Smart Pastor

“All things are difficult before they are easy.”
- John Norley

I read the blog, Cognitive Daily, and today stumbled into something worth remembering.  The piece was on the effectiveness of humor in Super Bowl advertising, but speaks to preaching as well.
Surprisingly, there actually hasn’t been much research on the effectiveness of humor in ads. Instead, most research has focused on expectancy: if something in an [...]

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In the spirit of, The Year of Living Biblically, former pastor Ed Dobson decided to be as much like Jesus as he could for one year.  From the USA Today…

The retired megachurch pastor and one-time architect of the religious right has spent the last year trying to eat, pray, talk and even vote [...]

photo credit: Chrissy Olson
Wow!  What an interesting piece from the London Times Online.  It is by Matthew Parris and it deals with how to improve the situation in Africa.  Oh, and by the way, Matthew is an atheist.  Check this out…
Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism [...]

If you all are wondering how the current “mortgage crisis” is effecting churches, here is some info from the New York Times…
Historically, churches were wary of debt, and many old-line congregations have owned their buildings free and clear for decades. But borrowing by churches became more common in the 1990s, reaching $28 billion nationwide in [...]

As we put a wrap on 2008 and prepare for 2009, I thought I would share my favorite posts of the past year.  These are not the most popular, but the ones I liked the most.  Check them out and let me know what you think.
January

Why did the Christian cross the road?
Why my church is [...]

This is very creative.
JosephOfGalilee: AFK for a bit w/@MaryofNazareth. Headed to Bethlehem. #caesartax
JosephOfGalilee:@MaryofNazareth says no baby tonight. But can’t be long now.
MaryofNazareth: Off to Bethlehem! Hope we find a good inn. @JosephOfGalilee waited until last minute. #caesartax
MaryofNazareth: Bethlehem is a zoo. @JosephOfGalilee says @InnKeeper1 claimed “no room”. Uh-oh.
JosephOfGalilee: No room at the inn. @InnKeeper1 [...]

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On Saturday I challenged us to consider asking questions versus making statements in our sermons.  Today I stumbled upon a piece that was sharing methods to tell a story like Malcolm Gladwell.  (Author of the new book, Outliers as well as The Tipping Point and Blink.)
They gave 7 methods, but this one was [...]

Dan and Chip Heath, authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, have a new article up on Fast Company.com.  It is about making presentations and how they can be more engaging to the listener.
I think these two paragraphs sum up the article quite well.  They read….
….Great presentations are mysteries, not [...]