The ninth annual National Conference on Preaching was held February 24-26 at the historic First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. "We Preach Christ Crucified" was the conference theme. Registrants from New York to California enjoyed an inspiring and insightful team of speakers, including O.S. Hawkins, W.A. Criswell, Brian Harbour, Al Fasol, Keith Wilhite, and others.

Here are some "quotable quotes" drawn from the plenary addresses and sermons presented at NCP9:

E. K. Bailey

Serving God is a Choice

Joshua 24:14

The question of the text is not have you decided to follow Jesus. That's a good question, but that's not the question of the text. The question of the text is, "Did you decide to follow Him this morning?"

God wanted to teach them a new style of living. So He put a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and led them out into what the Bible calls Belzephan. Out there in that cul-de-sac with Egypt behind them, the mountains on the side and the sweltering desert on another and facing a watery grave called the Red Sea. It was there that God taught them how to lean and depend on Him.

There are some things you must let go of in order to serve the Lord. There are other things you must lay hold on ... What are you carrying in your back pocket that's keeping you from giving God your best?

Choose Him because of Who He is He came down through 42 generations, got off in a little town called Bethlehem, grew up in the fear of the Lord, and then on one Friday took a cross and put it on His shoulders, gave His mother to John, gave His back to the cross, gave His Hands to the nails, gave His feet to the rivet, gave his head to the thorns and gave His Spirit to the Father. But after He went in that tomb, He didn't stay dead. Early Sunday morning, He got up with all power in His hands. Serve God because of who He is but also because of what He has done.

Leslie Holmes

This Pregnant Gospel

I Thessalonians 1:1-10

In oratory, they remember the speaker. In preaching they remember the message that was delivered ... Spurgeon said, "Let it be your ambition to so proclaim the word of God that the people say of you, not 'What a great preacher!' but instead, 'How glorious is his Christ!'"

You and I ought to be where we would rather die than preach a sermon we are not trying to live!

Reg Grant

Preaching the Cross Creatively

Part of the imago Dei is the creative impulse. It may have been anesthetized ... the trick is in allowing God to resuscitate it.... It will not come naturally but it can come supernaturally.

You can take the road less traveled but it is still a road. Someone has walked it before you.

In the life of Jesus Christ we discover a paradox that can help us to preach the cross creatively: While it is true that Jesus is the only begotten of God, unique, one of a kind, it is equally true that He is the most unoriginal man who ever lived. And it is in that divinely inspired un-originality that we will discover the key to preaching the cross creatively.