The Theocentric Preaching blog has a post up entitled Good homiletics does not always lead to good preaching
Category: Preaching
Bible Study – Power of the Word
What was the way in which God brought the heavens into existence? – Psalms 33:6-9.
What is it that Christ uses to uphold all things? – Hebrews 1:3.
Of what great truth are some willingly ignorant? – 2 Peter 3:5,6.
By what are the present heavens and earth reserved for a similar fate? – 2 Peter 3:7.
What other passage of Scripture also reveals that creative power is exercised through the word of God? – Psalms 148:5.
What change is wrought out in the life of one who is in Christ? – 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Three Layers of Justice Preaching
The Eco Justice Ministries website has a post up entitled Three Layers of Environmental Preaching.
The author of the post is specifically talking about preaching on the Environment, but one can easily adapt the discussion to such issues as Racism, Classism, or other issues that might be a problem in your particular parish.
Issues Preaching
Getting More Out of Your Sermons
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.
Preach More than One Sermon
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Moses the Model Preacher
Eugene Peterson, in his book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, refers to Deuteronomy and Moses’ final sermon by saying:
Preaching a Bible Letter as a Story
The Biblical Preaching blog has a post up on Preaching an epistle as a story. I think this is a very effective way to help the people understand these components of the Bible story.
When one does adequate exegesis of the text for preaching, one should have a good idea of the story behind the text. Why not look at that story as a possibility to preach?
Preaching a Sermon Verse by Verse
Ron Allen in his book Patterns of Preaching next discusses the pattern of Preaching Verse by Verse. Here the preacher goes step by step through a text or series of text and explains each part. In some traditions this is one of the most prominent ways of preaching a text of scripture.