Cleophus LaRue’s next principle of effective sermons is The Sermon as Continuous Creation.
The preacher is to always think on the sermon. Even after it is “ready” for preaching, the preacher is still thinking of new ideas and new ways to present certain ideas.
If you are going to preach an effective sermon you must follow Cleophus LaRue’s next principle of effective sermons which is A Fitting Close to the Sermon
Cleophus LaRue speaks of the Importance of a Manuscript in his bookPower in the Pulpit. This is another element of great preaching.
Cleophus LaRue’s next element of great preaching is an Astute Awareness of the Culture. The preacher must have a connection to real life if the preacher is to preach a message that connects to people.
LaRue states:
The final step to preaching a sermon that effectively tells a story is to Practice.
Record yourself telling the story. Then transcribe the story from the tape into a manuscript. This practice will improve your storytelling and your preaching in general.
The next step in preaching an effective sermon that makes use of stories is to decide what details that you collected from steps 1 and 2 are useful to help the preacher fulfill the purpose found in step 3.
In short, the preacher should determine the feelings and the sensory data that are needed to preach a “15-25” minute sermon.
The third step in Martha Simmons and Henry Mitchell’s method for improving storytelling in preaching is the turning point towards putting together the sermon. Here you must determine the behavioral purpose of the sermon. You get this by asking yourself, What change in core belief or obedience is the Passage pushing the people to.
Many have done it. You listen to a preacher say something catchy and repeat it. Perhaps you have heard a great sermon and re-preached it. Whatever the case, presenting other’s work as your own is stealing and false representation. Whenever, we front like the work of another is ours we are stealing!
The second step to exegete the text so that you can more effectively tell the Biblical story as presented in Martha Simmons’s and Henry Mitchell’s book entitled Study Guide to Accompany Celebration and Experience in Preaching is to note the feelings you find in the text.
Here you once again read the text and place yourself in the text. However, this time you are looking for the feelings of the various people in the text.
Look for any feelings including the following:
African American Preaching is about encouraging the people to have an encounter with the Bible story. How do you do this? How do you strengthen your storytelling ability specifically for preaching? In the next 5 posts, I will present Rev. Martha Simmons’ steps to help preachers “tell the story.” These steps are from her and Henry Mitchell’s book entitled Study Guide to Accompany Celebration and Experience in Preaching.
Peter Mead of Biblical Preaching has a post up on why preachers should listen to other preachers. It should go without saying that a preacher should listen to other preachers if that preacher is to improve the preacher’s craft.
Richard S. Storrs second lecture in the book entitled Preaching Without Notes: A Series of Lectures describes some specific conditions for success in preaching without notes. These are as follows:
Richard S. Storrs wrote a book entitled Preaching Without Notes: A Series of Lectures. The book is made up of three lectures on this subject. Storrs presents some general suggestions in the first lecture.
As you know if you are a regular reader of this website, the Biblical Preaching Blog is one of my favorite websites for preaching related information. Peter Mead, the primary contributor, has a post up where he encourages preachers to not “Half Quit.”