Peter Mead at the Biblical Preaching website ponders what is missing from today’s preaching. He believes that what is largely missing from todays preaching is a knowledge of the Bible. I think this is true. Many of us do not have the knowledge of the Bible that is needed to make the Bible relevant to today’s world.
Category: blog
The Forward Progress of a Successful Sermon
How should a sermon progress? We all have heard sermons that just seemed to progress at the perfect rate. Then we have heard others that climaxed too soon or not at all. We have spoken on the progress of the sermon by making use of the Whooping Curve which graphs sermonic intensity.
Call and Response in the Whooping Celebrative Sermon Close
Last night while listening to sermons on youtube and other places, I found a preacher who was “whooping.” As we know, the whoop is one type of sermonic close used by some preachers in the African American preaching tradition. The preacher was summarizing and celebrating the truth of the message.
Becoming the Chief Celebrant in the Sermon
Celebration is an important component of preaching. This is the part of the sermon where the preacher raises up the truth of the sermon to be experienced by the people. There are many ways to do this tactically, but my study of sermons show that a very common technique is for the preacher to “celebrate the sermon.”
Preacher Should Show Enthusiasm
Celebrating Today and Tomorrow
It was not really that long ago when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr dreamed of a better world and then had the audacity to go out and attempt to bring that world into reality. A reality that included a world without racism. A reality that included marching for poor people and workers who were taken advantage of. A reality that included not being invovled in unjust wars.
Today We Celebrate the Movement
Finding the History of the Text
Ok, up to this point we have only used the Bible. We have not looked in any Bible commentaries or Bible Dictionaries. Now we want to go to these resources to find out what was going on when the text was written and why the text was written.
To understand the history of the text, we need to answer three questions as completely as possible. The first of these questions is: Who is writing the Text? The second question is: Who is reading the text? The final question is, Why was the text written?
Do You Have Power in Your Sermons?
The Apostle Paul wrote that the Gospel was the Power of God unto Salvation. (Romans 1:16) As I contemplate this scripture, I come to the question, is there power in my sermons? If I am preaching the Gospel, then there must be power in them. Power to break strongholds, the power to change lives, the power to bring salvation to the weak, the power to break addictions, the power to bring good out of evil. The power to change structures of evil.
Telling us What’s Wrong
A Healthy Fear of Preaching – Do you Have It?
As a teacher of preachers, I often see many people who want to preach in my life. Look in any congregation and you will find many preachers who have never had a community of believers validate their internal calling. These people sometimes think that preaching is simply about pounding on members with Biblical truth, belly-aching about some wrong, lecturing on a religious subject, or simply getting folks to shout and praise us.
Preaching from a Different Angle
Gardner Taylor preaches a sermon entitled “A Cry in
Who is Jesus Today?
I was cleaning up another blog and thought this post might be of interest to SoulPreaching.Com readers….
Someone on a blog that has been discontinued asked an interesting question about Jesus, “Who would Jesus be today?” The answer given was a little unsettling to me, you can read it in part here:
Analyzing and Planning Your Own Preaching
Many of us have had the feeling, is my preaching going anywhere? Or maybe you are thinking, “Haven’t I preached this same sermon last month.” I know exactly where you are coming from. And what you need to do is engage in some sermon planning. In this planning, you should do a few things.
Ask Help from God
Four Disjointed Points is not a Sermon
One of the most important rules for preachers is to have one major point. Now if you preach the three points and a poem, what this means is that each of your points should be connected in some way to the main point. If you preach a narrative, it means that you have a major point in mind as you preach the sermon. That way, the people can remember the sermon.
Sermon not Biblically-Derived
I am a Planter – Part 3 Planing Seeds
I am a planter. This means that I not only extract and re-arrange, but I deposit. We do not leave the soil empty, disturbed, and void. Far from it, we leave the ground altered by adding to it. We plant seeds! We plant seeds of hope, that hope that is in Christ and His gospel. That hope that shows the more excellent way of being and doing. We plant seeds! The seeds of self reliance and mutuality. We plant seeds! The seeds of community, and communal interdependence. We plant seeds!