PreachingToday.com: Over your years as a pastor, what's one thing that surprised you about preaching during the Christmas season?

Matthew D. Kim: In being completely transparent, I was surprised by how difficult it was to preach at Christmas. I accepted Christ at the age of 13 and have heard my share of Christmas sermons and I preached several of them as well. The Christmas story can sadly lose its novelty and become a humdrum experience. As pastors, we've all heard the observation of the "nominal" Christian who only attends service once a year on Easter Sunday. He leans over to his wife and says: "This preacher preaches the same sermon every time we come to church." Well, the same could be said of Christmas sermons from the perspective of the preacher. Preaching at Christmas can become lackluster and lose its vibrato. I found that I had to amp myself up each year to try to and be creative in how I preached at Christmastime.

One of the ways that I've tried to get excited about the Advent ...