Christ-Centered Preaching... An Apt Metaphor

I just heard a simple but helpful analogy or metaphor for Christ-centered preaching. Kim Riddlebarger shared it on the latest edition of the podcast White Horse Inn.

The first idea to know is that all the scriptures are about Christ. Christ himself said so in numerous places but especially verses like Luke 24:26-27 and John 5:39.

Riddlebarger then states that much of today's preaching in churches is like pastors taking one puzzle piece and carefully describing it to the congregation. Christ centered preaching does that and then relates it to the whole picture into which it fits... the Gospel and Christ. He is the focus of the scriptures.

So pastors need to have a clear view of what the puzzle "box top" picture is when they enter the pulpit and they need to tell the congregation how the piece fits into the big picture of God's redemption of his people through Christ.

Muslim - Christian Dialogue 2009 - Full Video and Trailers Up!

Some of you may have noticed that over 2 months ago I spoke on this blog about an upcoming Muslim - Christian Dialogue being held in Knowledge Village. It took place on March 2 and it was attended by close to 300 people. It was a scintillating evening of conversation about "Who is God and how are we saved?".

The company I work for here in Dubai was a corporate sponsor and we also arranged for the event to be professionally filmed. Later we will offer the DVD for sale. But the video production is done!

Click here to go to our youtube channel to see all or part of the dialogue.

Embedded below are the two video trailers to whet your appetite for entire thing.

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

Entire Dialogue (~3 hours long)

I heartily recommend that you embed the videos in your own blog or link to it on your facebook page.

The flow of the dialogue was:

Muslim speaker opening statement (25 min)

Christian speaker opening statement (25 min)

Muslim questions Christian (15 min)

Christian questions Muslim (15 min)

Audience Q & A (1 hour)

Muslim closing statement (15 min)

Christian closing statement (15 min)

All of it is excellent. But if you have to choose I'd say to watch the opening statements first. Next the questioning sections (very entertaining), the closing statements are excellent as well. Audience Q and A is just as good but a little long.

I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think.