Last weekend I spoke six times in two days at a Bible retreat. The texts for the retreat were Nahum and Habakkuk. Four reflections:
1. First-person preaching is not used in many churches. The majority of people present had never heard an “in-character” sermon. Judging by the feedback received, they will remember Nahum’s message more than the rest of the preaching last weekend.
2. Variation and repetition are both helpful. Certain themes were repeated and reinforced throughout the weekend, but people appreciated variety in sermon style. A first person message, an interactive session, Q&A, inductive and deductive forms.
3. People value relevance very highly. The most consistent feedback revealed a high value of the people. “These books are so relevant to today!”
4. Consecutive messages are not easy, but possible. Focus on one message, preach it and then only have an hour before the next message. It is possible if there has been sufficient work put in ahead of time. It is important to take some time to review the outline or manuscript. As a preacher you rarely feel fully prepared, but God understands and is faithful!
Peter has responded to questions on this post – see comments.
Biblical Preaching 
Congratulations on your courage! I have done them and had some received quite well and others not so well. Either way, they are worth doing if you believe it is the best way to communicate the message of a text.
Cal Habig
Portland, Oregon, USA
You say that variation is helpful (I agree), and in passing mentioned deductive/inductive preaching as one method of increasing variety.
Do you think it is ok to preach inductively when the passage is clearly worked out in a deductive way? For example, (sweeping statement coming up!!!) a lot of Paul’s epistles seem to be fairly deductive in the way he makes points and then goes onto prove or explain them. Does this tie you into preaching deductively every week as you go through Paul’s epistles?
Another way of saying this question is ‘do you have to stick to the order that the Biblical writer sticks to?’ If Paul makes his big point in verse one, and then proves or explains it subsequently, do you also have to move in this same order?
What do you reckon?
Great question Tim – I’ll write an answer to this in the next few days. Thanks for asking it!
Peter, can you please explain exactly what you mean by a ‘first person sermon’? I have a feeling that it’s used in so few churches that I’ve never heard it!
Dan
Hey Dan – sorry I didn’t make that clear. First-person preaching is preaching “in character.” In this case I preached Nahum’s book as Nahum. I had Nahum visiting us today to explain his book. So sometimes first-person preaching uses a Biblical character speaking to the people today, other times the people “travel back in time” and hear from the character at that time. It is possible to use first-person preaching for a whole sermon, or for a part of it. There are unique challenges, but definite advantages to using this approach on occasion.