Pastor Jim Smith brings a seed packet to the pulpit and turns the parable of the sower from a diagnosis into a question he has asked students for seventeen years: what quality and depth of soil do you want to offer?

Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1, from a preacher who opens… read more

2 Kings 23 and Josiah using his influence to call… read more

Isaiah 53:6-7. We all like sheep have gone astray, and… read more

John 21 and the conversation between Jesus and Peter, overheard… read more

A reign ends, and that is when the vision comes. Dr. James Smith III preaches Isaiah 6 on a sequence the year-end usually reverses: seeing, then undoing, then cleansing, and only then “here am I, send me.”

Two men go up on a roof. David sees a woman and sends for her; Peter goes to pray and is given a vision he refuses three times. Dr. James Smith III sets the passages side by side and asks what a person does with a high place and some solitude.

Dr. James Smith III preaches the angel’s announcement as the answer to why Jesus came. The shepherds are not told to feel better; they are told something has happened, in a named town, with a verifiable sign attached, and the joy follows the fact.

Dr. James Smith III brings the early church into the room, letting the first Christian voices interpret John 3 alongside modern readers, and reads the passage from the end of chapter two so the famous verse sits where it actually belongs.