Shane Angland and Mike Neglia discuss sermon introductions and whether they are actually necessary or not as well as the danger of too many illustrations and the freedom of self-forgetfulness.  - Shane is currently a teaching elder at Ennis Evangelical Church, Ireland. He has served as a missionary in Ukraine and is a Th.M. graduate from Dallas Theological Seminary with an emphasis in historical theology.

Ryan Huguley is the pastor of Ridgeline Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ryan is also the author of the book 8 Hours or Less: Writing Faithful Sermons Faster, as well as the host of the podcasts In the Room and From the Field. In this episode Ryan speaks with Nick Cady about his system of sermon preparation, the value of spending more time with people than alone at your desk, and the unique challenges of preaching in Utah. Ryan explains the importance of divided work, daily milestones, and determined deadlines in sermon preparation, and how this method was birthed out of a his experience of anxiety and a dislike for the work of preparing sermons early on in his ministry. You can keep up with Ryan on Instagram and Twitter, and listen to his sermons at ridgeline.church

In this interview from November 2019 Justin Thomas speaks with Mike about the value of teaching through large sections of Scripture as a way of introducing listeners to the themes, contours, characters, geography  and theology of various books. At the conclusion of the interview there is a bonus conversation about what Justin’s church, Calvary The Hill, is doing to love their neighbours in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (currently known as Capitol Hill Occupied Protest).

Jon Tyson speaks with Mike about learning from the best of various traditions and groupings within the Christian church in order to embody ‘Theology that cannot be dismissed and power that cannot be denied.’ They also discuss his upcoming preaching course “Preaching in a Secular Age” and the importance of ongoing mentorship and coaching in order to continue to grow as a Bible teacher and preacher.Jon Tyson is a Pastor and Church Planter in New York City. Originally from Adelaide Australia, Jon moved to the United States over 2 decades ago with a passion to seek and cultivate renewal in the Western Church. He is the author of Sacred Roots, A Creative Minority, The Burden is Light and the forthcoming Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise. Jon lives in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan with his wife and two children. He serves as the Lead Pastor of Church of the City New York.twitter : @jontysoninstagram : jontysonwww.church.nycQuotes from this Episode:I felt the power of God’s Word change my life. It just changed me! And then I remember thinking - “God, If this happened in me maybe He could use me for this to happen in others?”The first time I heard expository preaching I sat in the front row and just sat there weeping. I literally felt my inner man being nourished. I felt the Word of God build my heart. And I remember thinking “ If I could keep the passion of the Pentecostals with this kind of preaching from the text that would be the thing.” Those are the two great things that have marked me ever since. The gift that expository preaching gave me was like “Dear God, if he can do this with 5 verses in Hebrews - look how fat the book is?! How much of this stuff is in there?! I want to study this book. And I want to know the God behind this text!” It was revelation and wonder. That’s the gift it gave me. A trap I see many people fall into is self-righteously judge the season they were in before, rather than integrate the best of it and do something fresh. At the heart of any human system (theological, philosophical, etc.) there is a “sacred core”. And until you acknowledge and respect it you’re never going to persuade somebody around it. And so you have to, with honor, touch the sacred core before persuasion can happen in any way. And most people assault the sacred core and wonder why they get resistance rather than acknowledging it and then moving towards the conversation. You don’t have to affirm what others believe to acknowledge their sacred core. The Bible doesn’t exist to make gay people straight. The Bible exists to make dead people alive. We are all coming to Jesus from various cultural positions and dispositions. And so my message is that Jesus Christ wants to change you in ways that are way more threatening than your orientation if you really want to call him Lord.New York is nowhere as near as distinct as it used to be because the world has been flattened through social media and shared media outlets. There are still differences, but there is a similar pattern throughout across the world.The Master starts with the Student. The Teacher starts with the Text. If the goal is “how do I communicate this to you”, you don’t start with “this is what it says”. You start with “this is where you’re at”.And then “how do I get this to you?” But if you only preach to where people are and what they want - they’ll never mature. But if you only preach what people need to mature you will lose them along the way, so you have to find that tension point. I try to include a minority theologian, a minority voice. No white people notice it but my minority friends always say thank you. I always try to put a women’s voice in there. And then I try to put a church father, someone from church history to show that I am not making this up.I am a high-school drop out. I am staggeringly undereducated. But I am intellectually curious. So I definitely read more than a lot of folks. And so people always say your teaching is too academic, too conceptual, too many ideas. I’m not trying to be like that, its just how my mind works. So I used to reject that because I’ve been a Teacher not a Master. So now the question is how do I get the core of it in a way that you take it into your life. So that’s one of the big things I’ve been working on lately.

What role, if any, should the historic church calendar play in our preaching schedule? Is there any value in seasons of Lent, Eastertide and Advent? How can a pastor introduce liturgical elements into a Sunday service without alienating congregants? Pastor Sam Garrard answers these and more questions in this conversation with Mike Neglia. Samuel has served for four years as a lead pastor at Calvary Chapel Freiburg. Originally from Sydney, Australia, he and his wife live just outside Freiburg with their three boys and now one baby daughter. He originally studied German, Linguistics and French in Sydney and Freiburg before working eight years in project management and customer care in Germany, the Middle East and the UK for a large multinational. He loves reading, studying and teaching church history, history of theology and philosophy, and is currently attempting to finish an M.Th. You can find his sermons, in German and English at the Calvary Chapel Freiburg podcast on your podcast app of choice. This conversation was recorded in Millstatt Austria in January 2020.

Ray Dash is the pastor of The Rock Christian Fellowship in Newark, New Jersey (http://therocknewark.org). Originally from New York City, Ray lives and ministers in Newark’s ethnically and economically diverse urban core. In this episode Ray speaks with Nick Cady about loving your listeners and helping your hearers by “putting the cookies on the shelf where they can reach them,” i.e. knowing your context so that you can make the truth of God’s word accessible to your listeners. Ray describes what everyday ministry looks like in Newark, some key ways in which he grew as a young preacher, and how his preaching has changed since moving to the city from the suburbs. You can keep up with Ray on Instagram and Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/raydashjr/ https://www.facebook.com/Jesussavenewark

As part of our ongoing mission to help equip the next generation of expository Bible teachers, Expositors Collective hosted our first online Webinar on May 9th. The second session was taught by David Guzik on “Changing Methods - Changeless Message” and was followed by an extended time o Q+A. David Guzik's Bible commentary is regularly used and trusted by many thousands who want to know the Bible better. Pastors, teachers, class leaders, and everyday Christians find his commentary helpful for their own understanding and explanation of the Bible. David and his wife Inga-Lill live in Santa Barbara, California. Eccentric Preachers by Charles Spurgeon is available to read here: https://archive.spurgeon.org/misc/ep.php

As part of our ongoing mission to help equip the next generation of expository Bible teachers, Expositors Collective hosted our first online Webinar on May 9th. The first session was taught by Brian Brodersen on preaching in the power of the Spirit and was followed by a time of Q+A . Brian was born and raised in Southern California. He became a Christian at age 22 and began attending Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, pastored by Chuck Smith. He met his wife, Cheryl, the youngest daughter of Pastor Chuck and Kay Smith, at one of the church’s home group meetings. They were married on 23 May 1980. Brian spent the next 16 years doing pastoral ministry in Southern California and church planting throughout the US, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. In 1996 the Brodersen family moved to London, England, to plant Calvary Chapel Westminster. They lived in south west London until 2000 when Brian returned to California to assist Pastor Chuck Smith at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and to eventually assume the role of senior pastor. Today he serves as the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. Brian is also the president of Calvary Chapel Bible College, the Calvary Global Network, and he is the Festival Director of Creation Fest UK. Keep up with Brian on the Back to Basics website: http://backtobasicsradio.com

Dr. Ian Clary is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Colorado Christian University, he is a native of Canada and lived for the past half of his life in Toronto, Ontario, where he served as a minister in a Baptist church there. Dr. Clary's doctoral work looked at issues dealing with the Christian interpretation of history with a particular focus on early-modern British evangelicalism. His master's work looked at the reception history of patristics into the post-Reformation period with a focus on Christology. He is a fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies; the Center for Baptist Renewal; the Center for Ancient Christian Studies; and is a board member with the Davenant Institute. Dr. Clary and his wife Vicky live in Lakewood with their four children, Jack, Molly, Kate, and Tom. Ian’s full bio and publications : https://www.ccu.edu/spotlights/faculty/iclary/ Munster Bible College: https://munsterbiblecollege.ie/ Greg Beale - Right Doctrine, Wrong Text : https://www.amazon.com/Right-Doctrine-Wrong-Texts-Testament-ebook/dp/B008KDFBGW William Perkins - The Art of Prophesying : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KMDXRMI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 Simeon Trust: https://simeontrust.org/ Mark Dever - Promises Made, Promises Kept: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Message-Old-Testament-Mark-Dever/dp/1581347170   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Message-New-Testament-Mark-Dever/dp/1581347162/ref=pd_lpo_14_t_0/262-4680903-9398327?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1581347162&pd_rd_r=172984cf-a7c7-4878-b3aa-d4553c78d0ad&pd_rd_w=iCyOi&pd_rd_wg=QWG8d&pf_rd_p=7b8e3b03-1439-4489-abd4-4a138cf4eca6&pf_rd_r=WRZB4E4C2EYT87AD3TVH&psc=1&refRID=WRZB4E4C2EYT87AD3TVH

Rob Salvato speaks about the importance of brevity and clarity in our Bible teaching and sermons. Rob Salvato is the lead pastor at Calvary Vista in CA. He is married to his wife, Denise, and they have three grown children. You can listen to his teachings here:  https://www.calvaryvista.com/sermons-sunday/ You can find his sermon notes here: https://www.calvaryvista.com/speakers/rob-salvato/ or on https://www.preceptaustin.org/ Here’s his message from the San Diego Expositors Collective gathering: The Milk, The Meat and the Manna:  https://www.expositorscollective.com/podcast/2019/8/14/cbguzfo1uxyscczs9vdtqbdee66sdi And here is Rob’s “Basics of Life” interview podcast:  https://goodlion.io/category/podcasts/cgn/basics-of-life-interviews/