Pastors | Steven W. Smith

Preaching the Christ at Christmas

by Steven Smith on December 14, 2012 in Pastors, Preaching

The irony of the Christmas season is that Christ gets pushed out. That’s clear enough. It’s an observation that’s good to make to our people when we preach as we refocus their attention on the manger not the mall. But a little honesty forces me to admit that I often leave o... Read More »

Repent Before You Call for Repentance

by Steven Smith on October 4, 2012 in Pastors, Preaching

If a preacher is not willing to bend his will to the text, then it will never live in the pulpit. This may be the hardest part of the process of preaching. When we arrive at a text of Scripture and it calls us to change something about our character, confess a sin, or right Read More »

Deep Preaching

by Steven Smith on September 6, 2012 in Pastors, Preaching

There are days when the sermon just feels “on.” The illustrations hit just right. The applications connect. Preacher and people ebb and flow in synchronized rhythm from opening words to closing illustration. Dismounting the pulpit, you will be shocked if the people don’t ho... Read More »

That Scriptures Might be Fulfilled: Perspective on Post-Preaching Feeling

by Steven Smith on August 2, 2012 in Pastors, Preaching

My brother and I call it “Post-Preaching Feeling,” or PPF. It’s the Sunday, 12:30 p.m. feeling. A little bit wasted. A little bit reflective on the good and bad of the heavenly transaction that just took place between God, His Word, His people, and a preacher. Perhaps we pr... Read More »

Preaching as Worship

by Steven Smith on December 29, 2011 in Pastors, Preaching

Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript of a testimony by College at Southwestern Dean Steven Smith on the importance of preaching, given during the MacGorman Chapel dedication service at Southwestern Seminary, Dec. 1. I’ve been asked to share a brief word on the imp... Read More »

The Good-to-Great Shepherd

by Steven Smith on December 20, 2011 in Pastors, Preaching

Editor’s Note: The following article was first published as part of the Dying to Preach series on patheos.com. At Christmastime, it’s worth remembering what made Jesus “the great shepherd of the sheep.” . . . our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep... Read More »

The Secret to Great Preaching

by Steven Smith on November 24, 2010 in Pastors, Preaching

The smell of German coffee is strong. It is, at the moment, the sustaining force for my jet-lagged corpus. My soul, on the other hand, is sustained for a completely different reason. In a dorm room in a university in Oradea, Romania, as I sit with twenty college students thinking... Read More »

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