Search
-
Subscribe to Blog Updates
GoodReads Feed
LibraryThing Feed
Archives
- November 2024 (1)
- October 2024 (4)
- September 2024 (4)
- August 2024 (4)
- July 2024 (5)
- June 2024 (5)
- May 2024 (5)
- April 2024 (3)
- March 2024 (5)
- February 2024 (3)
- January 2024 (5)
- December 2023 (4)
- November 2023 (4)
- October 2023 (5)
- September 2023 (4)
- August 2023 (4)
- July 2023 (5)
- June 2023 (4)
- May 2023 (5)
- April 2023 (5)
- March 2023 (3)
- February 2023 (4)
- January 2023 (6)
- December 2022 (4)
- November 2022 (4)
- October 2022 (4)
- September 2022 (4)
- August 2022 (5)
- July 2022 (4)
- June 2022 (4)
- May 2022 (5)
- April 2022 (5)
- March 2022 (3)
- February 2022 (4)
- January 2022 (5)
- December 2021 (4)
- November 2021 (4)
- October 2021 (5)
- September 2021 (4)
- August 2021 (5)
- July 2021 (4)
- June 2021 (4)
- May 2021 (5)
- April 2021 (5)
- March 2021 (4)
- February 2021 (4)
- January 2021 (5)
- December 2020 (4)
- November 2020 (4)
- October 2020 (4)
- September 2020 (5)
- August 2020 (4)
- July 2020 (4)
- June 2020 (4)
- May 2020 (5)
- April 2020 (5)
- March 2020 (4)
- February 2020 (4)
- January 2020 (5)
- December 2019 (4)
- November 2019 (5)
- October 2019 (4)
- September 2019 (5)
- August 2019 (4)
- July 2019 (5)
- June 2019 (4)
- May 2019 (4)
- April 2019 (5)
- March 2019 (4)
- February 2019 (4)
- January 2019 (5)
- December 2018 (4)
- November 2018 (4)
- October 2018 (4)
- September 2018 (5)
- August 2018 (4)
- July 2018 (5)
- June 2018 (4)
- May 2018 (5)
- April 2018 (5)
- March 2018 (4)
- February 2018 (4)
- January 2018 (5)
- December 2017 (4)
- November 2017 (5)
- October 2017 (4)
- September 2017 (4)
- August 2017 (5)
- July 2017 (5)
- June 2017 (4)
- May 2017 (5)
- April 2017 (4)
- March 2017 (4)
- February 2017 (5)
- January 2017 (4)
- December 2016 (4)
- November 2016 (5)
- October 2016 (4)
- September 2016 (4)
- August 2016 (5)
- July 2016 (4)
- June 2016 (4)
- May 2016 (5)
- April 2016 (4)
- March 2016 (8)
- January 2016 (1)
- November 2015 (2)
- October 2015 (2)
- September 2015 (2)
- August 2015 (1)
- July 2015 (2)
- June 2015 (2)
- May 2015 (3)
- April 2015 (1)
- November 2014 (2)
- August 2014 (1)
- June 2014 (3)
- May 2014 (1)
- October 2013 (1)
- November 2012 (1)
- October 2012 (1)
- August 2012 (1)
- July 2012 (1)
- March 2012 (2)
- May 2011 (1)
- January 2010 (1)
- June 2009 (1)
- April 2009 (1)
- February 2009 (2)
- September 2008 (1)
- June 2008 (1)
- May 2008 (2)
- April 2008 (6)
- March 2008 (1)
- February 2008 (3)
- January 2008 (1)
- October 2007 (3)
- September 2007 (4)
- August 2007 (3)
- May 2007 (4)
- April 2007 (3)
- March 2007 (1)
- February 2007 (1)
- December 2006 (2)
- October 2006 (2)
- September 2006 (1)
- August 2006 (3)
- July 2006 (31)
- June 2006 (5)
- May 2006 (6)
- April 2006 (8)
- March 2006 (4)
- February 2006 (4)
- January 2006 (1)
- December 2005 (2)
- October 2005 (3)
- September 2005 (5)
- August 2005 (8)
- July 2005 (3)
- June 2005 (5)
- May 2005 (5)
- April 2005 (5)
- March 2005 (6)
Categories
- Genres (528)
- Bibliography (1)
- Essays (5)
- Introduction (14)
- Journal entry (1)
- Life (1)
- Life updates (56)
- Lists (2)
- Node hub (10)
- Project updates (59)
- Site updates (60)
- Slice of life (1)
- Thought (4)
- Weeknotes (383)
- Statuses (26)
- In progress (2)
- Old site (24)
- Topics (616)
- 360-degree camera (4)
- Abstract expressionism (1)
- Aesthetics (13)
- AI (58)
- Akelos (1)
- Analysis (8)
- Anime (5)
- Apartment (21)
- Apologetics (11)
- Aromatherapy (1)
- Art (15)
- Audio description (2)
- Audio sermons (3)
- Beliefs report (42)
- Bible (3)
- Bible reading plans (7)
- Biography (1)
- Birthdays (14)
- Blog (19)
- Blood tests (11)
- Board games (19)
- Bookmarks (2)
- Books (80)
- Brexit (2)
- Burns (1)
- Business (11)
- Car (14)
- Career (5)
- Caring (4)
- Chapel (7)
- Childhood mysteries (1)
- Chocolate (1)
- Christianity (8)
- Christmas labels (43)
- Church (10)
- Clothes (11)
- Coding project generator (55)
- Coffee (25)
- Cognitive science (14)
- Comics (18)
- Communication (1)
- Computers (9)
- Conceptual modeling (36)
- Conferences (1)
- Conspiracy theories (2)
- Conventions (1)
- Cooking (48)
- Coping (5)
- Correspondence (1)
- COVID-19 (17)
- Credit card fraud (2)
- Current events (11)
- Daily routine (31)
- Death (22)
- Depression (2)
- Devotions (5)
- Diet (38)
- Discovery (1)
- Doctor Who (7)
- Drawing (2)
- Drone Music – Wikipedia (4)
- Drupal (2)
- Dusk (12)
- Earthquakes (1)
- Ebooks (5)
- Elections (6)
- Epistemology (1)
- Evangelism (1)
- Exercise (22)
- Existential crisis (2)
- Experimental literature (10)
- Fiction (74)
- Firefox (1)
- Focus (2)
- Freelancing (6)
- French horn (5)
- Fringe theories (5)
- Functional programming (1)
- Fundraising (1)
- Futurism (30)
- Gadgets (2)
- Gardening (1)
- GDPR (3)
- General (63)
- Goal map (5)
- Grad school (7)
- Gregg Shorthand (7)
- GTD (4)
- Haircuts (1)
- Hardware (8)
- Health (58)
- Hermeneutics (1)
- Heuristic (1)
- History (2)
- Holidays (78)
- Housekeeping (53)
- HP Lovecraft (1)
- IMEEM (1)
- Immanuel prayer (5)
- IT (1)
- Journaling (1)
- Jury duty (2)
- Knowledge representation (7)
- Learning (29)
- Life maintenance (74)
- Life management (17)
- Life Model (1)
- Liminal spaces (5)
- Livestreams (4)
- Map magnets (2)
- Math (4)
- Math relearning (71)
- Meetups (5)
- Memory (25)
- Mining Ancient Thought (1)
- Money (40)
- Movies (93)
- Music (64)
- Music composition (10)
- Music theory (3)
- Naps (2)
- Narratology (1)
- Nature (69)
- Nostalgia box (17)
- Nutrition (3)
- OBAC (5)
- OpenLaszlo (1)
- Painting (1)
- Party games (1)
- Patterns (1)
- People (73)
- People skills (10)
- Personal development (7)
- Personality (1)
- Philosophy (12)
- Photography (10)
- Podcasts (20)
- Politics (26)
- Problem solving (1)
- Productivity (178)
- Programming (104)
- Project management (12)
- Projects (37)
- Psychology (7)
- Public coding guide (10)
- Reading (6)
- Reading strategies (1)
- Reason (1)
- Religion (2)
- Research (3)
- Revelation (1)
- Scanners (2)
- Sculpture (1)
- Service (1)
- Shoes (1)
- Shoutouts (1)
- Skill development (3)
- Sleep (54)
- Social issues (13)
- Software development (9)
- Solar eclipse (6)
- Soundscapes (4)
- Space (19)
- Spirituality (73)
- Stephen Ministry (2)
- Stormwater management (4)
- Sustainability (10)
- Systems theory (2)
- Task tracking (2)
- Taxes (9)
- Tea (11)
- Text-to-speech (3)
- The Thinkulum (5)
- Theology (4)
- Thinking (19)
- Transferrable concepts (1)
- Travel (14)
- Tutoring (1)
- TV (67)
- Twitter (2)
- Video games (31)
- Videos (18)
- VR (2)
- Walks (1)
- Website (6)
- Weddings (2)
- Weird stuff (11)
- Wiki (6)
- Willpower (1)
- WordPress (2)
- Work (31)
- Worship performing (18)
- Writing (27)
- Genres (528)
Category Archives: Christianity
New list–Recommended Preachers Online
Until I come up with a good way to post my site updates automatically on the front page, I’ll write a brief entry to let the blog subscribers know what’s new. I’ve just posted the start of a new, ongoing list (and accompanying Google map!) of preachers online that I think are worth listening to. Take a look! Continue reading
Posted in Audio sermons, Christianity, Site updates
3 Comments
Recommended Preachers Online: The List
Links
The List
Church | Pastor(s) | City | State | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Emmanuel Baptist Church | David Carpenter | Athens | AL | |
Shades Mountain Bible Church | Ron Gannett | Birmingham | AL | |
St. Peter’s Anglican Church | John D. Richardson | Birmingham | AL | I really placemarked this because Lyle Dorsett sometimes preaches. |
Twickenham Church of Christ | Brad Cox | Huntsville | AL | |
Trinity Free Presbyterian Church | Myron Mooney | Trinity | AL | |
Trinity Church | Ian Cron | Greenwich | CT | |
St. Peter’s Anglican Church | Eric Dudley | Tallahassee | FL | |
Christ the King Church | Ken Carr | Batavia | IL | |
All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church (Audio) | Patrick Henry Reardon | Chicago | IL | |
Chicago Church of Christ – Chicago Ministry Center | Jeff Balsom, Todd Fink, Randy Harris, Jim Lefler | Chicago | IL | |
Covenant Presbyterian Church of Chicago | Aaron Baker | Chicago | IL | |
Edgewater Baptist Church | Jim Shedd | Chicago | IL | |
First Baptist Church of Chicago (Audio) | Jesse M. Brown | Chicago | IL | |
The Moody Church | Erwin Lutzer | Chicago | IL | |
Church of the Resurrection | Stewart E. Ruch, III | Glen Ellyn | IL | |
Grace Church of the Valley | Clark Richardson, Mike Hill, Jerry Kennell | North Aurora | IL | |
Kishwaukee Bible Church | Frank Yonke, Steve Leston, Ron Spiotta | Sycamore | IL | |
Church of the Savior | Bill Richardson | West Chicago | IL | |
Blanchard Alliance Church – Wheaton | John Casey | Wheaton | IL | |
Bethlehem Baptist Church | John Piper | Minneapolis | MN | |
Woodland Hills Church | Greg Boyd | St. Paul | MN | Okay, yes, he’s an Open View theologian. But other than that he’s really good! |
Parkside Church | Alistair Begg | Chagrin Falls | OH | |
Salem Alliance Church | John Stumbo | Salem | OR | |
Park Cities Presbyterian Church | Joseph “Skip” Ryan (formerly) | Dallas | TX | |
Stonebriar Community Church (Audio) | Chuck Swindoll | Frisco | TX | |
Christ Church Plano | David H. Roseberry | Plano | TX | |
Bethany Community Church | Richard Dahlstrom | Seattle | WA | |
Jesus Fellowship of Believers | Tim Dodson | Menomonie | WI | |
Immanuel Church | Rich Vincent | West Bend | WI |
Posted in Audio sermons, Christianity, In progress, Lists
Leave a comment
Recommended Preachers Online
Links
Motivations
As I reflected on my lack of spiritual vitality earlier this year (2007), I concluded that it would help to have more Christian input into my mind. Once a week at church and an occasional devotion wouldn’t cut it. To keep my mind on spiritual things, I needed to hear the Christian message more often. One easy way for me to do that is to listen to online Christian audio, so I set out to collect some.
Procedure
As things usually go with me, the project quickly expanded beyond all reasonable proportion, and instead of gathering two or three sources I could rely on for insight and inspiration, I decided to find as many as I could, searching in a comprehensive and semi-systematic fashion. And by comprehensive, I mean searching every city (above a certain size) in every state in the US. And then expanding to other English-speaking countries after that. That’s what I’m shooting for anyway. In reality I’ll search until I get tired of it. At some point I may expand the project to include speakers that aren’t attached to a church.
My overall procedure is to take the states in the order of their importance to me and search for churches by city, starting with the largest. I didn’t start out this way—I tried alphabetically first, so the map began with some random churches in Alabama—but officially the first state in the list is Illinois, and the first city is Chicago. And then along the way I’ve thought of churches in other states I knew I wanted to include, and I’ve listened to sermons at my friends’ churches from around the country, so I’ve interrupted my orderly progression to add some of those.
Normally I would keep a list like this in my bookmarks, but since the data was geographical, I thought it would be fun to make a Google map out of it, which I have linked to above. My bookmarks are holding the raw results of my search, and to make my decisions, I’m taking more detailed notes in a Zoho Creator database.
Benefits
In addition to collecting more listening material than I could ever possibly take in and stimulating my thoughts and feelings on spiritual matters, this project has come with some unexpected side benefits. One is that I feel more connected with different parts of the country. If Birmingham, Alabama, comes up in a conversation, I can think, Ah, I know something about Birmingham. I’ve listened to some good preachers there. If a natural disaster sweeps through, I can wonder how my churches there are doing. If on a Sunday I’m traveling in an area that has churches on my list, I can visit one of them and gain a more personal connection. If I have a friend who needs a church, I can refer them to my list, if I’ve covered their area; or I can take the project on a detour through their city to see what I can find. For my friends who go to churches on my list, it gives me a little more of a connection with them and more topics for conversation.
And finally, this project lets me exercise one of my joys in life, which is to find hidden treasure and share it with people who might not have found it otherwise. Some of the preachers in the list are well known, but there are pastors out there who are unknown but still good, and they deserve a wider audience. So by posting my discoveries online, I can hopefully give them a bit more exposure and put a few more people in touch with their unique perspectives and good preaching, and the happiness and well-being in the world can be increased. π
Criteria
This list is extremely subjective. While there are a few things I look for, I don’t apply a rigorous and objective rubric to each church. The question that determines whether a church makes the list is, Would I listen to this preacher regularly? If the answer is probably or yes, they go on the map. (If it’s maybe, I come back to it later and listen to a sermon or two more to decide.) So this is not a list of all the good churches in the world or even all the good preachers, just the ones I have personally found to be especially worth listening to so far. Obviously someone else would have a different list. Also, since most of these decisions are based on a single sermon, I will take a church off the list if I change my mind about it on later listenings.
I do keep my ears open for a few basic characteristics. I prefer speakers who have a more natural speaking style, as opposed to a highly affected one. I gravitate toward thoughtful pastors who are speaking to audiences who already have the basics of Christianity under their belt and who are looking to live it more effectively. I like hearing preachers who express the Christian message in new ways, rather than delivering the same old content with the same old language. And I appreciate a balance between exegesis and application. If it’s unbalanced, I’d rather it be on the application side. I am also a conservative Protestant, so you will see a clear bias toward this category in my list, which also I think comes from the fact that they seem to care more about preaching and getting their message out into the public.
Since there are potentially thousands of preachers who fit these criteria, I also keep a few limiting questions in mind: Is this speaker unique enough to stick in my mind? Is he or she easily ignorable (by being overly academic, rambling, or boring in some other way)? Does the speaker express a lot of opinions I disagree with without adding anything to my understanding? Is this speaker annoyingly liberal or conservative? I am more tolerant of conservatism, but I will turn them off if they’re too simple minded for me. And although I am fairly ecumenical, I skip over churches that don’t fit into what I would consider orthodox Christianity, so no Mormon, Christian Science, or Unitarian churches. Seventh-Day Adventists are a little too iffy; they’re out too.
Most of these criteria can be overridden by others in particular cases. Sometimes I can overlook an affected speaking style if the preacher is especially reflective. Or I can forgive a simple message if I feel inspired by the speaker’s sincerity. And I also look for certain specific preaching styles that I wouldn’t normally listen to because occasionally I do feel like listening to them. Sometimes I’m in an “old time religion” mood, for example, which is normally when I turn on Family Radio, even though Harold Camping is kind of a heretic. And of course my friends’ churches get special consideration. π Though they are not automatically included. -.- Even if they’re the preacher.
The List
The list linked to below corresponds to the placemarks on the map. It should be updated often while I’m on this project, except when I take breaks to concentrate on other things, and the changes will be reflected on the Recent Changes page and in the corresponding “all updates” feed. The churches on this page are arranged by state, then by city, then by church name. The Google map list is arranged in the order in which I added them.
Posted in Audio sermons, Christianity, In progress, Lists
Leave a comment
Christianity Introduction
This post has moved here.
Posted in Christianity, Introduction, Old site
Comments Off on Christianity Introduction
Christianity
This post has moved here.
Posted in Christianity, Node hub, Old site
Comments Off on Christianity
Fun with formal equivalence
Bible translation is a hilarious subject! Why have I been ignoring it all this time? I’m reading this review of the ESV by Rodney J. Decker, and he quotes 2 Cor. 1:9-11 from an extremely literal translation called the Concordant … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity
Leave a comment
My translation collection
Lately I’ve become interested in English Bible translations. It started a few weeks ago when I was looking online for opinions on the ESV and found the Better Bibles Blog. They have a lot to say about the ESV that’s … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity
Leave a comment
My new church
Today will be my first service at my new church. I’ve been there before, of course, several times. But this will be the first service I’m attending it as my new church. I’m going to their Good Friday service at … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity
2 Comments