Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, tagged Charles Spurgeon, Doctrinal Preaching, Preaching Psalms, Psalms on May 12, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The site received this comment from Peter D: I have been studying Charles Spurgeon’s sermons. He would often take one scripture and expound on it from every direction he could, would that be thin blooded? I’m preparing a message for later this month and want to focus on one verse within Psalm 63 – it sticks out [...]
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Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Delivery, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail on May 3, 2010 | 2 Comments »
If you want to increase creativity in your preaching, what is needed? 1. Time. If you are squeezed for time then it will not be possible to add the extra work needed (and the thinking capacity needed) for adding creativity to your preaching. 2. Freedom and trust. It is important to know the congregation to [...]
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Today’s post isn’t one. It’s a 35-minute interview I did with Mike Reeves over at theologynetwork.org in their Table Talk series. It’s all about preaching and how our view of God influences our view of the Bible and therefore our approach to communicating it. So, here’s the link and I hope this is helpful: theologynetwork.org [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, Preaching Epistles on February 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
This is where we sometimes struggle the most. When preaching the epistles (less so the speeches of Joshua, Jesus, etc.), we can easily fall into logical information transfer and presentation of facts. But the fact is that all discourse is set in a narrative context. How do we make sure listeners feel the force of [...]
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Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, Preaching Poetry, Preaching Psalms on February 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
When we preach poetry, do our listeners really feel the force of it? Poetry is found in the Psalms and wisdom literature, of course, but also in the historical books and the prophets too. All too easily we can preach to the head, but not move the listeners with the force of the text. A [...]
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The desire to be relevant to our listeners might sometimes undermine our preaching. What I am thinking about is the count the costs, take up your cross, radical discipleship kind of passages. You know, the ones that seem to be so demanding and so absolute. It’s not that we don’t believe them, or don’t want [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, tagged Christmas Preaching on December 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It would be easy to push through this season and then leave Christmas sermons until next year. It would be a wasted opportunity. Just as it can save money to buy next year’s cards right after this year’s Christmas, so it can save time to give some thought to next year’s sermons now. Perhaps you [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Preaching, Religion, Specific text, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Biblical Narratives, Expository Preaching, Luke 1, Matthew 1, Narrative Preaching, Preaching Bible Story, Theocentric Preaching on December 9, 2009 | 2 Comments »
There are many stories in the Bible, and this is one season in the year when most of us are preaching stories. In some ways Bible stories give the preacher an advantage. For example, stories offer a flow, a plot, a progression, that can be replicated in the message (although it amazes me how many [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, New Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Christmas Preaching, Matthew 1 on December 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I was pondering the passage I preached yesterday. It was Matthew 1 – the genealogy and Joseph’s dream. I engaged with the text, tried to preach it with it’s own emphasis, and emphasised the relevance to us today. A couple of comments afterwards referred to the new or different angle or take on the story. [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Genre, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Biblical Narrative, Expository Preaching, Preaching narrative on November 10, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Yesterday I began to respond to Anthony’s question about preaching longer narratives: How do you handle the tension of wanting to tell the story as it was intended to be told and not wanting to overload the hearers? We saw that how a story is told is critical (more critical than the amount of information [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Biblical Narrative, Expository Preaching, Preaching narrative on November 9, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Anthony asked the following after one of the posts last week: I preach only occasionally, and have tackled a couple of narrative passages recently. I like to respect the narrative chunks in the text, which often have a clear beginning, middle and end. But last time I ended up preaching two whole chapters (75 verses), [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Specific text, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea on November 3, 2009 | 3 Comments »
A story is a story. It should be studied as a story and understood as a story. But what about when you are preaching part of a story? For instance, take the book of Ruth. I had to preach just part of that story on Sunday. It’s not easy to break into a story and [...]
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Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 7 - Message Outline, tagged Daniel Goepfrich, Expository Preaching, sermon form, Textual form, Topical Preaching on August 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Daniel Goepfrich wrote a substantial interaction with this blog over on his site – here – this post is responding to the issue of relevant preaching from paragraph 12 to the end. ——————— You then progress to the issue of contemporary relevance. I agree with you that the Bible is full of God’s spokesmen addressing contemporary [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, tagged Biblical Poetry, Biblical Prophecy, Bruce Waltke, Consecutive Preaching, Daniel G, Daniel Goepfrich, Expository Preaching, Gerald Wilson, Psalms, Topical Preaching on August 10, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Daniel Goepfrich wrote a substantial interaction with this blog over on his site – here – this post is specifically addressing the examples of poetry and prophets given in paragraphs 10 & 11. ——————— Regarding Poetry, again I don’t insist that we preach through a book – that is not what I teach (thanks for [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, tagged Daniel Goepfrich, Expository Preaching, Historical Narrative, Topical Preaching on August 8, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Daniel Goepfrich wrote a substantial interaction with this blog over on his site – here – this post is specifically addressing the example of historical narrative given in paragraph 9. Be sure to check out the comments on his site. It’s great to enjoy a mutually respectful interaction like this. ——————— You go on to address [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, tagged Biblical Narrative, Daniel Goepfrich, Expository Preaching, Literary Structure, Topical Preaching on August 7, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Daniel Goepfrich wrote a substantial interaction with this blog over on his site – here – this post is specifically addressing this sentence in paragraph 8: Most of the Scriptures were not written as sermons or messages to be taught straight through. Sure, some of the letters in the New Testament are designed that way and [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged bible stories, Biblical preaching, Expository Preaching, Preaching narrative on July 31, 2009 | 3 Comments »
A switch that could make a big difference when preaching narratives. How do you preach a story? Common Default Approach – This is the approach that begins the message with the reading of the text, then moves on to talk about the story, noting elements within the text and giving both explanation and application based [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, tagged Biblical Genre, Expository Preaching on July 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The traditional approach to preaching a Bible passage is that it is a collection of data, probably in an antiquated form. So for many preachers, coming to the text is coming in search of sermon content – data to be transmitted, information to be mined and presented. In recent years awareness has increased significantly in [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Genre, Homiletics, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, Manipulation on July 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »
On June 30th I wrote a post on preaching as a matter of life and death. For that post click here. In the good discussion that followed I made this comment – God has communicated in His Word (and calls us to preach that Word), in such a way as to move the heart/affections, as [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, tagged Apocalyptic, Biblical Genre, Biblical Poetry, Expository Preaching, Genre, Prophecy, Wisdom Literature on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday we looked at just some of the challenges that come with preaching epistles, gospels and historical narrative. Now for the other four genre. Which do you find the hardest? Poetry – Psalms and songs are readily leaned on in times of personal trial, but preaching them well is not so easy. The imagery is [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, tagged Biblical Genre, Expository Preaching, Genre on July 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
What is the hardest genre to preach well? Every genre has its own challenges. Here’s a list of biblical genre with some brief points on why each can be hard to preach well. I’ll tell you what I find the toughest, but your top three toughies might be different. Let’s not avoid the ones we [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 7 - Message Outline, tagged Expository Preaching, Preaching narrative on July 7, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Most people have. Let me share the three reasons people gave at the seminar last weekend for having done this, then I’ll make my point clear: 1. It’s like children wanting the same story told over and over – it gives a sense of security. 2. You catch details you didn’t see first time through. [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching on April 23, 2009 | 1 Comment »
If you are a regular preacher, then the chances are that you have a rhythm in your preparation. This is good in many ways. However, it also runs the risk of getting into some well-worn ruts. If you are an irregular preacher, then perhaps your preparation process lasts over several weeks. This is also good [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching on April 11, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Some preachers preach merely to inform. Perhaps they are under the impression that the mind is the control center of the human being. Perhaps that think that their task is merely educative. Perhaps they are in a tradition that reveres the intellect, but pulls away from other aspects of human complexity. Perhaps they’ve never known [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, First-Person Preaching, In Character Preaching on April 3, 2009 | 4 Comments »
I just received a really encouraging email from Steve. Steve has attended a couple of my preaching seminars and also helped to set one up in his own church. We had talked about the possibility of preaching in first-person, and he followed through on the idea. Here are the highlights of the email with some [...]
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