Preaching

My formation was in music — four years at Jacksonville State studying voice. Opera, stage productions, lead roles. I learned that music training teaches you to hear what’s wrong before you can name it. That skill carried into preaching.

I preach from the text. I’m not interested in illustrations that overwhelm the scripture or messages engineered to produce a response. I’m interested in what the text actually says and what it costs to believe it.

The sermons I come back to are the ones where something true got said that nobody planned. Where the silence after a sentence did more than the sentence. I try to leave room for that.

I have preached funerals, weddings, revival services, Sunday morning services, and midweek gatherings. I have preached in rooms of twelve and rooms of four hundred. The preparation is the same.