The Preacher’s Burden: “Sunday’s Hour” by Arnold Kenseth
Arnold Kenseth wrote some wonderful poetry, but he never lost touch with the challenges of having to stand up on your hind legs each Sunday morning and try to make words become the Word for the...
View ArticleAdvice to Preachers: One Sermon at a Time Please!
Has this ever happened to you when you are captive in a pew? I was at a house of worship not long ago, where the preacher is a long-time friend of mine. I was looking forward to hearing him preach,...
View Article“Hearing God’s Word from Unexpected Places”
But the Lord said to me: Do not say ‘I am only a boy; for you shall go to all whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.’ Jeremiah I.7 It is good to be back with you. I so enjoyed...
View Article“From Here to There and Back Again” The Journey from Text to Sermon
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,...
View ArticleMy Top Ten Posts from 2016
Once again as the old year passes and the new year beckons, it is my custom to look back at my most popular posts of the year. Some years a theme emerges, and this year it is the passing of old friends...
View ArticleRemembering Horace T. Allen (1933-2019)
My friend Horace Allen died on February 5. Horace was an important ecumenical Christian scholar of worship and liturgy. The Reverend Doctor Horace Thaddeus Allen. Jr. received his B.A. from Princeton...
View ArticleDudne M. Breeze (1938-2020) A Remembrance
Greetings from the Berkshire Hills. I’m Rick Floyd and I’m Pastor Emeritus of the First Church of Christ in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It will be 50 years ago next year that I walked down the Andover...
View ArticleA Reflection on Forty-Five Years of Ordained Ministry
On this day forty-five years ago, September 21, 1975, I was ordained into the Christian Ministry of Word and Sacrament at the Newton Highlands Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Newton...
View ArticleBook Review: “Useful Wisdom: Letters to Young (and Not-So-Young) Ministers”...
Book Review: “Useful Wisdom: Letters to Young (and Not-so-Young) Ministers” by Anthony B. Robinson, Cascade Books, 2020. (Link to the book at Wipf and Stock here.) By Richard L. Floyd This little book...
View ArticleRichard L. Floyd: “Prophetic” pastors who don’t love the church
(This article first appeared on the Faith and Leadership blog of Duke Divinity School on on March 17, 2010.) If the main reason you become a pastor is to promote some cause, then your soul is in...
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