I keep a playlist of Dick Lucas sermons and talks on my phone, which I shuffle when running or driving long distances. Years ago, I began daydreaming about transcribing the most incisive, profound, and memorable passages from those talks and publishing them on my blog. I would take a screenshot of the sermon’s timestamp to return to later, navigate to the quotation I wanted to transcribe, and then post it. This was so cumbersome and time-consuming that I never got around to fully developing the project.
Now, I have the time, the energy, and the tools to transcribe those sermons, post them under a dedicated category, include comments and observations, open them with a pullquote or two, and list them here in an Index of Dick Lucas Sermons and Resources. I hope you find these resources both useful and inspirational.
But those aren’t the only transcriptions I will be posting. A few years ago, Ryan Rindels and I wrote a book about two pastors who were neighbors, co-laborers, and eventually, leaders of rival streams of Evangelical Christianity1 in Downeast Maine at the turn of the 19th century. Fathers of an Extensive Country tells the stories of the Congregationalist Reverend Jonathan Fisher and the Congregationalist-turned-Baptist, Reverend Daniel Merrill.
Jonathan Fisher was an incredibly creative and industrious village parson, as well as an artist, scientist, writer, and linguist. He was also frugal and developed his own shorthand in to conserve paper and ink while recording his journals, keeping household and financial records, and writing manuscripts, including an unpublished Hebrew Grammar for seminary students! He also wrote about 3000 sermons in his shorthand and phonetic alphabet.
I have joined a team of Fisher enthusiasts, engaged in transcribing those sermons for posterity. I will post my transcriptions and link to them in this Index of Jonathan Fisher Sermons.
It is my hope and prayer that these resources will prove valuable for scholars and academics, as well as any Christian who values sermons that are Biblical and exegetical in their composition and delivery, Christ exalting, Spirit-infused, and useful to “the Church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15 ESV)
- Michael Bird explains the term Evangelical this way: “When I refer to evangelicalism, I am referring to the historic and global phenomenon that seeks to achieve renewal in Christian churches by bringing the church into conformity to the gospel and by promoting the gospel in the mission of the church… Evangelicalism as a theological ethos can be defined by a number of cardinal points. One way of summarizing these points is the ‘Bebbington Quadrilateral’: • conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted to faith in Jesus Christ • activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be proclaimed to others and expressed in a commitment to service • biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible as inspired and authoritative • crucicentrism, the focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross.” Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 19-20 ↩︎