What can worship leaders do to provide an effective preaching service? In this audio we will discuss a few things that preachers can do to ensure that the worship services they are a part of are effective vehicles for the proclamation of the Gospel.
Some of our colleagues were shocked at the sermon by Jeremiah Wright. I think one should read and hear a full sermon, and the full body of work, of a preacher before jumping to conclusions about one’s love for the country. Here is a sermon that can help you gain context on this preacher.
There are two characteristics of preaching that are sometimes placed at odds by certain teachers of preaching. Some think that eloquence and passion are on some kind of scale, and that you must choose which one is to be in the drivers seat in your sermon preparation.
Passion in Preaching
I would encourage you to listen to this discussion of Jeremiah Wright’s comments. The discussion includes those who are attacking Rev. Wright and those who are defending him from various standpoints.
Around minute 13 one of my own homiletics professors, Dr. Brad Braxton, provides a brief but important historical description of the African American church and African American preaching.
Listen to the audio at this link
It has been seven months since I asked the question, “Can God Count on the black Preacher?” I heard about this story on the very helpful and informative blog What about our daughters. I asked it in relation to the horrendous rape of a Black woman at the hands of some young Black men.
Do we Only Care About Racism?
Ok…It is late and you need a sermon. You look at the text and you only see what you always see. What can you do? A simple tip provided by Charles Koller in the book How to Preach Without Notes might help.
Different Angles
When you have a main question or a thesis, you need to translate that thesis into a sermon outline. There are Seven Interrogatives that you can ask of your thesis to help you flesh out an outline.
Check out Pastor Charles G. Adams’ sermon that he preached at the New Baptist Covenant Celebration. The sermon can be found at this link.
My classmate, James Moultry, sent in this link which is on the Big Daddy Weave website. That is a Baptist blog that some of you may want to check out.
The Bible Preaching website has a post up on two traps that can work against your preaching moment.
Don’t Overqualify overqualify.
Before you are ready to preach a sermon, you should edit and polish your sermon. One of the few articles that address sermon polishing is Henry Mitchell’s. He has written a in the John McClure edited book Best Advice for Preaching. I generally speak of editing and polishing a sermon in terms of 3 edits. You might look at each of these edits as a different dimension of a comprehensive edit of the sermon manuscript.
Theological Edit
Introduction: This sermon short is basically a pointer to help someone think about a text and turn it into a sermon. It is not meant to be preached now, but needs some beefing up. I have included some helpful pointers in how to preach it in the text of the sermon.
Tell the Story
The final source of Biblical Preaching is imagination. Charles Koller notes that imagination alone can turn a dull sermon into one that comes alive. Imagination helps you create connections between the past and the present in interesting ways.