Here we provide an example of putting a partial sermon together quickly. The method can easily be expanded to create a full sermon.
Month: March 2009
The Preacher’s Dilemma – Preparation or Trust
Gardner Taylor writes:
The heart of the preacher’s dilemma is how to trust God wholly and at the same time to prepare diligently…Most of us discover that sermons are born of a mysterious romance between preparation and inspiration.
Preaching as an Asault Against the Obvious
William Willimon continues to challenge my preaching and preaching training in his helpful work The Intrusive Word. He writes on page 73:
Constructing a Community
Walter Brueggemann writes in the book Testimony to Otherwise: The Witness of Elijah and Elisha an page 5:
A Tale of Two Preachers
1 Corinthians 13:11 states, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” The other day, I reflected on two preachers. Both were considered great preachers during their college years. One preacher used to put together pieces of the “shouting portions” of other preachers and parlayed that into many speaking engagements. However, over the years, his preaching has gotten much more sophisticated. He continued to work on his preaching.
Surface Needs or Deeper Needs
Marva Dawn in her helpful work A Royal “Waste” of Time writes
Many of the bad decisions that are made about worship touch only the surface needs of our society and not the hidden influences or powerful forces that make true worship both difficult and essential.
Preaching for Healing or a Cure
Kathy Black provides a helpful distinction in her book A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability. She speaks of the difference between what she terms “Cure” and “healing” on pages 50-51. She writes:
Should I Write a Draft of my Sermon?
Preachers who preach from a full manuscript have no choice but to answer yes to the question. However what about those of us who preach from an outline or from even fewer notes? Must we prepare a full manuscript? This is a good question. I think that the benefits of preparing a full manuscript whether you use it or not far outweigh the liabilities. I want to describe a few of the benefits.
You Spend More Time on Rhetoric
Engaging the Society
Ben Bacon asks an interesting question in the comment section of the post “What’s Missing from Your Preaching.” He writes:
Great observations, Sherman. Our social structures and customs are not the same as when the biblical writers first penned the Bible. In a way, all preaching engages the culture because of the unique nature of the scriptures themselves. What principles would you encourage for engaging/critiquing your own culture in a sermon? What place does it hold in the sermon itself?
Responses about the Prosperity Gospel
We don’t get many comments on SoulPreaching.Com. However this post on the prosperity Gospel has elicited a number of interesting ones that I didn’t want the readers to miss. The original article can be found here: http://shermancox.wpengine.com/prosperityfalse.
A Deeper Joy
Dr. Michael Williams wrote: