Pastors and preachers from all over the Kansas City metro area gathered in the new Spurgeon Library on the campus of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary last Friday for their annual Williams-Farmer Preaching Fellowship. This event, hosted by Blue River-Kansas City Baptist Association is an annual conference dedicated to helping pastors hone their preaching skills to better communicate the gospel.
This year, Dr. William Rice, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida, was the keynote speaker. Dr. Rice has been a pastor for 32 years in churches of all sizes. Dr. Rice has also been the president of the Florida Baptist Convention for two years and was last year’s president of the Pastor’s Conference at the Annual Southern Baptist Convention in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Rice shared a biblical philosophy of preaching as well as practical preaching practices that allow one to plan their preaching in advance so more time can be spent on good preparation and allowing the mind and heart to internalize the text and find good illustrative materials from life. He laid out a healthy definition of expository preaching that is both faithful to the text and makes application to the real-life issues people are facing. 
A bonus at this year’s event was that Dr. Rice brought his Associate Pastor along, Victor Boll, who connected with many participants informally, offering cutting edge evangelism ideas that are effective in reaching people for Christ. Many thanks to Midwestern Seminary for hosting us in the inspiring Spurgeon Library!
This article was originally published in the May 2016 edition of our Missions & Ministry Newsletter.
