a maturing faith becomes increasingly love focused. To make this point he is relying upon the simple fact that time passes, time goes by; and this process—as inalterable as it is, progresses through several different inflection points. The unspoken subtext of Paul’s epistle is that many of the Corinthians have not matured as expected. Their movement from “when I was a Child” to “When I became a man” did not result in the kind of loving Christlikeness which is to be expected. Paul takes what he determines to be a basic theological point and locates it in time and space. 

    Let’s take Paul’s observation about the passing of time and apply it to the topic at hand. As Christians, and surely as preachers we need to be constantly considering this process in our own lives and in our own ministries. Paul rightly expects growing Christians to exhibit certain signs of that maturity. By extension this is true of us, not only with respect to Christian character—but especially for those who preach, in consideration of the work needed for the preparation and delivery of sermons. 

    To whit—time goes by and if your writing and preaching now, are the same as they were 20, 30, or 40 years ago people are right to wonder what maturity the years have yielded. As time goes by, more than time needs to go by. Your program of study should provide a well-rounded diet keeping your mind sharp and involved in biblical, historical, and theological studies. Your writing schedule should produce more than you need every week. You need, minimally, to write enough so that you may edit yourself ruthlessly 

    As time goes by the world changes. The Bible does not—virtually everything else does. We need to keep the old skills sharp and learn a few new ones. Just this week, one of our ladies, who was in hospital over the weekend, gave me some helpful advice on changes we need to make to the online streaming of our services. This is a great example of the fact that people of all ages are embracing new technologies and if you don’t or won’t you might be letting more than time go by. W get no more or no less time than anybody else. And many of the opportunities we let slip by are just as gone.

    The key is neither to mourn the passing of time nor to celebrate it—but to leverage it. Time passes without requiring our permission or asking our blessing. It is a stream that moves all around us. We can choose to work with it or against it. In ministry, time may mean greater opportunity, increasing wisdom, and focused growth. Or it may mean missed opportunity, plateaued wisdom, and little growth. The time is going by, but we can move with it from youth through the various stages of adulthood attaining broader levels of experience and wisdom. 

    Preaching is central to our call to ministry. Some of the basic skills erode over time. For example, our voices generally lose volume and change tone requiring some change in how we speak from the pulpit. Other skills increase, as we move through time accumulating the deeper wisdom, broader experience, and expanded study. The key to a long and fruitful ministry is not getting stuck in the past, longing for a time which has long gone by. Time goes by, but it need not pass us by.  

Standards 10.1.2026

     I listen to a lot of music. Most of what I listen to throughout the day will be some sort of instrumental music. I alternate between forms of classical, jazz, and ambient music to provide a mix of musical ideas that keep my mind engaged when I am studying scripture. As I have grown more sophisticated in my tastes I have learned some of the basic theoretical tenets of how music works. This not only helps one to appreciate music it helps you to understand how various genres of music relate to one another. 

    My listening has made it clear exactly what makes some tunes stand out, what allows those basic melodies to be so memorable that they are able to cross the boundaries of genre to be identified as “classics” or “standards”. Because my listening moves across several genre’s my application is somewhat different than the dictionary definition of “standard.” Here is my conclusion. There are some tunes that transcend genre. They can be arranged as simple jazz-piano improvisations, filled out with an orchestra, transcribed as a folk or pop tune—even morphed into rock or elevated into classical structures and the basic tune remains.

When I think of a standard tune, I am impressed by a universal flexibility that allows a text (song) to transcend its original compositional context. The following elements are essential to this flexibility. 

• Basic Idea—A “Standard” will generally be based on a very basic idea. A simple phrase, theme, chord, measure or concept. Something complex in origin will not likely be capable of restatement. 
• Tolerates differing arrangements (re-contextualization)—My best advice here: listen to Miles Davis version of Someday My Prince Will Come. This song, written for the Disney movie Snow White is largely considered a standard, not because of its role or performance in the film but by rearrangement and re-contextualization such as Davis’s rendition. It is instantly recognizable and at the same time wholly different. 
• Regularly quoted by other works—Standards have a life outside of original context. When I was a youngster, teens were introduced to the wonder of Rachmaninoff, not by picking up a copy of the composer’s Second Piano Concerto at a record store but by listening to Eric Carmen’s All By Myself. It might be stretching my point to consider Rachmaninoff’s #2 as a standard, but Carmen did show that it was eminently quotable. 

The Point

    Standard songs transcend original context. They are embedded in their time and place but continue to speak in widening contexts. Similarly, good preaching begins with a specific message, drawn from a specific text, proclaimed before a specific congregation, yet if that sermon is to be effective it must be grounded in the standard repertoire of the pulpit. Sermons can be unique but not sui generis. I only rarely repeat a sermon, but I could. Despite their specific compositional circumstances, good sermons are (or should be)  a part of the “standard repertoire” of preaching. A little bit of re-contextualizing and a sermon I preached at home can be adapted for a revival or used at camp. We need to keep something vital in mind here: The line between unique and weird can be hazy, and often when I am the one writing the words I miss the distinction. The preacher must be careful to avoid the faddish lest the congregation tire or become infatuated with novelty. 

    As a preacher you will develop a voice and a style. You will develop a personal approach to moving from a text to preaching themes, points, and big ideas. You will learn how to arrange various materials so that you can “quote” and draw from deep wells of spiritual nourishment without slavishly footnoting or knavishly stealing material. 

    As I listen to great musicians select, arrange, perform, and re-contextualize tunes I am always struck by how deeply they must be immersed in the “literature” of their craft to create beautiful music. Herein the lesson. To become a flexible preacher who can work within the context of the standards and practices of preaching we need to be deeply, wholly immersed in the study of our craft. Biblical Studies. Theology. Philosophy. History. Biography. Literature. Old or new, local or universal, Clear or opaque, we must linger over our books to keep from become programmatic, pragmatic, or pedantic. 

    We preach with the guarded hope that people will listen and benefit from our preaching. That will only ever happen if we keep to the task. We will enlarge upon this topic of standards throughout the month. I hope that through our hard work God blesses His Church through the proclaimed word. 

As Years Blend Together. 9.24.2026

    I know that I have shared my long-term preaching process in this space many times. I will work on my sermon calendar through the month of October. I start my “preaching year” with the Advent season and move through the following November. So, in a couple of weeks, I will begin working on my plan for December 2026 through November 2027. 

    I have also alluded to the fact that more than 40 years of preaching has created an enormous amount of work. Both final deliverables (pulpit copy) and work product (materials from the study, writing and editing process). Logos Bible Software does a decent job of keeping track of much of this work. For example, I am preaching from 1 John 3.1-3 on 9.27.2026. When I look in Logos it finds 1,018 results in 11 documents. That is basically 10 years’ worth of work. Scattered in notebooks, PDFs, and folders in various cloud-storage sites there is even more. That is a lot of material. And this is just what I have produced. This does not include secondary and tertiary studies, commentaries, introductory works, theological, worship, historical scholarship, or practical pastoral tomes. 

    One of the keys to an ongoing, expanding preaching ministry is remaining fresh as the years blend together. We don’t want to repeat ourselves, but we also don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Central to this process is determining what materials from the past should be reviewed and how to review them. 

    For example, good exegetical work rarely needs updated. Much of what I find when I look in Logos consists of old Sentence Flow/Exegetical documents. If I was attentive and careful when I did this work, it seldom needs to be repeated. A review of the document with an open Greek Text, taking a few hand-written notes tends to be a sufficient refresher. If I find that the work was done in haste, or if I have discovered new grammatical or syntactical materials that I want to test against my past work, then there may be a bit more. Otherwise, this review can go rather quickly. This falls into the category of not reinventing the wheel.  

    On the other hand, sound, accurate exegesis can be adapted into several different message strategies or arcs. Reviewing the messages themselves can take a little more time because I need to recollect the congregational conditions under which the message was preached. I need to look at the overall theme of the sermon series. I need to find out what the bigger picture was into which the smaller picture of the individual sermon fit(s). I may need to simply look at my calendar to see what was going on in the congregation’s life. In that context I often find well-crafted, reusable writing that can be repurposed. 

    This time through 1 John I am preaching 5 sermons. One per chapter. That’s it. No matter how far down in the weeds I get I have set an external “timer” on this series. When I look at the older material, I am mostly looking to trace the trajectory from text to sermon to make sure I don’t take the same tack this time through. What the text says does not change. How we address the congregation does. I want to be clear and expressive, and I don’t want to become boring or predictable; both of which can have a negative impact on the reception of the sermon. 

    A key to preaching is balancing what people expect from a sermon with how the preacher develops the material and presents it. This is not a reader-centered, post-modern approach to the task. This is the basic, hard work that keeps both the preacher and the congregation fresh. And if we wish to have long, fruitful ministries we need to accept the fact that it will grow somewhat more difficult as we grow older and preach to the same congregation over many years. 

    Forty-two years ago, when I started to preach, I didn’t realize that this would ever be a factor. I was a whole lot smarter when I was 22 than I am now. Now I am acutely aware of what I do not know, what I have not read, issues I have not considered, and applications that are unexplored. I was a genius 40 years ago, now I am ever a novice. The best way to keep fresh is to keep at the work. The best way to keep the years from blending together in a context-less soup is to make sure that this Sunday’s sermon explains this text to this congregation—now. 

    As I turn my thoughts to 2027, I will try to be cognizant of that as I sketch out the big picture concepts for a whole year. I will make notes to myself of issues I need to consider as I go back through my previous work. I will examine my bibliographical materials and see whether and what materials I relied on the last time I went through specific texts—what needs to be reconsidered, what needs to be abandoned. The only way to remain truly fresh in the pulpit is to make sure that you preach what the text says in your current context. When we do that, we will discover a freedom that keeps us focused and free from anxiety. 

    One final chronological thought. As I get older, I realize that I have fewer sermon calendars left to craft. It would be easy to look back at what I did 10 years ago and simply re-title, re-date, and re-type the same work. It might be easier, but that does not make it right. The call to preach is the call to study. Pastoral ministry is Word-focused, and we have to be in the Word to have power. Yes, we must familiarize ourselves with what we did in the past, but then we need to keep that specific presentation; be it sermon, lesson, or essay in the past. We may adapt, revise, and update the material for a new context and in so doing we are necessarily preparing old words for new opportunities.  The Master is watching. He calls us to be good stewards and faithful workmen. Do the work. Do it conscientiously. Do it well. Make it fresh. Someone will hear you tell the story of Jesus from the texts you will be preaching for the very first time. When that happens, the years will all fade away and you’ll feel again the pleasure of our great God who called you to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Shoring things Up a bit 9.17.2026

     Not every single thing is critical. Every job has tasks that are helpful but not central, useful but not critical, good but not the best. When the “good” things begin to overwhelm the best, when the edges compress the center and keep you from being your best; then it is time to recalibrate and shore things up a bit. 

Consideration

    It may be a pile, a stack, or a list but you need to get things written down on paper and screen. The papers that need sorted, the deeds done, words to be written, people to be visited. Don’t try and remember it. If you really want to get those ducks lined up, then do it—line them up. 

    Write things down. Make charts and tables—surely, you have a ruler. Use your computer, use a note pad, use index cards. Sometimes we need to get the outstanding tasks before us so that we can clearly see how things are related. You can’t shore things up until and unless you make a clear, considered distinction between what needs to be done and what must be done. 

Consolidation

    When you are lining up all those ducks you may find that not all are equal. In fact, while reflecting, thinking, and considering what you need to do you will likely find you are fretting over things that are not actually things. Or perhaps they are not relevant. Maybe they have expired. It is also likely that some independent tasks are actually smaller steps to completing larger projects. Again, you must look critically at things and sort out their relationships to draw the right conclusion(s).

    At this point you can begin to consolidate some things. There is nothing like eliminating things from your list by combining similar items. You may even find that this process of consolidation saves time because the combination of tasks takes fewer steps. 

Delegation

    Another sure way to shore things up is to hand off items that you don’t need to be doing. Delegation frees up mental and physical energy by taking off your plate those things that never should have been there I the first place. 

    Once things are added to your to-do list it can be very difficult to remove them. Setting aside regular time for delegation can be essential to your mental health. Don’t do those things others can and should do. 

Elimination

    You cannot say “no” until you really understand what your central purpose is and feel comfortable saying yes to the best practices that allow you to pursue that purpose. The problem isn’t that saying no can appear negative; the issue is that always saying yes betrays confusion. 

    Taking an afternoon to go over everything—reviewing lists, calendars, complete work can do wonders for remembering what it is you are doing as a preacher. Once you really know “why” it becomes much easier to say “no.” And when you know what your “no” is you can go back over your schedule and cut out those things which distract and divert you. 

    Most preachers are not very good at saying no. It takes many years and a compulsive focus on what is essential to say no without it being perceived as unduly negative. If we are forthright with our congregation and leadership, they will learn to understand that in a well-planned ministry there will be many tasks, good as they may be that should not be on our plate. In that case “no” often means better alignment with gifts, skills, and opportunities. Things the preacher or professional staff do, which can be done by others should be done by others. 

    Shoring things up is not just abandoning tasks to others. It also gives us the chance to consider what needs done next year, or even the following year. A good plan should be a look forward, based upon a considered, critical look at the past.

Pennant Drive 9.10.2026

    As you might have guessed I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks. Sometimes the changing vicissitudes of ministry require a bit of a readjustment of plans. As a result, my time for these blog posts got away from me over the last couple of weeks. In doing a bit of a debrief of that time I think it is important to clearly name a couple issues. Prior to that let me say that I didn’t miss any consequential deadlines. Though I spend time on these essays and I find them both personally helpful and potentially useful to others, they are not the most important issues before me. 

However, there are, as I mentioned a couple of things that need to be available for these essay/blog posts to be productive. 

1. Time to think. Much writing fails not because it is poorly written but because it is not adequately thought through. I had over 700 words written for the last week of August. Yet when I went back over them to edit and revise, I realized that in my haste to write I had under thought. Not much use in editing out 720 of 744 words. In preparing work for the pulpit—and other emergency considerations such as funeral messages one must prioritize not only the words on the page but the time to think through what one will say. Those materials from the last week of August may be recoverable but first there must be time to think.

2. Time to Write. It comes in this order. If the thinking does not precede the writing you end up with the situation I landed in. A lot of words but not nearly much sense. Essays like these are a great opportunity to work on my writing skills, but as I alluded to earlier, preaching and teaching take priority. In a compressed timeframe (while also reserving time for rest) one must make decisions. I decided at the end of August that prior to writing I needed to review the rest of 2026’s Blog Essay Schedule before I thought another thought or wrote another word. Having accomplished that thinking over the long weekend I am now ready to get back to the pen work. 

    It is a little like getting ready for the pennant drive. September is upon us. There are only so many opportunities left. How are the starters? Do I have slumping hitters I will need to rely on? Does someone need a day off? Well considered decisions at the beginning of September may yield fruit later, as the season ends or even later when the playoffs start.

Something like that needs to happen during the course of the preaching year. The preacher occasionally gets tired, overwhelmed, or distracted by inessential issues. Labor Day weekend has, for me, been a great opportunity to recalibrate things and get ready for the pennant drive. 

I was able to lay out the rest of the year’s blog titles. I spent a little time considering the central events in September, October, and November. I even looked at what I wrote last year as the danger of repeating oneself during the fall seems to increase. After doing that and explaining my recent absence I feel like I’m back on schedule. I might have spent a couple of late nights trying to “fix” things and I would have become frustrated. I would have written hundreds of words that I would later discard because they would sound hurried, harried, and ill-considered. 

It’s not like I was idle. During the very time I was “falling behind” I read something like 15 fiction and non-fiction books. They were refreshing and helped to recalibrate my brain far more than rapidly writing words that would later be excised causing even greater frustration than not writing them in the first place. 

A preaching year, not unlike baseball, is a long, leveling season. To be at our best for as much of the time as possible we need a broad approach. We must think logistically, tactically, and strategically. We don’t want to run out of energy, we don’t want to wander under-prayed, under-thought, under-prepared, or under-considered. Every sermon, lesson, or essay needs to have something worth saying—and worth the time of our auditor or listener. 

    I’ve mostly worked through this busy season. I’m still a day late for this week but I had workable words several days ago, so editing was merely a matter of cleaning up rather than starting over. Where are you in this year’s continuing journey to pulpit or paper? Are you clarifying your objectives or flailing? I highly recommend some time to think then get back to the business of writing and preaching effective, Biblical sermons.

Horsing Around Essay for 8.20.2026

     Preaching connects people with God through the clear, accurate teaching of Scripture. While all preaching should be accurate and strive for clarity, the connecting part is where we often run aground. 

    There are a couple of reasons. First, some preachers sacrifice clarity for connection. They are all about the congregations preconceived notions of spirituality, culturally derived identity markers, or psychologically satisfying distractions. We’re not talking about that sort of preaching. It is so anchored in the audience and its perceived needs that it is virtually impossible for it to be Biblically clear and accurate. There are many things in Scripture that are opaque and many things in Scripture that challenge our self-understanding. This sort of preaching may grow churches, but it doesn’t result in maturing disciples. 

    A second issue is preaching that never thinks about the congregation at all.  It is so accurate that clarity becomes difficult if not impossible. It fails to translate the realities of the ancient text into manageable categories of the contemporary world. 

    Neither of these scenarios produces connection which often results in a Shakespearian tragedy or a Kafkaesque comedy. Some church “leaders” even wonder if the time for preaching is past. The problem is that the thing they question isn’t really preaching. It leaves out the purpose of the endeavor in the first place; connection. 

    Our question then, is how do we bridge this gap? How do we make a connection with our listeners when they have both eyes on phone, tablet, or computer? How do we get a hearing amid the cacophony of contemporary society? The quick answer? You’re going to have to get better. The long answer? I’m glad you asked.

    Let’s consider the question before us using the metaphor of horses. I like horses. I watch a lot of horse racing. There is nothing more beautiful than the moment when a Thoroughbred racehorse begins to reach forward, pins its ears, and extend its neck to attain full speed. That is but one kind (we’re not focused on breeds) of horse. And when it comes to preaching, it is the first of several poor models. Consider the following “stable” if you will. Some of these horses should be permanently put out to pasture if we wish to truly improve our preaching. 

Racehorses

    There are some preachers who see the study as a racecourse. They enter the starting stalls (perpetually worried about more important things in their ministry, as if ministry had more important tasks than preaching) chomping at the bit to work as fast as they possibly can to complete the course. They want to get that sermon done ASAP.  In this case, finishing should not mean fast, it should mean best possible. 

    Racehorse preachers write sermons so fast that they have no time for editing, redrafting, reframing, rethinking, or reconsidering anything. Racehorse preachers perpetually preach first drafts and work from a vocabulary limited by their haste. 

    It takes time to connect with culture. It takes time to understand what is going on in the world. It takes careful observation to grasp the real problems amid the articulated complaints of the modern world. It can’t be done quickly. Every sermon is different but each one draws upon our entire life’s experience to frame it and tint it with color. Racehorse preaching is so intent on finishing that the jockey (I apologize for mixing the metaphor) flails away frantically when, as they say, the horse has come off the bit. 

    We need to retire the Racehorse. We don’t finish our sermon first among our tasks of the week because it is of least (or secondary) importance but because it is the most important task of the week and deserves our best energy. We need stamina to make many passes through the text cutting, trimming, adding, editing, and refining the message so that the message given to us by God’s Holy Spirit reflects the tale told in the text impacting the story in the pew. 

High Horses

    Too many preachers have a list of materials they won’t read, places they won’t go, movies they won’t see, or restaurants where they won’t eat. Generally, this self-selected intellectual ghetto is the result of the next kind of horse—the High Horse. And as you might guess my advice is simple. Dismount. If possible, take it out back and forever release it into the wild. If absolutely necessary, put it down. The preacher who begins his work by declaiming all the things she won’t do, places he won’t, go books he won’t read, or music she won’t listen to--needs to take a good, hard look at a little thing called…the Gospels.

    Read everything. Even what makes you uncomfortable. Listen to a wide variety of music. When you hear a song that strikes you as odd or even culturally significant listen to it intently, google the artist, find out where they are coming from. Go into interesting, unique stores and boutiques that cater to tastes different than yours. Cinema, streaming platforms, social media, comedians, are other cultural bell-weathers. If you don’t know where the culture is, what the pressure points are, what specific issues are becoming sinfully debilitating how will you address the culture and say what it needs to hear?

Generally High Horses are either excuses or disguises. 

Hobby Horses

    The next threat is the Hobby Horse. These are the topics, themes, tropes, or concepts that we use so frequently that we beat them—even after the horse is dead. Hobby Horses are often stabled alongside racehorses and high horses. Hobby horses distract us from exegetical and hermeneutical heavy lifting and astute cultural observation. 

    There are many important truths in Scripture. People need to know them all, but some need to be better known than others. A couple of years ago I preached a book sermon from the Song of Solomon. I announced to the congregation that I’d not likely ever preach from that book again. Yes, it’s Scripture, but there are more essential truths to be covered in my limited remaining time.  Choose wisely where you will focus. Make sure that your life’s work is not a mere list of Hobby Horses that you can’t get off your mind. 

    The best antidote to saddling up Hobby Horses is to preach exegetical, expository preaching. If you want to take a more topical approach to your broader calendar, fine just make sure you are always operating “text-egetically” explaining and applying the clear meaning of scripture. Most Hobby Horse preaching begins with the congregation and what it “might need.” When you begin with the text it will determine the emphasis. 

Plow Horses

    What we really need is plow horses. They are not as sleek as racehorses, require more depth than high horses, have greater impact than hobby horses. Plow horses work. Plow horses are harnessed up to get the job done. They may move slowly but they are efficient and effective. 

    Generally, plow horses, after a few years know the job so well that they don’t need lots of direction. They saddle themselves up (It’s a metaphor for crying out loud!) and get to work. They recognize that some fields require different levels of work than others. They are not offended or frightened by diverse kinds of work because they know that is simply how the world is. Plow horses bend the neck, waste little energy, and get the job did. 

    What the Church needs right now are plow horses. Racehorses, High Horses, and Hobby Horses are all varieties of prima donnas. They are more focused on self than service. They have many definitions of failure and are risk averse. Plow horses have no pride. They just work. 

    The scenario I am sketching here is not only a full-time job—it’s your life. Preachers are always grazing for material. We are always looking for solid, contemporary, culturally relevant connections. That means we need our ears and eyes to be attuned to the culture.