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Reverend Napoloeon Harris has been in the midst of a series on preparation for effective sermons. I am adding a few posts to that series and then Minister Harris will finish it up. In this article I want to empahsize the importance of leaving room for the Spirit in the preaching event.
The preacher should fully and totally prepare, but when it is time to preach, the preacher should not only depend on the preparation, but also must depend on the Holy Spirit to guide the preacher in what should and should not be said in the preaching moment. Brad Braxton always emphasized that the sermon is not what is written in the manuscript, but the sermon includes the mannerisms and gestures of the preacher. In addition, it includes the inflection and the emphasis placed at different places in the sermon. Finally, the sermon includes that which is added or taken away by the interaction of the Spirit, people, and preacher. Thus our preparation must include both making a way for the Spirit. In addition, the preparation would require our communion with the Spirit through Bible study and prayer.
So in our preparation we must get closer to the Spirit and we must make room for that same Spirit to show up in the preaching event.
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Thanks very much for the tips in guiding me to develop my sermon and praise God that with the guidance that you provided i scored A+ in Homelitics and Art of Preaching Subject in the Theological Serminary i am attending in Papua New Guinea. Please keep up the good work……Steven Moses, Pacific Adventist University, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
In preparing our sermon, we need to ask the guidance of the Holy Spirit what topic to preach. When we open the Bible, we need to pray that we be given wisdom to understand what we are reading in the Scripture. This is true to this preparation moment of a message. During the sermon delivery, we also invoke the help of the Holy Spirit to cleanse our heart and the message to make it more meaningful to the hearer of the Word of God.