What happens to our Christian pastoring, and our own Christian discipleship, if everything is filtered through a film of glass?
Tag: sermon
Our brains seem to be creatures of habit by lazy preference, but notice something new straightaway. What does that mean for good preaching?
There are some church leaders who only plan and prepare each sermon in the week before, being committed to the idea that God speaks in the moment, and they don’t want to silence him. I respect that, but my experience is that planning a sermon series ahead of time, doesn’t do that. In fact, if
‘Lay out the phrases in a way that makes sense to you.’ Memorise that.
How one basic act opened up a well-known passage
Even though I allocate the same total number of hours, I do not use them in the same way. Experience has taught me where I can improve. So here are eight ways my sermon prep has changed over time.
Every so often I go away on a conference to sharpen my preaching skills – in fact, I’m on one at the moment. Something like this has popped up in my diary every year since – well, since a long time ago, and it is one of the top two things that help me improve.
We’ve all done it. You may be drafting one for Sunday. I certainly am. But why do we preach three-point sermons? Sometimes it’s because the text drives us that way. I think that’s what’s happening for me this week – there really is no way to chunk the passage other than to divide it into
So you’ve done the sentence flow and worked over the passage, and come up with the theme of the passage, and its aim. You take a fresh page, and you’ve identified the theme and aim of the sermon. Yes? Let me ask you a question that troubles me about my sermons – given the wide
Each Sunday I’m giving out handouts for the sermon, rather than just leaving an empty box (‘For your sermon notes’) on the church notice sheet. Why go to all the extra cost and effort? Here are my ten reasons: As a preacher: 1. It forces me to a point of clarity all the way through
One of the strange things that happened to me, when I moved back into church-based ministry, was the experience of preaching the same sermon, repeatedly. I’d had it before, but I’d forgotten what it’s like. I don’t mean that thing where you need to preach at short notice, dig up a golden oldie, and pray it
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