Tis the season for top ten of the year posts! Never one to enjoy being left out, here are the top ten articles of the past year here at Pastoralized.
Thank you everyone who have read my musings on pastoral ministry this year. Thank you to everyone who linked to, tweeted, liked, or otherwise shared these posts with your friends and followers.
Merry Christmas!
Honorable Mention: 5 Quick Reasons to Manuscript Your Sermons. It takes a bit of time, but manuscripting (apparently not a word, given the red line I see underneath it) is so helpful for me. My boss disagrees, and came back at me with this post. Nothing like two pastors of the same church going at it in the blogosphere!
10. 7 Disastrous Results of Letting Personal Fulfillment Drive Your Ministry. I was thinking about how much fake self help is out there. Bloggers and authors tell you if you’re not becoming the best you, then you’re missing out on life. There’s a hook underneath that bait.
9. Download My Free Sermon Illustration Ebook “Show Then Tell” Today. This ebook was an experiment in combining a gospel-centered approach to sermon illustrations with what Phil Ryken calls “getting into the figginess of the fig.” Just north of 2,000 downloads as I write this post. Some cool guys had some nice things to say about it.
8. 12 Steps to Strong Sermon Illustrations. This is basically an index to all my other posts on illustrations. I was able to expand on a few of them at The Gospel Coalition here, here, and here.
7. 10 Productivity Experiments for Pastors. Just give ’em a try.
6. How to Always Be Ready to Care for Your Congregation. I’m really glad to see this post and the next one end up so high. It tells me that the celebrity pastor bug hasn’t bitten everyone, and lots of pastors really do want to be there for their people. This is the heart of ministry.
5. 10 Tips for Your Next Hospital Visit. I don’t want visitation to go out of style, whether at hospitals, nursing homes, or the homes of shut-ins. This is glorious ministry, folks.
4. How to Preach Like D.A. Carson without Sounding Like Him. This was my favorite post of the year. I will go to my grave grateful for this man who is a pastor to scholars and a scholar for pastors, and a consummate model for how to preach.
3. How 6 Faithful, but Not-Famous Pastors Prepare Their Sermons. This was a follow up to the post that topped the list. It’s the tip of the iceberg of all the pastors who no one knows about, but are diligent to feed their their flock. These are six unashamed workmen.
2. 10 Steps to Read 50 Books in 2013. This was a guest post from my boy, Josh. (New Year’s resolution #1, get Josh to write more posts.) These tips don’t expire on the 31st, by the way. If they didn’t work for you this year, give them another swing in 2014. If you’re not sure what to read, there are a million “Top Ten Books of 2013” posts flying around the web.
1. The Number of Hours Keller, Piper, Driscoll (and 5 Others) Spend on Sermon Prep. The idea for this one came while I was shaving one morning (you didn’t know badger hair brushes make your creativity go up?). What I liked most about it was seeing the difference between Keller’s practices between his small church and big church context.
Thank you again for reading my blog in 2013! God willing, we’ll have even more helpful, encouraging, and interesting articles in 2014.
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