More Pointers for Pastors and Lay Preachers

8 Questions to Ask When Preparing Your Sermons

I believe that the best model to follow in the history of preaching is Jesus. It isn’t John the Baptist, Paul, or any contemporary speaker alive today. Jesus was THE Master Communicator. The Bible says in Matthew 7:28 that “the crowds were amazed at Jesus’ sermons.” Why? Because both the content and the delivery came straight from the Father. Jesus said in John 12:49, “The Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.”

When I’m preparing a message, I ask eight questions to help me prepare. The first two are about what to say and the final six are about how to say it. Keep reading

A Watchman on the Walls

It is not the work of the pastor to say whatever seems relevant or whatever seems noncontroversial or whatever is especially interesting to itching ears. Our responsibility, before God and for the sake of God’s people, is to declare the whole counsel of God (Acts 10:27).

The teachers of the church must disclose all of the glorious parts in Scripture and all the hard parts, all the promises and all the warnings, all the blessings and all the curses, all the parts that make us smile and all the parts that make us wince.

While we do not like to upset people and we do not wish to be thought uncouth, we answer to a higher authority. It is the solemn task of the preacher–weak and failing though he may be–to stand fast as a watchman on the walls. We cannot shrink back from the uncomfortable bits in the Bible (Acts 20: 20-21, 25-32). If we see the sword coming upon the land and refuse to blow the trumpet, the blood of the perishing will be upon our hands (Ezekiel 33:1-6). Keep reading

Some preaching is a waste of time

When I was young in the ministry, I spent three years on the staff of a large church and got to see upclose how things are done. Most of it was great and educational; all of it was interesting.

On more than one occasion, I chaffeured our pastor–a young man himself and unfortunately a little too impressed with his accomplishments, it turned out–on short trips where he would address a group of ministers in some nearby county. I can still hear him saying, “Why am I wasting my time doing this? That bunch is never going to do anything.”

Now, I disagreed with him then–and said so, leading to some interesting conversations–and do so to this day.

However.

Some preaching to such groups is indeed a waste of one’s time.

In the same way, some preaching on Sundays is pointless and worthless also, for all the good it does.

The problem is we never know. Keep reading