Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Christocentric Preaching on August 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »
When you are preaching the Old Testament, there should always be a radar bleeping in your heart regarding where Christ fits into the message. Some will suggest that every message must be entirely and purely about Christ, whatever the text was originally intended to convey. I feel this approach can bring our view of the [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Keswick Convention on August 11, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Someone has said that you know it was a good sermon when you find yourself asking how the preacher knew all about you. That’s a nice sentiment that points to the importance of applicational relevance in preaching. Now allow me to give you my statement. This is not a complete statement, or a forever statement. [...]
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Studying a passage effectively involves a variety of skills. Yesterday we mentioned matters of contextual awareness, scholarly awareness and original language study. Today I want to share a few more. Not a definitive list or blueprint for the exegetical process, but a series of prompts that may or may not be helpful reminders. Purposeful Study [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline on June 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A couple of other ideas that can be added to yesterday’s post: “Sermon Ideation Groups to plan a series through a book.” John suggested this and I heartily concur. Mapping out passages and initial ideas can be a great headstart to the sermon series planning process. Anything that helps to avoid the “from scratch” sensation [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail on June 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
This is not a complete post, but it may be helpful. I received the following question from a good friend: I have been asked to preach on psalm 22 and am at the moment soaking myself in it to try and make sure I understand the message, the structure and what God was saying then [...]
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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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In an email interaction with a good friend, John Bell, I was intrigued to read of his statement of the Big Idea of the Big Idea approach to preaching. See what you think: “Effective preaching makes clear and compelling the one thing that the text makes most central.” This impresses me on a couple of levels. [...]
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People appreciate expository preaching if it is done well. People tend not to prefer the taste of exhaustive preaching. The preacher is always tempted to try to cover every angle on every detail in the text. After all, you’ve probably put hours of work into prayerful study and research, much of which has proved to [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, tagged Expository Preaching, Selecting a Preaching Text on April 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The first logical step in preparing a message (once you’ve been asked to preach, which is presumed), is to select your passage(s) on which to base the message. Sometimes the invitation comes with the passage, sometimes with a theme, sometimes an open invitation. Select then forget. What do I mean? 1. When you’re invited to [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, Heralds of God, James Stewart on March 1, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Years ago I read Heralds of God by James Stewart. I just read a response paper sent to me by a friend. It’s time I read the book again. He reminded me of Stewart’s advice regarding preacher’s block, or those times when artistic inspiration simply is not flowing, but discouragement is pouring in like a [...]
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Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, tagged Expository Preaching, Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott on February 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I was just reading a synopsis of an intriguing book. The book is about the importance of conversations, both at work and at home. Nothing to do with preaching though? Well, perhaps more than might be obvious. I was struck by the author’s second principle – “Come out from behind yourself into the conversation and [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching on January 5, 2010 | 3 Comments »
What if preaching were like hospitality – what would your guests experience? Arriving at the door, slightly tentative about what may follow, they are rushed in and quickly seated. No time for friendly interaction, there’s a meal to be eaten! Before them the table is empty, but is continually filled as numerous covered serving dishes, [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 6 - Message Idea, tagged Between Two Worlds, Biblical preaching, exposition, Haddon Robinson, John Stott on January 4, 2010 | 3 Comments »
When we think through the expositional process, we are really concerned about three stages. The first stage is understanding the text (exegetical). The final stage is producing the sermon (homiletical). The link between the two is the bridge in John Stott’s metaphor (in Between Two Worlds). The bridge is the theological abstraction process. In Haddon [...]
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Posted in Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, tagged Expository Preaching on December 1, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Preachers preach a Bible passage from a variety of stances or approaches. I see something of a continuum here and would love to encourage all preachers to move further down the list. 1. Preaching from thoughts prompted by the passage. In preparation the text is read, then the preacher preaches based on thoughts triggered by [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Big Idea Preaching, Conclusion, Expository Preaching, Introduction on November 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »
How many hundreds of sentences are used in a sermon? And they all matter. But they don’t all matter as much as a few of them. I suppose I would suggest the following sentences as worthy of extra effort: 1. The Main Idea. Hours might be spent crafting and honing the main sentence for a [...]
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Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, Haddon Robinson, John Stott on November 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Preaching an ancient text to a contemporary congregation will usually require some level of abstraction. To preach an ancient instruction simply as it stands is to present a historical lecture, rather than a relevant presentation of inspired truth. Some preachers simply say what is there and effectively offer historical lecture. Other preachers abstract from historical [...]
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Last time I suggested one approach, simply asking what the passage is about. But what if that approach isn’t causing fruit to drop from the branches. Are there other tacks to take that might help a preacher grasp the essential unity of idea in a single passage? Here are some angles of approach that I [...]
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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 October 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When you are confident that you are dealing with a legitimate unit of text, then you can be confident that there is unity to the idea contained in that text. You will often need that confidence. Usually a passage doesn’t offer its unity on the lowest branch. It can take work and real wrestling in [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail on September 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
There’s a tool in preparation that should not be overlooked. Of course there are many aspects of preparation that matter, not least the preparation of the life of the preacher, plus the various aspects of Bible study skills, pastoral awareness and involvement, etc. But there is one tool that many preachers neglect far too much. [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, tagged Expository Preaching, Pseudo-Expository on July 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
If you have a commitment to expository Biblical preaching as it is understood on this site, then some versions of preaching obviously stand out as poor. The anecdotal platitudinal rambling with a verse attached won’t fool many of us. The non-expository topical sermon where verses aren’t handled with care and the Bible isn’t in authority [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, tagged Expository Preaching, Order, Progress, Unity on June 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Unity. Order. Progress. Three essentials in effective communication of a message. Yet it strikes me that we can sometimes take these for granted when we are preaching on a single passage. Unity? One passage. Order? Moving through the passage. Progress? Getting closer to the end. If this is all we have, then I suspect our [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, tagged Expository Preaching, Textual Outline on May 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Observation does not work in haste. It takes time to keep looking at something and really see it. I’m told that you cannot get the best out of an art gallery by rushing around and taking mental snapshots (my default approach). I know that neither can you get the best out of a Bible passage [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Psalm 1 on May 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Every text says something. No text says everything. Our task is to preach the text’s something in a way that is faithful to the Bible’s “everything”. Our task is not to preach everything from this text’s something. Balance – you don’t want to preach something that on its own is faithful to the preaching text, [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, tagged Expository Preaching on May 8, 2009 | 4 Comments »
It is so important to understand the text before you preach it! I don’t mean just knowing what the big words mean. I don’t mean just having a collection of exegetical insights to share. I don’t mean even having a sermon vaguely based on certain parts of the text. I mean really understanding what the [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, tagged Expository Preaching, Prayer on April 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
There are a couple of short-cuts taken by many preachers that need to be highlighted for the sake of Biblical Preaching. Please be sure to read the explanation as well as the heading (it’s amazing how people miss the point of what’s written sometimes!) 1. Prayer. Prayer is not a short-cut. It is a necessity. [...]
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