Pastoral Search Committee Resources

Apple Valley Church

On this page you will find links to the various audio resources that were used by the committee to help us learn to be discerning listeners to sermons. We encourage you to listen to these resources as well, as we found them to be encouraging with regard to how God intends to use preaching in the lives of his saints.

John Piper gave a series of lectures in 1988 on preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. We listened to a message entitled "The Ground of Preaching: The Centrality of the Cross". Go to the page containing this message by clicking HERE.

D.A. Carson, a theologian at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, gave a series of lectures on expository preaching at a Desiring God conference in 1995. His first lecture, entitled "The Primacy of Expository Preaching, part 1", was reviewed by our committee. It included a number of memorable statements and is a powerful lecture. One such statement is: "Want of Biblical preaching is an announcement of death...." As a committee we are firmly convinced that a lack of Biblical preaching will cause great harm, and we pray that God will graciously grant that our pulpit will be occupied by a man who will boldly and graciously proclaim the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To listen to this lecture, click HERE.

Bryan Chapell, president of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, gave a series of talks on Christ Centered Preaching at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in November of 2008. Click HERE to go the the WTS page and find the lectures given by Dr. Chapell. These were entitled "The Heart of Christ Centered Preaching" and "The Hope of Christ Centered Preaching".

In addition to the above resources, we listened to sermons by Sinclair Ferguson, Sean Lucas, Ligon Duncan, Paul Tripp, and our very own Neil Tolsma. To listen to one of the first four men listed, just click on his name and you will be taken to the sermon page at his church. Of course, to listen to Rev. Tolsma's sermons, visit our sermon page or 2009 sermon archive page.