In these challenging days when we are living through a pandemic that has gripped our world, as well as racial tensions and protests in a divided nation, this is a book whose time is now. Aptly titled, Confronting Life’s Challenges: Sermons on the Struggles We Face, these sermons are practical to the core. They do not shy away from the tough questions and perplexing issues which confront us each day. Instead, they urge us to focus on God as we face real-life issues of anxiety and anger, guilt and grief, doubt and despair. Our preachers instruct us to open our eyes, by faith, and see the presence of God in our midst!

Some years ago, First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach established a Distinguished Preacher Series that brought such well-known preachers as Tom Long and Barbara Brown Taylor to South Florida. It is a great honor for me to have preached in this series myself. Before my sermon, I told the Delray Beach congregation, to sustained applause, that they do not need a Distinguished Preacher Series because they already have a Distinguished Preacher in Doug Hood. After the applause subsided, I told Doug, in front of the congregation, that he must pay me more for these compliments!

After reading this book and getting better acquainted with the sermons of my new friend, Greg Rapier and, my long-time friend, Skip Randolph, I realize that the Delray Beach congregation has been blessed with not one, or two, but three distinguished preachers.

But the one you will meet in these sermons is not any of these preachers, as outstanding as they are. The one you will meet is none other than the Savior himself! Although the style of each preacher is distinctly his own, the one quality that characterizes each of these preachers is that they continually point to Jesus!

Welcome to an Adventure in Discipleship as you discover the one who can help us meet, and overcome, the challenges of life and the struggles we face!

With anticipation for what God has in store for us as we read these sermons again and again,

~Tom Tewell, Claremont, California, August 2020