Meeting Needs or Meeting God?

As the church today gets more and more hip--more and more need-oriented, responding to the buttons that people push in their pews--I find myself longing ...

Junk Food Isn't Enough

The biggest enemy of the Church is the development and proliferation of programs to meet people's needs. Everyone has a hunger for God, but our tastes ...

Audience of Atheists

One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, the present reality is the Incarnation, ...

Confidence Game

When we look back on what the masters of the spiritual life have written and said, it's hard to escape the conclusion that we have been the victim ...

Breakdown

One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have ...

So Skeptical a Salvation

I had hoped to illustrate the availability of God's gift of salvation. "Whoever wants this beautiful Christmas poinsettia may have it," ...

Hearing the Voice of God

So long as the church pretends or assumes to preach absolute values, but actually preaches relative and secondary values, it will merely hasten the process ...

Don't Confuse Essentials

We gain a hearing with a secular audience when we don't confuse essentials with non-essentials.

Learning to Hear God

Eugene Lowry gave this advice to young preachers:

I try to teach my students how to trick themselves into hearing. You have to be out of control. When ...

Luther's Target Audience

When I preach I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, of whom I have above forty in my congregation; I have all my eyes on the servant maids and on ...