by Tim Isbell, July 2011 Most of the time I do the normal "preacher thing." I pray, study, and craft a 25-30 minute sermon and then stand in front of the congregation while I transmit it to them. But from time to time the New Life English congregation had a tendency to speak up right in the middle of my preaching. This was unusual and, at times, a little unsettling. My wife and I visited there today, and the congregation did the same thing with another preacher - so I guess it wasn't just me!! Eventually I recognized that there were many very mature, bright Christians listening to my transmissions most every week. It occurred to me that they (and I) might benefit from hearing God speak through each other now and then. So I came up with the concept of designing a few Sundays each year that were deliberately interactive. I didn't stand in front in a posture of authority, but I usually sat on a wooden stool. These interactive Sundays fell into two special series types. I never preached them on sequential Sundays; they were widely distributed over years. Interactive Messages on Living the New Life For more on this type, just click Character and Conduct. The Peoples' Sermon For over 10 years I used the Revised Common Lectionary to frame my sermon calendar. Every week we printed the 4-6 lection scriptures in the worship folder for the following Sunday. Many people used these, often in conjunction with the daily reading plan which was posted on the website, to guide their scripture reading throughout the week. So by Sunday several people were very familiar with the scripture set, causing them to hear the sermon in a deeper way. Just to be safe, I also prepared a mini-sermon(s) on some of these scriptures in case people needed a little help getting started, or in the rare event that they came up dry. Usually the problem was the reverse; the people had too much high quality sharing for the time available.
The first time I walked into a Peoples' Sermon I was pretty unsettled. But it went very well so we did it a couple of times each year. Peoples' Sermons encourage parishioners to read more scripture and to invite God to speak through it. I discovered that God chooses to speak to the congregation through its people things he was not going to give me to speak. For an example of the sparseness of my notes on a Peoples' Sermon Sunday, see the attachment below. Blessings, Tim For news from this site, including updates on when new content is added, please subscribe to the RSS or email feeds. |
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