Starting Strong: Thriving in the First Years of Preaching
Preaching is hard, especially in your first years. Starting Strong: Thriving in the First Years of Preaching brings you wisdom from experienced preachers to help you stay faithful, encouraged, and growing. We’re not the experts but we’re bringing them to you, with real conversations, practical tips, and hard-hitting truths to sharpen and sustain you for the road ahead.
Start strong. Preach well. Stay true.
Starting Strong: Thriving in the First Years of Preaching
Preaching to Comfortable Christians with Tim Johnson
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Season 2, Episode 8: Preaching to Comfortable Christians with Tim Johnson
How do you preach to people who genuinely believe the gospel, regularly attend church, and yet have become comfortable in their Christianity? How do you challenge complacency without simply piling on guilt?
In this episode, we’re joined by Tim Johnson (lecturer on preaching and pastoral care at Ridley College) to explore the challenge of preaching to Christians who may be spiritually settled, comfortable, or resistant to change. We consider how the Word of God can lovingly expose complacency, renew our vision of Christ, and call believers to deeper faith, obedience, and mission.
We discuss:
- Preaching challenge without becoming harsh or moralistic
- Calling people beyond comfort towards sacrifice, holiness, and mission
- How a bigger vision of God provides the motivation for Christian growth
- Preaching to people who know the right answers but may have lost their sense of wonder
Whether your congregation is prosperous, settled, mature, or simply familiar with the rhythms of church life, this conversation will help you think about how to preach God's Word in a way that wakes us up to the glory of Christ and the cost, and joy, of following him.
Our prayer is that these conversations would help raise up a generation of faithful, clear, and compelling preachers of God's Word. If you've enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who would benefit.
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