Some churches apparently have “topical sermons” every week. Apparently some preachers think they are easier to prepare and easier to listen to. Yes and no. A topical message is easier to prepare if you are simply wanting to say your own thing and bounce off a couple of verses along the way. A topical message [...]
Archive for the ‘Stage 1 - Passage Selection’ Category
Collecting Classic Phrases Describing Preaching
Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection on February 21, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I was just talking with my Dad about preaching the other night. He referred to my Grandfather. Each of the three generations have been preachers, but I never knew my Grandfather because he died three years before I was born. Apparently, he would sometimes refer to preachers who are all over the place [...]
Preaching Trends
Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, tagged DA Carson, Discourse Preaching, Don Carson, Expository Preaching, Leland Ryken, Narrative Preaching, Preach the Word on February 5, 2009 | 2 Comments »
We need to be aware of preaching trends. Like all trends, they come and go over time, influencing some while leaving others untouched. Trends can be overt and in your face, or subtle shifts that sweep people along unawares. For instance, D.A. Carson writes concerning the current focus on preaching narrative:
The current focus on narrative [...]
Points on Picking Passages – Part 2
Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, tagged Expository Preaching on January 23, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday we saw that God is sovereign and all Scripture is “useful” (which sounds like an understatement when separated from 2Tim.3:16!) So when there is freedom to choose a passage for a message, consider:
Consider the people. Who are they? What do they need? What issues are they facing in life, both individually and corporately? Sometimes [...]
Points on Picking Passages – Part 1
Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, tagged Expository Preaching on January 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
While you may agree that working through a book is the ideal default when planning a preaching schedule, what if you are only preaching a single message? What if a passage is not assigned and you are free to choose? What freedom to delight in! Or perhaps, what a stress to despair [...]
Preaching One Text
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, tagged Expository Preaching on December 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I emphasize the need to preach a single text in most sermons. There are exceptions, but generally one text is the way to go. I want to be clear why I make this suggestion (today) and address a possible misunderstanding (tomorrow).
I strongly suggest preaching on one text most of the time, because it is so [...]
Preaching Sermons on Sermons
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Old Testament, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, tagged Hebrews on November 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I don’t mean preaching your sermon based on another contemporary preacher’s sermon. I mean preaching a sermon based on a Scriptural sermon. There’s lots of them. It can be fascinating to wrestle with a sermon in its context since you would expect to find a sense of context, purpose, application, explanation, etc. If you haven’t [...]
Please Ponder Passage Purpose
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, tagged Jay Adams, Preaching with purpose on September 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am continuing to read Jay Adams book Preaching with Purpose (1982). Chapters 5 and 6 concern selecting a preaching portion, but point beyond stage 1 to the oft-neglected stage 3 in my process – passage purpose. Adams points out that a preaching passage has unity not because of literary convention, or by rhetorical fiat [...]
Congregational Calendar Input
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, tagged planning preaching, Preaching calendar on September 1, 2008 | 2 Comments »
When planning a preaching calendar, don’t forget a key resource – your target audience. I heard of one pastor who would ask his congregation for passages or doctrines they found hard to understand, then would schedule a series responding to those subjects the following summer. The advantages included that people felt their needs were taken [...]
Invest Some Time to Save Hours
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, tagged planning preaching, Preaching calendar on August 30, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Perhaps you are in charge of the preaching calendar. Perhaps you are not, but sometimes get called on to preach. Either way, it is worth investing time ahead of time to plan out some preaching plans. Considering the needs of the people and how those might best be addressed from the Bible is an exercise [...]
7 Reasons to Preach A Lesser Known Book
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, tagged 2nd John, Ecclesiastes, Joel, Jude, Nahum, Obadiah, Song of Solomon on August 29, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Most preachers do what most Christians do. They tend to stay in the familiar books of the Bible. The gospels, the epistles, and maybe some Psalms or well-known Old Testament narratives. But what about Nahum, Obadiah or Joel? What about Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, or even 2nd John or Jude? Here are 7 reasons to [...]
Passage Selection – Stage 1
Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, tagged Multiple Preachers, Multiple Speakers, Preaching Series, Topical Preaching, Unit of Thought on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A little milestone was reached yesterday as the hit counter passed 100k. So I thought I’d take some days to offer a brief summary of the 8 steps of sermon preparation, suggesting some links back to posts that are particularly relevant to each step. Remember, you can see all the posts related [...]
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 [...]
Taking Series Seriously – Part 2
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection on April 20, 2008 | 3 Comments »
For a series to work well, it is important to recognize the role of the Spirit and have flexibility in scheduling. Here are two more important issues to consider:
Avoiding the sameness – A long series in the same book can get old. There are several ways to avoid this. Vary the message structure (include a [...]
Taking Series Seriously
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection on April 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I shared a few reasons why I think sermon series are generally the way to go. However, for series to work well, several issues need to be addressed. Rob’s comment yesterday raised several key issues. Today I’ll mention two, then the next day two more:
Role of the Spirit – Does a series quench the [...]
Why Preach a Series?
Posted in Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study on April 18, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Some may ask, why do so many of us preach in series? There are many reasons, but here are a handful to start with:
A series of sermons has greater leverage than a solo sermon. By reinforcing and reviewing a Bible book, the series allows for the lessons to sink in and be applied. We often [...]
If You Could Preach Any Passage
Posted in Genre, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Stage 1 - Passage Selection on April 2, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Just imagine you weren’t in the middle of a series. Imagine you could free up two or three days to study any passage and then prepare a message just because you want to. What passage would it be? Would it be an old favorite that you haven’t looked at in a while? Perhaps Psalm 23 [...]
Discourse is Not Just Epistles
Posted in Genre, Homiletics, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Specific text, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose on March 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
When I teach preaching courses, I tend to refer to the three types of Scripture: discourse, narrative and poetry. The various genre fit within these categories and so they give a good overview of different Biblical text types. So the principles of narrative interpretation would apply in the Gospels, Acts, historical books and [...]
Who Put Them There?
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection on March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The first stage in preparing a biblical message is to select the passage. This is incredibly easy if you take an arbitrary approach to the canon. For example, maybe you plan to preach chapter-by-chapter through a book, or even verse-by-verse through a section. Wait! This sounds easy, but we must not take this approach.
The chapter [...]
Wrestling with Flow
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 4 - Passage Idea on February 4, 2008 | 1 Comment »
There are shortcuts in preaching. Perhaps some are legitimate, although none spring to mind. But there is one major shortcut that is very common, but that undermines the whole preaching event. Failing to wrestle with flow.
It is easy to break a passage into its chunks and preach a sermon from each chunk. Be sure to [...]
It’s Hard Enough Already
Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study on January 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Some readers preach every week, perhaps multiple times each week. Others only preach periodically. Perhaps this post is more for the less frequent preachers, but it could apply to all. Simple idea today – when you have the choice of what to preach, don’t make it more complicated than necessary. There’s always a lot to [...]
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