Peter Mead ofthe Biblical Preaching Blog has a post up on how to get more work from your sermon exegesis. This is an important post in that it has been said that 20 hours may be needed to preach a good sermon. With that kind of investment we can’t afford to just preach once and be done.
Author: Sherman Haywood Cox II
Vanderbilt Trained Minister (MDiv), Univ. of Alabama Trained Software Developer (MS), Author, Blogger (https://soulpreaching.com), Husband, Son, Brother, Father.
Preaching Patterns – Moves and Structures
The next preaching pattern is David Buttrick’s “Plot’s and Moves” pattern for sermon construction. What is interesting about his methodology is that he conceives of the preaching task as preaching not to “individuals” neither to “groups of individuals”, but to a community.
Good Religion versus Bad
Devotional #1
Good Religion versus Bad
Have you Got Good Religion….Cert’ly Lord
Have you Got Good Religion….Cert’ly Lord
Have you got good Religion.
Cert’ly, Cert’ly, Cert’ly Lord
Implicit in this spiritual is an important point: there is a difference between good and bad religion. The slave knew about bad religion for daily the slave was forced to look upon the master who was practicing bad religion.
Four Pages of a Sermon
The next pattern from Ronald Allen’s book Patterns for Preaching is Paul Scott Wilson’s approach described in his book The Four Pages of the Sermon The sermon under this structure is a manuscript with four distinct pages. Each page is a different approach to the materials.
Form of Sermon from Text
The next pattern of sermon creation is to make the form of the sermon correspond to the form of the text that is preached. This is an interesting approach that assumes that you cannot separate the meaning of a text from the form of the text.
Preaching Sermons in the Black Tradition
Revised Edition of You Can Preach!
The totally rewritten revised edition of You Can Preach will be available in paperback in September, 2008.
This preaching manual provides aid in preparing and preaching effective sermons with information on exegesis, sermon construction, connecting with the congregation, and whooping. Here are the chapter titles:
- Introduction
- Finding a Text – How to find a text to preach
- Interpreting the Text For Preaching – The steps to exegete a text.
- Finding Theme and Purpose – Finding the reason for your sermon.
- Thinking about Conclusion, Title, and Introduction – Instruction on concluding, introducing, and giving a name to your sermon.
- Creating an Outline – How to create an outline using the “3 Points and a Poem,” Hagel’s Dialectic, or scripture created structure.
- Writing and Polishing the Sermon – How to edit your sermon before preaching.
- Whooping Description – An introduction to whooping, what it is, and why it is still needed.
- Whooping Theory and Practice – An introduction to whooping theory and a plan to integrate it into your preaching.
- Increasing Intensity – How to increase the intensity of your sermons.
- Connecting with the People – How to connect with the people in preaching.
- Using Black Folk Theology – There is some talk of using the so-called Black theology in preaching, here we look at using the “Black-folk” theology that helped black peoples through the difficult days of slavery and jim crow.
Stay tuned for more information on this important resource.
Request The Original Version of the Free Ebook You Can Preach
Wherever you are in the development of your sermons, we can help you. This site has hundreds of pages of information and free documents. In addition, there are audios, ebooks, and other resources. Please click below for more information.
Bookmark SoulPreaching.Com! (CTRL-D)
Where to Begin – Learning About the Site!!!
- Seven Steps to a Great Sermon – A good starting point to understanding this site is to read the seven steps to a great sermon. In a couple of months we will release the ebook version of this resource.
- What is the Black Preaching Tradition – This is the first of many attempts to define what the Black Preaching Tradition is.
- Celebration – What is celebration in preaching?
- Black Preaching to Name God in Human Experience – We are told to match human experience to the Biblical text in preaching. This post talks about how to make sure that you address the wide variety of human experience.
- Blog – Visit our daily updating Blog to find more information of interest to preachers.
Learning to Preach – How To Put Together a Sermon!!!
- Finding a Text – The Steps to Finding a Text. The Text is the foundation of any effective sermon.
- Exegeting the Text – How to Exegete the Text. Here you will learn how to specifically understand the text. This is before writing the sermon.
- Structuring the Sermon – Here you will learn how to structure the sermon. Translate your exegesis into an effective sermon by reading these articles.
- Sermon Titles – You have a great sermon, how do you title it? Learn how from reading these articles.
- Preaching Without Notes – Do you want to preach without notes? Read these articles to learn the secrets of cutting loose from your notes.
- Whooping and Style – Black Preaching is about theology and style. Go to these articles to learn about Black preaching style and specifically whooping.
- Editing – How do you edit a sermon for preaching? Read these articles to find out.
Download Complete Sermons
- Sermon in Audio, text, and Video – Here are some sermons from the web pastor.
- Sermon Outlines – Here are some outlines provided by the web pastor.
SoulPreaching.Com Contributors
Sherman Haywood Cox II, M.S.
Elder Sherman Haywood Cox II is a Software professional and Master of Divinity student at Vanderbilt Divinity School. He holds the Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Sherman Cox’s posts can be found at this link.
Napoleon J. Harris V, M. Ed., M. Div
Minister Napoleon J. Harris is the Associate at Watson Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville, TN. He holds the M. Ed. from Tennessee State University and a M. Div from Vanderbilt Divinity School.
You can see Napoleon Harris’ posts at this link.
Simple Induction Pattern for Sermon Creation
Inductive methods are at the base of many preaching methods today. While induction is a good and helpful structural construct, we should not totally do away with the deductive methods that have stood the test of time.
On The Introduction of Speakers
The Biblical Preaching Blog continues its practical consideration of the preacher’s task by looking at speaker introductions.
It is an interesting question when one has a preacher that is unfamiliar to the congregation. I think that an introduction can be helpful and is perhaps necessary, but often, as Mead of Biblical Preaching notes, can be too long and list too many things.
Where Have All The Prophets Gone?
Rev. Heber Brown, III over at the religious political action Faith in Action blog recently interviewed Dr Marvin McMickle on his online radio show. I would encourage everyone to go on over and see what Dr.
Sermon as Theological Quadrilateral
The next traditional pattern discussed in Ronald Allen’s book is the Weslyan Theological Quadrilateral In this pattern, the preacher simply steps through the different aspects of the quadrilateral in the sermon.
Method
Web Pages I am Visiting
Over the last couple of months I have added a number of sites to my links section. I wish to highlight a few that I visit often and may be helpful to you.
- The other day I found the Audio Bible website. This is the entire King James version of the Bible narrated by Alexander Scourby. If you are having issues reading the Bible, why not listen to it at this site.
Bipolar Preaching in the Creation of Sermons
The next pattern is Bipolar preaching. This is a pattern that derives from the work of the 19th century preacher from England named F. W. Robinson. In this method you seek to find truth in the dialectic between two opposing ideas. You don’t try to harmonize them but you create an interplay between them.
Problem to Assurance to Celebration in Preaching
Our Preaching Patterns series continues with a look at Frank Thomas’ approach. His approach takes Henry Mitchell’s insight of celebration and weds it to another structure.
Preaching Based in Hagel’s Dialectical Movement
The next pattern used for creation of sermons provided in Allen’s book Patterns of Preaching is the Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis pattern.