The editor’s desire in this volume is to come to the aid of the busy pastor and help to provide resources for him as he prepares to “divide the Word of truth” to and for his people. It is not intended to take the place of the labor of study.
Nelson’s Anual Preachers’s Sourcebook Vol. 2 By O.S. Hawkins
It has been my great joy and honor to preach in all kinds of settings through the years . . . from rickety wooden pulpits in rescue missions and street corners on Friday nights to some of the most historic pulpits here and around the world, and everything in between from small farming communities to county seat towns to large metropolitan city centers.
The preaching of the gospel has been my highest calling in life. This volume of Nelson’s Annual Preacher’s Sourcebook you hold in your hands is for everyone, everywhere who opens the Book of God to the people of God.
For the past fifteen years of ministry at GuideStone, it has been my privilege to seek to be Christ’s hand extended to 200,000 pastors, church workers, and missionaries we are privileged to serve around the world.
I know the pastor’s heart; mine is one. Only a pastor who lives with the preparation of the next sermon knows how it hovers overhead all the time.
The pastor goes home after Sunday services, not to relax like others, but to live with the next sermon that is always before him. He thinks about it, prays about it, reads about it, and dreams about it. It never leaves him. It is always before him.
The editor’s desire in this volume is to come to the aid of the busy pastor and help to provide resources for him as he prepares to “divide the Word of truth” to and for his people. It is not intended to take the place of the labor of study.
One should be about the hard work of word studies, exegesis, praying fervently over the text, and the analytical thought that goes into breaking down the text.
This sourcebook is here to lay alongside your own tools to enable you to take this information and filter it through your own personality and the windows of your own personal illustrations to exalt the Savior, encourage the saints, and evangelize the sinners.
The contributors of this volume are young and old, traditional and contemporary. They love and respect one another.
The older ones do not think the younger ones are irreverent, and the younger ones do not think the older ones are irrelevant. We all have something to learn from each other. Some of the contributors bear names immediately recognized by the evangelical community worldwide.
Others are seeing their words in print for the first time. They all have one thing in common. They have a rock solid assurance that it is still pleases God by “the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21).
So let’s begin the journey. The pastor/preacher who labors with dedication and determination has an incredible promise—“Shepherd the flock of God which is among you . . . and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away” (1 Peter 5:2, 4).