Before the Protestant Reformation, the word pulpit was used for the platform on which the altar stood. It comes from the Latin word pulpitum, which means exactly that – a raised platform. The Protestant Reformation brought a much more preaching-centric worship style, and since the speakers would often preach for extensive amounts of time, a… Read More »

If you aren’t a premillennial, pretribulational, dispensational, separated, King James Only, 7-Day-Creationist, Bible-believing, evangelistic, NRA-card carrying, Republican, fundamentalist Baptist who has Sunday School at 9:30am, morning worship at 11:00am, an evening service at 6:00pm and Wednesday prayer meeting – then you’re going to hell. (And if you don’t sing hymns during those services, you might… Read More »

Preaching is a very nuanced style of speech. Typically, sermons are structured around a standardized set of themes, components and conclusions. It has always amazed me how people gauge a sermon’s quality based on a sort of oral tradition standard that we pick up by osmosis from years of church-going. Originally, Christian worship had very… Read More »

Have you ever noticed that there is a lot of standing up in Christian church services? That’s because in the Medieval Age, church buildings did not have pews or seats of any kind. The congregants stood throughout the observance. The priest occasionally would kneel at the altar, but he had his back to the congregation… Read More »