Pro Preacher

Don’t stress about setting a bunch of goals that you may never reach. What if you could focus on just one goal that would sort everything else out? That is what we need, and that is what Paul did, and he wrote about it in Philippians 3:8-21

This audio is from a sermon that I preached on New Year's Eve at my church.

Mike Neglia from the Expositor's Collective podcast interviews Brandon Hilgemann about his first sermon and other lessons from more than 15 years of preaching and helping others grow in their preaching too.

Many people know Bible stories, but few know the story of the Bible. This is the entire story of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, in six words.

Faithfully preaching the Word of God is the primary calling of a pastor. While the work of pastoral ministry consists of many other things, none of these duties is more important than preaching the Word.

We need to clear up some false teaching about heaven that many people believe. So here are seven lies that people believe about heaven (and the last is the worst).

This is the printable Pastor's Planner that I use to help increase my focus, productivity, and organization in ministry. Check it out at the link below.  

There’s a perilous balance in preaching. If you stray too far to one side or the other, you’ll fall off a cliff, hurting yourself and taking other people down with you. All pastors naturally land somewhere on a spectrum between truth and love in their preaching. Great preaching requires both. Let me explain.

Logos 10 just launched! I got early access. So here are my thoughts on the new features and if it's worth upgrading.

How do you know if you are called to ministry? People ask me this question a lot. So here are some things I've learned over many years in ministry that will help you determine if God is calling you too.

There seems to be some confusion about the name of this podcast. Some people think I have given myself the title “Pro Preacher.” Nothing could be further from the truth. So in this episode, I will explain how Pro Preacher came to be and the true meaning of the name. It's not about me.

In most churches, summer means lower attendance. With lower attendance comes a slower pace of ministry. Instead of fighting the summer slowdown, pastors should embrace it.

Just because ministry is slowing down, doesn’t mean that pastors can’t take advantage of summer to grow their church and themselves. So here are five things you can do to take advantage of summer.

There may be no worse form of hypocrisy than that of hypocritical religious leaders. Jesus reserved some of his harshest words for hypocritical religious leaders. We see this hypocrisy all around us today. The church better take notice and root out the hypocrisy in our lives too.  

This is a slightly shortened version of a message I preached on March 27, 2022.

If you're in ministry, I know this is true: You're busy, and you need more time to rest. So here are seven ways to find rest in ministry.

There are a lot of ways a wedding can go wrong, and pastors aren't perfect. Here are eleven common wedding mistakes pastors make. Let's learn from these so we don't repeat them.

If you want to perform a wedding, there are hundreds of little details to think about. Here is a basic overview of what you'll need to know and a resource that I have created to help you learn how to perform a wedding.   

Every year, I like to set goals and resolutions for myself. Why not also set some New Year's Resolutions for your church too? Here are three resolutions that every church needs. 

This is a condensed version of a sermon I preached in January 2022 from my home while recovering from COVID. It's a bit different than what I normally post, but I hope you find it encouraging for you and your church as well. God bless, and here's to a great year for you and your church. 

Can an iPad replace a pastor’s computer? For the last 90 days, I’ve used an iPad for all my work. iPads can now do 99% of what pastors use computers to do, and it does some things even better. So after my 90 day experiment, here are my thoughts on being an iPad only pastor.

Sermon delivery is an art that takes years to master. But here are some preaching tips and tricks that will help you preach more effectively. I wish I knew these when I first started preaching.

Want to learn how to preach or simply how to preach better? First, work on your sermon writing. Better sermon preparation leads to better preaching.

Every pastor needs a sermon calendar to help plan their preaching. Here are three reasons why you need one, and how to save time by using mine (if you’d like).

A major injury gave me a slight limp. My leg will never be the same. I used to try to hide it, but God has used my weakness to teach me a valuable lesson. Here's why you should preach with a limp.

How do I balance ministry and family? There's always another person to reach and another sermon to preach. If you let it, your ministry will overtake all your time with your family. These are some things I've learned to help keep both my ministry and my family healthy.

It's normal for pastors to feel like they don't measure up. We look at other more "successful" ministries and wonder why ours isn't more like theirs. Here are five things you need to know if you are feeling inadequate in ministry.

Preaching to a camera is different than preaching to a crowd. Can we agree on that? And a lot of pastors are wrestling with learning this different skillset right now.  So here are five tips I’ve learned that will help you preach to a camera better.

The Apple Watch is a great preaching tool. Pastors have been using watches for years to help them manage their time when speaking. But smartwatches, like the Apple Watch, take this to another level. So what's the best way to set up your Apple Watch for when you are preaching? This is my favorite setup.

A Tesla demonstration for their new Cybertuck recently went viral for all the wrong reasons. They claimed that their new "armor glass" was near indestructible. But to everyone's surprise, it broke during the demonstration. This is what pastors should all learn from Tesla's mistake.

How long should you preach? There are a lot of opinions out there on sermon length, but we need more than just feelings. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of data out there. So I decided to do some new research. I tracked the average sermon length of the 50 fastest growing churches in America. This is what I found, and what we can learn.

Preaching Team is here. It officially launches today. 

In this episode, I'll explain more about what Preaching Team is, how it is unlike any other sermon resource out there, and answer some of the most common questions that I've received.

A few weeks ago, I threw out an idea that is really exciting to me about starting a preaching team. But I needed to know that it was something you might be interested in before I moved forward. Your feedback was tremendously helpful. So here is an update on where things are going, and when you can join the team.

I have this idea that I'm excited about that I just have to share with you. Every pastor deserves to have a preaching team. The church should be a family that works together for God's glory. You don't have to do all of your preaching and sermon preparation alone. This is how I think we can help.

What do you think? If you're interested, send a quick email to brandon@propreacher.com

Learn how to study the Bible faster and more efficiently than ever with these Logos Bible Software tips. These tricks will shave wasted time off of your sermon prep every week if you put them into practice.

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What’s the difference between preaching and teaching?

I’ve also heard a pastor labeled as a good teacher, but not a great preacher. On the other hand, I’ve also heard others call a pastor a good teacher, but not a good preacher. 

At the same time, today we will use the words teaching and preaching almost interchangeably when talking about what the pastor says on stage on a Sunday. 

So what do we mean by preaching and teaching? Is there even a difference, and does it matter?

Yes, it matters. Please allow me to explain.

What is the best all-around Bible for pastors?

I did a review recently on what I consider to be the best preaching Bibles (the ESV Pastor's Bible and Preaching Bible), but I didn't factor in the amount of love that pastors have for Crossway's best-selling Bible, the ESV Thinline Bible.

After all the comments and emails, I got a copy and have used it as my primary Bible for the past month to get a better feel for it.

Here's what I learned. 

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Being a pastor is hard. The church is often guilty of only painting a picture of the blessings of being called to ministry. We forget to talk about the struggle.

So here are some things I wish someone would have sat down and told 20-year-old me. I spent a decade learning these the hard way.

There are a lot of cliche phrases that have become mainstream in American Christian culture. They all have good intentions. Some are great.  But there are some things I wish pastors would stop saying.

Here are eight phrases that have become so ingrained in our Christian culture that we say them without thinking. But I think we can do better.

I wish I had more resources earlier in my ministry. That's why I have been creating more and more resources over the years.

Preaching by using an iPad for your sermon notes has become more popular over the years as tablets have become widely adopted. 

I've been preaching with my iPad for years. So if you're looking into iPad preaching, here is how to do it. 

I'll talk about how to format your sermon notes, the apps I use, how iPadOS is changing the game, and the ticking time bomb on your iPad that's waiting to blow up your sermon.

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When you evaluating your preaching, the number of things that you need to work on can be overwhelming. 

Where do you even begin?

Many pastors make the mistake of trying to get better in every area of their preaching all at once. But when you try to fix everything, you'll barely fix anything.

Here's why focusing on one thing improves everything.

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One of the biggest mistakes we make when preaching is to only tell something to our audience. We need to show it to them, not just tell them.

In this episode, I'll explain what "Show, don't tell" means for your preaching.

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I’ve used Logos Bible software for years now to help with all of my Bible study for sermons and books.

So I want to give you just three of the big reasons why I use Logos and why I think you should use it too.

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What's the best Bible for pastors? 

I've done a lot of research on all of the top preaching Bibles available, and settled on my top two new favorites. Here is what I look at in a new Bible, how these two compare, and what each does best. 

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Pastors spend a lot of time every week working hard on their sermon. They preach it. God uses it. Then, they toss it and begin work on the next one. 

Why are we so content with letting all that work go to waste? How can we help a sermon live beyond Sunday?

Here are 10 ways that you can help each sermon live longer and reach more people.

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A lot of what passes for preaching today is just spiritualized motivational speaking. It's a motivational speech in church clothes.

So what's the difference between good preaching and just giving a motivational speech?   

In this episode, we'll talk about the two  fundamental elements to good preaching and why you need them in every sermon.

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