I regularly hear that contemporary audiences, or postmodern audiences, don’t appreciate or engage with traditional expositional approaches to preaching. It is easy to blame the change in culture, or the shift in lifestyle, or the influence of MTV or video games. People blame the diminishing attention spans, or the reduced openness to propositional truth, or [...]
Archive for May, 2008
Why Was the Text Written?
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Specific text, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose on May 30, 2008 | 1 Comment »
In a general sense everything written in the Bible was written for our instruction (Rom.15:4). Yet as preachers we can fall into the trap of looking for a sermon in a text, rather than fully pursuing the process of allowing the text to be boss of the sermon.
Yesterday I was discussing Genesis 3 with a [...]
Preaching To Few
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 29, 2008 | 7 Comments »
I’m just finishing RT Kendall’s book on his 25 years at Westminster Chapel. He reflects several times on the low numbers he had at the chapel. It seems that in a church that would hold 2000, his congregation was typically 150-300. The only time the place was full was for his farewell. He wrote candidly [...]
The Pressure of Infinite Resources
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study on May 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
We live in a time when we have potential access to more study resources than ever before. There are countless commentaries on every book of the Bible, including exegetical, technical, semi-technical, expositional, applicational, background, socio-cultural, devotional. Then there are the Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, literary guides, and so on. And I shouldn’t forget the preaching helps [...]
Preacher Under Fire
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
People joke about having roast preacher for Sunday lunch. In reality many of us face worse than sermonic critique from our listeners. The experience of criticism, accusation, distrust and outright opposition is well known to many of us. It is important to prayerfully consider things that are said against us since these difficult times are [...]
Road to Damascus
Posted in Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion on May 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I felt like I was on the road to Damascus. Preaching into a spotlight. Thankfully I was preaching on just two verses (a unit of thought in Proverbs), and didn’t need to read anything. But not being able to see the listeners was tough. Eye contact was all an illusion if people felt like there [...]
What Makes Teaching or Preaching Effective?
Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 24, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Crossing disciplines can often be helpful. For example, I’m reading a book on teaching entitled The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer. It is excellent. While it is aimed toward the teacher or lecturer, it is hitting home in respect to my ministry as a preacher too.
Early on Palmer is describing what makes a good [...]
Preacher Autobiographies
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Review on May 23, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I’ll be honest, I don’t read too many autobiographies. But this week I picked up Dr R.T. Kendall’s In Pursuit of His Glory: My 25 Years at Westminster Chapel. Unable to sleep last night, I read maybe a fourth of this book. 1977-2002 was a fascinating and often highly controversial chunk of history at this [...]
Tired of Preaching?
Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 19, 2008 | 2 Comments »
It’s Monday morning. You have woken to a few moments of contentment before remembering yesterday. Perhaps your sermon flopped. Perhaps you were strongly criticized. Perhaps you just felt totally wiped out and emotionally drained. So today you are tired of preaching. Here’s a brief perspective fixer for you:
You’re Not Alone – I’ve no statistics to [...]
Remember This
Posted in Delivery, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
With the increase in TV, radio and internet, it is easier to hear preaching than ever before. Along with the blessing this may bring, there is also an added pressure. Perhaps you sense it, or even hear about it? People in your pews are listening to the superstars as they drive to work, then when [...]
Sensible Solo Sermon Selection
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection on May 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
There are times when we can select a single passage to preach, a stand-alone sermon. Some people only ever preach this way. Others rarely preach this way. So how do we select the passage? Well, it’s a good idea to pick a passage you want to study and preach. It’s a good idea to pick [...]
Preaching Tired
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 15, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A good friend and commenter on this site sent me a list of about twenty lessons he’d noted after preaching a sermon recently. I am indebted to Tim for the prompts for yesterday’s post, today’s, and probably a few more to come!
Here’s one of those “lessons learnt” – stress and tiredness do affect your preaching.
Sometimes [...]
Last Minute Sermon Preparation
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have a personal principle on this issue. If I genuinely have had to prepare at the last minute, then I ask God for help and know that He understands. But then there is a second part to it too – if I have procrastinated and end up preparing at the last minute, then I [...]
Gifted to Preach
Posted in Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 13, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It’s an important question, but not a simple one. I hope we would all agree that preaching has much more to do with gift than degree. But which gift? Obviously the gift of teaching is the typical one people point out, or perhaps a carefully defined (or re-defined) gift of prophecy. But what about the [...]
Professional Preacher?
Posted in Delivery, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I am currently reading through Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo’s book, Adventures in Missing the Point. In his typical style McLaren criticizes the “modern” approach to leadership in the church under 10 headings. For one of these he uses the term “careerist.” While I am far less inclined to criticize the church as freely as [...]
Read Widely, Disclose Wisely
Posted in Audience Analysis, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion on May 10, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I recently heard of someone who made a mistake in his ministry. His mistake was to write down the title of a book for someone he was discipling to go and read. The book was written by an author from a very different stream of christianity. The content of the book was [...]
A Worldwide Lack
Posted in Homiletics, Preaching, Religion on May 9, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Here is a quote that I have used in presentations of our ministry over the past few years. It’s an observation made in the early pages of Operation World, the great prayer guide for the world by Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk. It’s an observation that I find to be true as I travel:
There is [...]
The Power of Expository Preaching
Posted in Homiletics, Preaching, Religion on May 8, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Following on from our discussions of the definition of expository preaching, let’s take a moment to refresh on the power of expository preaching. When the Scripture is interpreted well and presented relevantly, there is great power.
The Power of the Word of God – It is hopefully a core conviction that the Word of God [...]
My Communication Heroes
Posted in Homiletics, Preaching, Religion on May 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Naturally I have heroes who do what I desire to do. Effective preachers who handle God’s Word very carefully and preach it very relevantly. Some of these are big names, others are not. But there are other communication heroes that are not doing what I am trying to do. They are doing what I feel [...]
Preach Grace Not Moralism
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion on May 3, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Tim Keller makes a critical point. Too often as preachers we preach a gospel that moves people from rebel to legalist. We so easily preach so that younger sons become older sons, but somehow miss the glory of the father’s prodigious grace in humiliating himself for the sake of both sons.
Let us be careful to [...]
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