Preaching is about to get what many of its readers probably thought it's always had: a full-time editor.
It seems like only yesterday that I sat in a barbecue restaurant with Steve and dreamed aloud of creating a professional journal for preachers. (I've tried to convince my wife I do my best thinking over barbecue, but she's not yet completely convinced.) Less than a year after that first idea, Preaching was born and mailed to 2,300 brave charter subscribers who had invested $15 each in a publication nobody had ever seen before.
It's hard to believe what's happened in the years since that first issue of July-August 1985. Today more than 10,000 ministers across the United States and Canada -- as well as readers in England, Ireland, Australia, and on various mission fields around the globe -- are a part of a growing family committed to preaching excellence.
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Over the years as Preaching has grown -- and spun off other ministry resources, like the National Conference on Preaching and the American Academy of Ministry -- it has been a labor of love for me. (That means it didn't pay anything!) By day I labored on my full-time ministry work, first as Director of Communications at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, and since January 1987 as Director of Development and Church Relations at Samford University. Evenings and weekends were devoted to corresponding with contributors, reading and evaluating article and sermon manuscripts, editing copy, designing pages and all of the other editorial tasks involved in producing Preaching. (Frankly, I'm getting tired just thinking about it.)
That worked while I was young and Preaching was in its infancy, but the publication is approaching adolescence and I'm not quite as young as before. Over recent months, it has become more and more clear that this is the ministry to which God has called me to devote the majority of my efforts. So as of July 9, I become a full-time employee of Preaching and the American Academy of Ministry.
We will be closing our Jacksonville business office (and our Birmingham editorial office, which consists of a room in my house stacked to the ceiling with papers) and moving everything to Louisville, where I will also be teaching a class each semester as Visiting Professor of Preaching at Southern Seminary. (After holding down three or four jobs at a time, I can't imagine not having at least something to do!) After some transition time this summer, I'm looking forward to devoting the kind of time and energy that Preaching and its readers have always deserved. (I may even catch up on my correspondence.)
There's just one down side to all of this (besides giving up my steady paycheck): all those books have to be moved back to Louisville! Does anybody have about a zillion boxes they'd like to devote to a good cause?