 As a local church pastor for 18 years, I wanted to make sure I used a broad range of preaching techniques in order to communicate to the broad range of parishioners and visitors. And I also wanted to hold the attention of regulars. So I compiled a Crib Sheet to keep me from falling into the preachers' rut of always preaching in the same style/format. Then, every week I'd read a small section of these notes, which God used to keep me out of a preaching rut. This web page is that file. I think you will find help in it. I've annotated the file with the best information I can remember about where that concept came from. Unfortunately, I cannot recall where the source of all of them. So if you recognize where some of them came from please let me know and I’ll annotate this website. Preaching Tips“Good preaching (living) is like a person standing on a street corner pointing upward into the sky. Of course, a crowd gathers. Everyone cranes their neck upward to see whatever it is that the person who is pointing upward sees.” Karl Barth. There are 2 pillars of security for preachers. The first is that we must be obedient to the call to preach. The second is the power that is in Scripture. Don’t start with a need and look for a scripture; start with the scripture and ask what need it addresses or what question it answers. (This is one of the primary reasons I used the Revised Common Lectionary to guide my preaching calendar. For more the lectionary, see Lectionary Basics and Lectionary Preaching). If I’m to preach effectively, I must be free from a need for approval and applause. Until I get to this point, my preaching is just trying to fill up something in me that I can never fill. People are searching for peace and/or purpose. Storytelling principles:
People don’t come to church for a Tony Robbins lecture; they come to meet God. Preach as if there’s a broken heart in every row. If you're dry in your heart, preach on grace - not on judgment. When you're broken and in tears, then you can preach on judgment. Testimonies are the most evangelistic things we do. Who can argue with someone’s story? Look for ways to embed them inside the sermon. The preacher is less a scholar and more a sage; less a lecturer and more a poet, prophet, and priest. To hold someone’s attention: Break their guessing machine and then fix it. Make them commit to an answer early (sometimes even through a quiz or a hand-raising question), it holds their attention. Don't fix it until the last 1/3 of the sermon. Put away the video projector occasionally and use low-tech visuals (like a coach in the locker room at half-time). We need to transform public worship from a weekly show or lecture to a weekly experience of group spiritual formation. Far more important than building a great sermon is training to become the kind of person who speaks all of our words in front of God. Become a person who always speaks either to God or in his presence - never in his absence. Ask yourself, "Does this message have the elements of an EPIC worship service: Experience, Participation, Imagery, Connection?" A Christian sermon always gets to the New Testament somehow.
The 4 S’s of a good talk: Simple, Scripture, Stories, Short. Be sure you know exactly what response do you want and have you planned for that? Ask yourself YBSW. (“Yes, but so what?”) More questions to ask as you prepare:
Where is my target this particular Sunday? Is it:
Inductive – Deductive preachingWhen Jesus talked to crowds or with people likely to disagree with him he generally used an inductive style. When he talked with his disciples, who recognized (at least) more of who he was, then he became more like a teacher and he used a deductive style. Throughout the Bible we see God using both styles, both stories, and inductive techniques and expository/deductive techniques. We do well to vary our style, too. Inductive ...
Tips from Haddon RobinsonWhat’s the BIG IDEA of the message? (People don’t remember outlines, but they might remember the single big idea). Characteristics of the big idea:
Two questions to discover what the biblical writer means:
Here’s an example: “The baptism of the Holy Spirit means if you belong to Jesus Christ, you belong to everyone else who belongs to Jesus Christ.” SUBJECT: The baptism of the Holy Spirit COMPLEMENT: ... if you belong to Jesus Christ, you belong to everyone else who belongs to Jesus Christ. The Bible is a book of ideas. There are only 8-9 really “great” ideas in Scripture, but I never heard what Haddon Robinson considered were those great ideas. This prompted me to gather the New Life preaching team and develop our own list. This is captured in the sermon series: The 10 Big Ideas of Christian Faith. Tips from Rob Bell These notes came from Bell's "Creating an Experience" presentation at the Willow Creek Association 2003 Preaching Conference. Start with the text, then ask yourself "What does God want to unleash from this text to our congregation?" Sometimes Bell has 3 apparently separate teachings going at the same time, which finally come together at the very end. Dig deep into the historical context… people need to know that the Bible is about real people and real times, just like the real people and real times that we live in. It is not a story about people in a different world. It is a story about people in a world just like we are in. David/Goliath story, look deeper into the history of Dagon and discover why they fought where they fought and why David said: “so that the whole world will know…” Herod … built a mountain to build a mountain-top palace. Research it. Herodian. The palace was right there where Jesus was teaching. If you are on the Mount of Olives and look south you can see the Herodian, farther out you can see the Dead Sea. Jesus says if you have faith like a mustard seed you can say… Herod built a huge coliseum … the 2nd temple … Jesus turns to folks and says essentially, “if you have faith you can do greater things than Herod.” Experiential dimension – make it hard for parishioners to just be spectators. Look for ways for them to experience the message from the moment they come into the worship area. What can you have them do, say, feel, etc? Engage them at different levels. Consider yourself an artist with all these dimensions available. When Bell preached on the Ephesians passage about ”you are God’s handiwork” he gave everyone a hunk of modeling clay and told them, “You’re a Piece of Work.” When preaching on Jesus’ temptation he encouraged the congregation to fast on Saturday and come on Sunday hungry. Then on Sunday, he gave each of them a rock. On Easter, he built a tomb. He stressed that one who came back from death isn’t afraid of much. Then he gave a paper to people and told them to write on it whatever they fear. Then he invited them to come forward and stuff it into the rocks. Use silence. You don’t have to talk the whole time to be preaching. We have mystery on our side. The very nature of truth is that it brings up deeper questions. Beware of trite answers that sound final. There are no rules What if your preaching was so a part of you that it was like telling about your wedding day, or about your kids, or some story you just tell? The harder you work on preparation the more it is likely to become a part of you. Then let it flow. We don’t need people who sing the notes off the charts, we need soul singers. We need people who can’t wait to worship or they’ll explode. Drummers set the rhythm for songs. Rhythm is a reflection of how God made the world. If the drummer is off, the whole song is off. If our life rhythm is off, our whole life is off. God made the world in 6 days, then he rested 1. The Homiletical PlotEugene Lowrey's book, The Homiletical Plot (John Knox Press) offers an intriguing form of inductive preaching. My experience is that preaching material does not often lend itself to this form, but when you can package your material in this style it is really effective. And it is a really fun way to preach. Look for some opportunities to try this approach.
Good sermons are like old TV detective series Columbo. Viewers knew at the outset who did the crime, but we watched to see how Columbo would figure it out. Our parishioners know at the outset of our sermons that somehow the answer will be Jesus, but they follow us because they want to see how we get to Jesus. Ideas from the Heath brothers These ideas are from the book Made to Stick (Random House) by the Heath brothers. It is a business book about how to communicate so that ideas stick in the minds of listeners.
How to listen to great preachers Don’t apply what you first notice in a great preacher, because that is usually their very special gift and you probably can’t mimic it if you try. There’s seldom any way to emulate their primary gift, but look at their “craftsmanship.” That you can learn from. 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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