Pulpit Pages

Christopher is a pastor, teacher, and author with a desire to encourage and equip others in their Christian journey through sound biblical teaching. His material is available through various Bible software programs and is recognized for its faithfulness to biblical doctrine and ease of comprehension. Christopher and his wife Tanya live in North Carolina and have been blessed with two children, Makayla and Malinda. He was saved as a young man and baptized into Christian fellowship at Bethel Baptist Church in Taylorsville, NC. In 1995, Christopher was ordained as a deacon and served Bethel Baptist Church in that capacity until he accepted his first pastorate. He was ordained into Gospel ministry in September 2005 and served as pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Hiddenite, NC. Christopher continues in pastoral ministry at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Mount Airy, NC, where he has served as pastor since 2010."

A down-to-earth, practical introduction to the ins and outs of preaching for lay preachers, bivocational pastors, and others newly arrived in the pulpit. Recent years have seen a considerable increase in the amount of financial resources required to support a full-time pastor in the local congregation. In addition, large numbers of full-time, seminary trained clergy are retiring, without commensurate numbers of new clergy able to take their place. As a result of these trends, a large number of lay preachers and bivocational pastors have assumed the principal responsibility for filling the pulpit week by week in local churches. Most of these individuals, observes Clifton Guthrie, can draw on a wealth of life experiences, as well as strong intuitive skills in knowing what makes a good sermon, having listened to them much of their lives. What they often don't bring to the pulpit, however, is specific, detailed instruction in the how-tos of preaching. That is precisely what this brief, practical guide to preaching has to offer. Written with the needs of those for whom preaching is not their sole or primary occupation in mind, it begins by emphasizing what every preacher brings to the pulpit: an idea of what makes a sermon particularly moving or memorable to them. From there the book moves into short chapters on choosing an appropriate biblical text or sermon topic, learning how to listen to one's first impressions of what a text means, moving from text or topic to the sermon itself while keeping the listeners needs firmly in mind, making thorough and engaging use of stories in the sermon, and delivering with passion and conviction. The book concludes with helpful suggestions for resources, including Bibles, commentaries, other print resources and websites.

Biblical exegesis doesn’t stop with the words alone. Faithful preachers exegete the emotion of the text as well. It’s easy to let our own personalities dictate the emotional dimension of our sermons, but the best preachers mirror the Bible’s emotive intent in their sermons. In Passion in the Pulpit, Jerry Vines and Adam Dooley will teach you how to exegete not just the verbal content of Scripture, but its emotional appeal as well. They show you the role the Bible’s emotional intent should play in each stage of sermon prep, and: Offer exegetical steps to discern the biblical pathos Teach you how to avoid manipulation while making your sermons emotional Help you determine the appropriate limitations of emotional appeal Give you verbal, vocal, and visual techniques to help convey the biblical emotional intent in your sermons When we elevate the Bible’s emotional intent above our own, we preach truth rather than personality.

Should women who preach, preach as women? Preaching Women argues that far from being a gender-neutral space, the pulpit is a critical place in which a gender imbalance can begin to be redressed. There is a vital need for women preachers to speak out of their experience of living as women in today’s culture and church Filling a glaring gap in the literature around homiletics, Filling a glaring gap in the literature around homiletics, Preaching Women considers reasons why women preachers should preach from their experiences as women, what women bring to preaching that is missing without us, and how women preachers can go about the task of biblical preaching. With a foreword by Libby Lane.

The call to preach is just that- a call to preach. The call to preach, however, is more than just preaching. The call to preach is a call to prepare. Too many pastors have refrained from preparation while they await the Holy Spirit to do all of the work. God expects preachers to prepare sermons as much as possible and allow Him to prepare the preachers. Join Dr. Jerry Vines and Dr. Jim Shaddix as they achieve a balanced approach to teaching sermon preparation in Power in the Pulpit. This book combines the essential perspectives of a pastor of forty years with another pastor who also devotes daily time to training pastors in the context of theological education. Thus, Power in the Pulpit is a practical preaching help from a pastoral perspective in the tradition where expository preaching is a paramount and frequent event in the life of the local church. Power in the Pulpit is the combined work of Dr. Vines's two earlier publications on preaching: A Practical Guide to Sermon Preparation (Moody Press, 1985) and A Guide to Effective Sermon Delivery (Moody Press, 1986). Dr. Shaddix carefully organizes and supplements the material to offer this useful resource which closes the gap between classroom theory and what a pastor experiences in his weekly sermon preparation.