Sermon and Preaching articles

The Power of the Spirit in Preaching
4/11/07

The Preaching With Power course can teach you the skills you need to prepare an effective sermon but unless you have the power of God on your message it will not bring God's results.

Being an effective speaker may allow you to sway people and attract a good sized crowd but if the results of your preaching are to have eternal consequences it will be because God takes your words and brings conviction to the hearts of the congregation. So, how do you obtain this power on your preaching? I believe there are 2 main ingredients to the recipe.

First, you must be a person of the Word of God. You cannot expect the God of the Bible to use you unless you are a person who is thoroughly steeped in His word. To be a person of the Word means that you have to make the Bible a integral part of your life and every day routine. You cannot expect God to give you messages filled with His power when you only study His word when you need a sermon. The Bible is NOT a tool for sermon creation. It is the living Word of God that can speak to your heart and can change the lives of people. You must read it, in fact, devour it with your mind so it can have its effect on your life. When you interact with God's word on a daily basis, multiple times per day, you are having a continual conversation with God. God will speak to you through his word, inspiring you, filling you with His great truths. You will then be able to preach from the overflow of God's inspiration on your life. With out the continual interaction with God's word you will not have power in the pulpit.

The second ingredient is prayer. I am not talking about the vain repetitions and the redundant requests you make day in and day out. I am talking about real prayer where you ask God for a baptism of power on your ministry. We find in the book of Acts that the disciples were told to tarry in Jerusalem until they received power. They were not to go and preach under the power of the flesh. So, we find that after they received power that their preaching had miraculous results. My dear friends, we need power in our pulpits, not just eloquence. We need the Spirit of God to take our words and miraculously use them to bring men to Christ. Without the Holy Spirits power on your preaching you are only going to reap what the weak flesh can sow. However, the Holy Spirit can take our daily interaction with God's word and work in us a miracle of synthesis that will bring forth a harvest much greater than our feeble sermons warrant.

Combine these two ingredients, season them with efforts to improve your preaching and I am sure that God will use you to make a significant impact on your community.

Preaching the Whole Word Of God
April 18, 2007

Most of us preachers have our favorite subjects on which we preach. Some of us preach more evangelistic messages, some like to focus on the prophetic sermons. It seems that all of us have an area of interest that we tend to concentrate on. There is nothing wrong with this as long as we do not ignore the rest of the Word of God. In this article, I want to give you a method that will help you to broaden your preaching and expose your people to more of the Word.

Every preacher, especially a preacher who must preach weekly to the same congregation, should vary the type of message he delivers, not just for the sake of the congregation, but for his own development as well. I suggest that one of the simplest ways to do this is to begin a chapter-by-chapter series of sermons on a book of the Bible. I am not necessarily speaking of an expository study; however, it could be done in an expository manner. I suggest that you preach from every chapter of a selected book of the Bible. There are two ways to do this effectively.

The first is simply to select a book and go through it week-by-week, chapter-by-chapter, preaching one or maybe two sermons from each chapter. With this method, you would read and re-read the chapter dozens of times until you almost have it memorized. Then, with note pad and pen in hand, begin to brainstorm the points that seem to jump from the page. After reading a chapter so many times, you will be absolutely astonished at the truths that God reveals to you.

You can organize the numerous points you glean from the chapter into one or two sermons using the methods taught in the Preaching With Power course. Normally I advocate preaching no more than two sermons per chapter in order to keep some degree of flow and movement in your preaching. Congregations can quickly become disinterested if you stay longer in a chapter, obsessing over some minor issues.

The second way to effectively carry out chapter-by-chapter series of messages is to do a verse-by-verse study. Even though I call it verse-by-verse, I actually mean a section-by-section study. The Bible was divided into verses by scribes centuries after it was written so the verse and chapter divisions are not "inspired" and sometimes actually disrupt the thought and flow of the scripture.

In order to do a section-by-section series, you will once again read and re-read the chapter dozens of times. Read until you thoroughly understand the theme and the message of the author. Warning! Do not read any commentaries until you have read the chapter at least 10 times and feel you have an understanding of its message. Why? Because as soon as you read a commentary, your mind tends to be stuck in the thought patterns of the author of the commentary. It is very difficult for many preachers to hear the leadership of God or to discover their own message after reading an "expert's" opinion. So, take my advice. DO NOT go to the commentaries until you have thoroughly studied the scripture and gained a good understanding of it. Then read what others have said. If what the well-reputed commentators say differs greatly from your thought, then study further to be sure you are not off base. But remember that your congregation may need a unique message from God at that particular moment and not the generic ideas of the commentator.

Once you have studied and absolutely KNOW the chapter, you are ready to share the insights you have discovered with the congregation. I suggest that you read a section of scripture and preach briefly on it, extemporaneously, delivering to the congregation the truths you gleaned from your studies. Do not hesitate to preach it. This is not a running commentary on the Bible; it is preaching. Do not lapse into the lazy man's habit of reading a verse or two and then paraphrasing it for the congregation. You are to deliver the distilled essence of your intense study of this scripture.

As you may now realize, this is not an easy method of preaching, but it will have many benefits for you and the congregation. You will be forced to intensely study a particular book of the Bible. You have announced to the congregation that you will preach through a certain book. Now they are expecting you to do it. The pressure of this expectation is a good motivator to the preacher. If you make use of this method several times per year or maybe on Sunday nights or other times when you have regular meetings, you will study many books of the Bible. You and your people will broaden your understanding of God's word.

In my ministry, I have used this method on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. Over the 14 years at my current church, we have studied scores of Bible books, and it has caused me to dig into the Bible and to preach from scriptures that I normally would not use too often. The results have been very profitable to my congregation and to me.

Preaching at Funerals
4/25/07

One of the duties of the preacher is to preach at funeral services. Over the past thirty years I have conducted hundreds of funerals, and I have some strong opinions about what should and what should not be said in a funeral sermon.

First of all, I want you to think about what is the purpose of the funeral. The subject of the funeral is dead; he cannot hear you. The ones you are preaching to are the family and friends that are left behind. The funeral is for the living. Because of this, we need to consider their needs and what God would have them hear because of the death of the loved one. Above all, the funeral is not about you! It is not a time for the preacher to draw attention to himself. It is not a time to show the congregation how long you can preach or how many poems you can recite. It is also not a time to try to preach the dead person into heaven. That has already been decided before they died. I believe the purpose of the funeral is two-fold. First, it is a time of finalization for the family. The funeral is a landmark, an event to mark the end of a life so that those who are left can pick up the pieces of their own lives and go on from that point. In addition, it is to give those attending the funeral service a chance to reflect on eternal things and to look at their own mortality and consider the remainder of their own lives.

When you are asked to preach at a funeral, keep it simple and dignified. If you knew the person very well, it is appropriate to reflect on some personal experiences you may have had. However, be sensitive to the immediate family and do not say anything that will make their grief worse. Do not be over sentimental and say things that will increase the family's pain. If you did not know the person well, refrain from personal remarks. Why? Because you will only appear foolish. Many people there will know the deceased much better than you. So when you are talking about how wonderful a person "Old So-and-So" was, someone there who really knew him is thinking how false you are. It is always better to stick with the scripture and not spend the sermon time glorifying the dead.

Death brings people to a place where they are face to face with their own mortality. So the funeral sermon can always speak of related subjects such as heaven, hell, the uncertainty of life, the value of relationships, personal salvation and many other eternal subjects. Remember that the funeral service is to help those attending to deal with the death and to go on from that point with their lives.   So your message should give them some strength or hope for the future.

Here are some "dos" and "don'ts" for funeral services.
Dos
        Do use the deceased's name.
        Do keep the sermon short and to the point.
        Do speak to all who are present, family, friends and colleagues. Have something to say for all the deceased's relations.
        Do preach a sermon that gives hope.

Don'ts
        Don't go on and on about the life of the deceased, causing the family to suffer more.
        Don't preach condemning messages of judgment.
        Don't speak like you knew the deceased well unless you really did.
        Don't preach too long.

Funerals are for the living, to give those who are left behind a landmark in time from which they can go forward with their lives. Help them do that, and you have done your job.

How Long Should You Preach?

Every one of us can recall a time when you looked at your watch sometime during a sermon. I'm not talking about when you were preaching yourself, but when you were sitting in a pew and listening to another preacher. The sad truth is that many sermons are too long.

I went to a restaurant three weeks ago and ordered a steak cooked medium-well. The waitress was nice, the service was good, but when my steak arrived it was incinerated. It was overcooked, dry and unpalatable. I was in a hurry, so I didn't bother to ask for another. I tried to eat a little of it, but instead just ate the potato and salad. I decided not to return to that restaurant again. An overcooked sermon is just as bad and has the same result with your listeners--they won't be back.

How long should a sermon be? I believe a sermon should be long enough to deliver the message in a complete and interesting way, but short enough to have a powerful impact. I remember sitting at a coffee shop with several young preachers when the conversation turned to last Sunday's sermons. After several of the young men commented on their messages, the young preacher on my left said, "I was on a roll, I preached over one hour." I couldn't help myself and asked, "I wonder how long your congregation listened?"

Don't misunderstand me; there is nothing wrong with preaching a long sermon IF the purpose and the material of the sermon require a long time to develop. However, shorter is usually better. The difference between a smoldering fire and an explosion is only the time required for the combustion to take place. If you want your sermons to have explosive impact, you must get the point across with power in a relatively short time. The fact is that the average human being cannot stay focused on a speaker for more than a few minutes before his mind begins to wander. In the Preaching With Power course, I teach some techniques to gain the congregation's attention, then some ways in which you can hold their attention. But you cannot hold their attention indefinitely. An old proverb says, "The mind can only absorb what the seat can endure."

As a general rule, a sermon should be about twenty to forty minutes long. If you cannot make your point in that amount of time, you need to rebuild the sermon. Remember that your sermon should have a distinct purpose. This purpose is not the subject of the sermon, but the result of the sermon--what you want your congregation to do as a result of hearing your sermon. So if you can accomplish this purpose in twenty minutes, why stretch it out to forty?

I was listening to a sermon preached by a very good preacher. I was impressed by his power and his ability to paint pictures in my mind with his words. He reached a certain point in his message, and I was ready to act. I was just waiting for him to ask me to commit. But, instead, he kept on talking. He spoke fifteen more minutes, during which time I grew more disinterested. He passed the best time to conclude the sermon.
The hardest thing for many preachers to do is to find a way to stop talking. Remember, when you get to the end of the sermon, please stop!

Three Reasons to write your own sermons

When I first started preaching I bought a book of sermon outlines. I thought that it would come in handy on those busy weeks when I didn't have time or was just too lazy to write a new sermon of my own. But I discovered that these sermons just did not sound like me. They didn't fit my style and they didn't address the need of my congregation. Yes, I kept the books, just in case I might need them. Over the next 30 years I have scanned these sermons again and again yet they are still as usless to me as they were the day I bought them.

Preaching is personal. It is you the preacher delivering a special message from God to your congregation at that particular time. Because of the personal timely nature of preaching it is impossible for you to preach another preacher's sermons. That is, unless you work hard to make it your own sermon. Eternal truth is universal so the great truthes of a sermon my transfer from one preacher's sermon to another's. The skeleton is the same. But the flesh is different. The look and feel is different. God has given you a unique personality so that you can preach His message within the unique framework of your personality and history. Your sermon is a unique conversation between God and the congregation. Could you imagine trying to have a timely conversation with your friend and instead of interacting with you, she was reading from a script she got off the internet? The first reason you should preach your own sermons is that preaching is personal.

The second reason is that you need to be in touch with God's message for you and your congregation. The sermon you get from the internet was written by some other preacher for some other congregation. In fact many of the outlines you get from the internet or from the books of sermon outlines have never been preached. A lot of these were written just for publication. Your congregation and your situation are unique in many ways and God can inspire your mind with a unique message for that particular time. Many times you feel the inspiration and instead of studying, praying and seeking your own sermon you begin a search for some other preacher's sermon, in hope that you will find one that 'almost' fits. This is like going to the trash dump to find a pair of shoes. There may be some that are usable, that almost fit, but they are not precisely what you need. They don't feel right, they hinder your stride and are not comfortable. Preach your own sermons because you need to be in touch with God's message for your congregation.

The third reason you need to preach your own sermons is that through the process of studying and developing a sermon you gain new insight into God and God's word. Preaching is a dynamic interaction between the man of God, and the Lord. You owe it to yourself to grow in the knowledge of God. When you take the short cut of preaching another preacher's sermons you miss out on the interaction with God's word and you miss any new insights God might give to you.

The reason I wrote the preaching with power course was to help preachers develop their own sermons. My purpose is to give the essential elements of sermon preparation without a lot of complex theory. It isn't difficult to learn. I believe in putting the cookies on the bottom shelf so the kids can get them. Preaching with Power is written in an easy to understand style. The exercises are designed to allow you to practice the skills you learn so you can apply them to your ministry.

After completing the course I guarantee that you will be preaching powerful sermons that your people will appreciate. If God is giving you a message, the preaching with power course will enable you to get it into the heart of your people in an interesting powerful way.

Click here to learn how you can get Preaching with Power

Preaching Weekly VS Preaching Weakly

To stand before a congregation and preach God's word is one of the greatest responsibilities a person can have. To do this two or three times per week is one of the greatest tasks a person can have. To prepare two or three fresh, timely, interesting and inspiring sermons is a monumental undertaking. No wonder so many preachers surf the web searching for ideas and sermon material. Sermon preparation and preaching should not be a task as much as it should be a process.

Your responsibilities to preach effective sermons never ends. As soon as one message is delivered another must be almost ready and yet another must be on the back burner. So I contend that what we preachers need is to learn the 'process' of sermon development not just learning 'how to' write 'A' sermon. Almost all courses in homeletics deal with the 'how to' and do not emphasize the continuing process. I will admit that we need to know the "how to", but that is not all. Because of this in the Preaching With Power course I teach you, not only the "how to" but the process of studying continually to keep your sermon pipeline full. If you will adopt the strategy taught in the Preaching with Power course you will never find yourself burning the midnight oil Saturday night working on Sunday morning's sermon.

Sermons that are thrown together because "Sunday is coming" are weak, pointless and full of catch phrases and clichés. Your congregation deserves better, your God deserves better. Take a minute and check out the Preaching with Power course and evaluate it for yourself. If you think it might help you improve your preaching give it a try. Click here to read about the course. PREACHING WITH POWER

When I first started preaching I bought a book of sermon outlines. I thought that it would come in handy on those busy weeks when I didn't have time or was just too lazy to write a new sermon of my own. But I discovered that these sermons just did not sound like me. They didn't fit my style and they didn't address the need of my congregation. Yes, I kept the books, just in case I might need them. Over the next 30 years I have scanned these sermons again and again yet they are still as usless to me as they were the day I bought them.

Preaching is Personal

It is you, the preacher, delivering a special message from God to your congregation at that particular time. Because of the personal timely nature of preaching it is impossible for you to preach another preacher's sermons. That is, unless you work hard to make it your own sermon. Eternal truth is universal so the great truthes of a sermon my transfer from one preacher's sermon to another's. The skeleton is the same. But the flesh is different. The look and feel is different. God has given you a unique personality so that you can preach His message within the unique framework of your personality and history. Your sermon is a unique conversation between God and the congregation. Could you imagine trying to have a timely conversation with your friend and instead of interacting with you, she was reading from a script she got off the internet? The first reason you should preach your own sermons is that preaching is personal.

Preaching is Prescriptive

The second reason is that you need to be in touch with God's message for you and your congregation. The sermon is like a prescription, given to a particular congregation for a particular reason, written through the inspiration of the Great Physician. The sermon you get from the internet was written by some other preacher for some other congregation. In fact many of the outlines you get from the internet or from the books of sermon outlines have never been preached. A lot of these were written just for publication. Your congregation and your situation are unique in many ways and God can inspire your mind with a unique message for that particular time. Many times you feel the inspiration and instead of studying, praying and seeking your own sermon you begin a search for some other preacher's sermon, in hope that you will find one that 'almost' fits. This is like going to the trash dump to find a pair of shoes. There may be some that are usable, that almost fit, but they are not precisely what you need. They don't feel right, they hinder your stride and are not comfortable. Preach your own sermons because you need to be in touch with God's message for your congregation.

Preaching is Profitable

The third reason you need to preach your own sermons is that preaching is profitable, not only for the congregation, but for the preacher too. Through the process of studying and developing a sermon you gain new insight into God and God's word. Preaching is a dynamic interaction between the man of God, and the Lord. You owe it to yourself to grow in the knowledge of God. When you take the short cut of preaching another preacher's sermons you miss out on the interaction with God's word and you miss any new insights God might give to you.

Preaching With Power

The reason I wrote the Preaching With Power course was to help preachers develop their own sermons. My purpose is to give the essential elements of sermon preparation without a lot of complex theory. It isn't difficult to learn. I believe in putting the cookies on the bottom shelf so the kids can get them. Preaching with Power is written in an easy to understand style. The exercises are designed to allow you to practice the skills you learn so you can apply them to your ministry.

After completing the course I guarantee that you will be preaching powerful sermons that your people will appreciate amd respond to. IWhen God gives you a message, the preaching with power course will enable you to get it into the heart of your people in an interesting powerful way.

Click here to learn how you can get Preaching with Power