How Many Links Does it Take to Get to the Center of a Tootsie Pop?

Hope you had a great weekend. We did. Tennessee Titans kicker Rob Bironas entered the NFL record books for most field goals in a single game while simultaneously winning the game in the final seconds over our hometown team, the Houston Texans. And Element was awesome last night. Got a chance to put a couple of new speakers out front and host some great discussion in a "workshop" setting to kick off our upcoming relationships series.

Here are some quality links to get your week started off right:

Steve Mathewson on application fatigue. :-)
A quote:

For me, the challenge is reductionism. By this, I refer to the practice of reducing application to a list of ‘life application points’ at the end of each sermon. Our culture is fond of lists. Number them, or put bullet points in front of them. Either way, listeners are eager to write them down and then, we hope, to work on fleshing them out in their lives.

But one comment I heard a few years ago made me pause. A believer who attended a midwest church known for its pastor’s preaching ministry complained, “If my pastor gives me one more life application point, I’m going to scream. I’m still trying to work on the ones from four months ago!”

(HT: Transforming Sermons)

I actually linked to this a week or two ago, but it's so dang good, I'm linking to it again:
Relational Discipleship: Off the Charts by Glenn Lucke
Please read!

Bird highlights a powerful story of forgiveness.
Becky and I just saw this story featured on CBS' "48 Hours Mystery."

Double D on God-centered preaching:

There are many reasons why preachers don’t preach God-centered messages. One of the reasons, though, has to do with the fear that preaching about God will be irrelevant to people’s lives today. In other words, we fear that preaching about God will lead to sermons that lack relevance.

I can understand this concern: preaching has to connect with the people sitting in the congregation before us. It isn’t wrong for preachers to be concerned about relevance at all.
The challenge for preachers, though, is to truly believe that there is nothing more relevant to people today than God . . .

Ultimately, preaching is a reflection of our theology of God. If one believes that God is all-sufficient, and that all things exist in relationship to him and for his glory, then preaching will center itself on God. If one has a lesser view of God, then that preacher will speak on lesser things . . .

Daryl quotes John Piper saying "People are starved for the greatness of God."

Now, that's a thesis worth seriously considering in all this current talk on "feeding".

Happy surfing!

Tweet