The Preacher's Mightiest Weapon
As a preacher, I'm regularly asked how long it takes me to write a sermon. My go-to answer is, "It depends on how much I've prayed." I see a direct correlation between the quality of my preparation/preaching and the quality of my praying.
For many pastors, myself included, prayer can be the easiest aspect of sermon prep to skip. This, however, is a grave error. The preacher preps the sermon, but prayer preps the preacher. Prayer is what prepares our hearts to proclaim God's Word. Prayer is what gives preaching power in the pulpit.
3 Ways To Improve Our Preaching
Big Idea
"Nothing improves preaching like constant prayer, effective preparation, and frequent reps. "
Improving your preaching gift is like dieting for weight loss - progress develops over time and doesn't happen overnight. It's hard work. Slowly, week after week and sermon after sermon, you begin to learn a few things. Eventually, they say, you find your voice (I'm still working on this).
A Clinic On Corporate Scripture Reading
When God's Word goes forth is does exactly what God wants it to. There is never a time when the Bible is proclaimed to no end. The Scriptures succeed exactly as the Spirit would have them.
Because we believe these promises about God's Word, we seek every opportunity to share it. One of the ways we do this is by reading Scripture in our services, out loud, over our church.
7 Ways to Prepare for Gathered Worship
I can't tell you how many Christians have come to Redemption after leaving previous churches because they "just didn't get anything out of the Sunday service." Sometimes this is because they have come from a church that has abandoned the preaching of God's Word, but many times these are people that have come from great churches where the preaching is not the problem. I would argue that a big part of the problem is not our churches, not our preaching, and not the style of music used for worship. I would argue that a big part of the problem is
Preparing to Proclaim
I've always been oddly interested in the process various pastors use in preparing to preach. Not just the textual work and crafting of the sermon, but specifically their day of preparation. Personally, I've seen over and over how the quality of my preparation directly impacts the quality of my proclamation. My Sunday morning schedule has changed with our facilities, service times, and other factors, but here's my current Sunday morning process for preparing to preach.