For you young preacher out there, this may be of some help in your sermon preparation:
Concerning sermon building I might share a few pointers:
The following is the method that works for me and the one I teach all my students:
1. Prayer: Spend time in prayer seeking God for the topic of the sermon. Pray until you are in the Spirit and what you feel inspired about at that time is a good indicator of your subject.
2. Study your subject. Do not be afraid to use other books with your Bible.
3. Brainstorm: Take a piece of paper and began listing everything that comes to your mind on your topic: Scriptures, sayings you have heard, illustrations you can think of, etc. It does not matter their order. Fill the page of paper with your random ideas.
4. Organize: Take another sheet of paper and begin organizing your random thoughts from your "brainstorming" piece of paper in the order the Spirit leads you to present them.
5. When you can, take your text (the Scripture you use to introduce your subject and the one you want your hearers to remember) from the New Testament; your illustrations can come from the Old or New Testaments. Keep your sermon as Bible centered as possible. Too many illustrations or references to extra-biblical material is not encouraged.
6. Your outline should be very simple:
Introduction: Tell them what you are gong to do
Body of the Sermon: Do what you told them you were going to do,
Summary (or conclusion): Tell them what you did.
Most beginning preachers get into the habit of testifying before they preach, Avoid that at all cost. Better a ten minute sermon than 30 minutes of babbling. So the following mantra is helpful:
"Get up, speak up, and shut up!"
Apostolically Speaking
☩ Jerry L Hayes
No comments:
Post a Comment