I am excited to announce a new podcast project titled View from the Pulpit. Each episode will feature interviews with pastors and church members exploring the role of preaching, the labor of preparing to preach, the effectiveness of how one preaches, and so much more. This podcast is about preaching, but it is not just for preachers. So whether each Sunday you are behind the pulpit or in the pew, I hope you will tune in for engaging conversations that will help you better understand why preaching is vital to the church’s health. The podcast is available in Apple Podcast, Spotify, and many other podcast apps. Subscribe today so that you will not miss an episode.

Have you heard about deepfakes? The technology is terrifying when you think about all the implications of how it could be used to destroy someone’s reputation or even cause havoc with the stability of governments.

The church has been countering deepfakes since the very beginning. There have always been some who claim to preach the word but actually weaken, manipulate, and twist the word to suit their desires and agendas. Such people are spiritual deepfakes. They look like they are preaching the word, they say they are preaching the word, but they are not.

The way these are confronted and countered is by knowing the word so that counterfeits are recognized, by preaching the word faithfully so that others can recognize such counterfeits, and by keeping close to the word so that when such fakes come along, they are quickly identified.

This is the mission of the church – to preach the word. In every season with all faithfulness, until Jesus returns – preach the word.

Sometimes all you have is a few minutes. With this in mind I am excited to announce a new podcast channel called “Sermon Shorts”. I will be posting 5 min or less clips from recent sermons. I hope you will subscribe and listen. The channel is already available on Apple podcast and will be coming to Google podcast, and other podcast sites very soon.

The following is an example of what each sermon short will be like. It is from a sermon I preached from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 titled “Our Identity is in Christ alone.” Get more information at www.BenSmithsr.org