Preaching for the Long Haul

The biggest challenge for me of a long-term pastorate was the preaching. How does one come up with something "new" to say every Sunday? By the time I retired, some parishioners had heard me preach more than 1,000 times. Dr. Dave Thompson, an astrophysicist with NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center, had heard me preach more than 2,000 times since he attended both worship services most Sunday mornings. Yes, the Bible is a vast trove of sermonic material, but the same preacher Sunday after ...