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Thursday, May 15, 2014

Pointers for Preachers Overflow: Three Articles


Common Problems In Modern Preaching

Since my conversion in 1993, I’ve listened to a lot of sermons, ancient and modern, reformed and non-reformed, and I’ve noticed that every age in the church has had its own persistent problems in preaching – for instance ancient sermons commonly suffered from the spiritualizing of the meaning of every text, so that in every sermon a fish was never a fish, the moon was never the moon, a child was never a child, and so on. Puritan sermons, on the other hand commonly suffer from the over-reliance on the Ramist method and an overabundance of points and sub-points.

Modern preaching has its own problems, and while there are some commonalities, there are differences between the problems you are likely to see in reformed and non-reformed preaching. Here then are my observations on the common problems in both camps, I should stress this is just my opinion and is not intended to be exhaustive, and yes I’ve been guilty of some of these myself. I offer these lists in the hopes that they might be noted and avoided by preachers in the future! Keep reading

How Can We Preach in An Age of Distraction?

When discussing the ever present distractions pastors and teachers must deal with themselves and in their audiences, it could be easy to become discouraged and despondent. But Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas looks at the issue and is able to glean positives from our living in an "Age of Distraction" and give hope for those seeking to present God's word to a people struggling to give their undivided attention.

I used Dr. Kalas' earlier book, Ten Commandments from the Back Side, for sermon preparation and personal study, so I was anxious to read Preaching in an Age of Distraction and hear from the author about what exactly distractions are and how pastors can best deal with them. Yesterday, I reviewed the book, and today, I welcome Dr. Kalas to the blog. Keep reading

Why So Many Churches Hear So Little of the Bible

It is well and good for the preacher to base his sermon on the Bible, but he better get to something relevant pretty quickly, or we start mentally to check out.” That stunningly clear sentence reflects one of the most amazing, tragic, and lamentable characteristics of contemporary Christianity: an impatience with the Word of God.

The sentence above comes from Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today in an essay entitled, “Yawning at the Word.” In just a few hundred words, he captures the tragedy of a church increasingly impatient with and resistant to the reading and preaching of the Bible. We may wince when we read him relate his recent experiences, but we also recognize the ring of truth.

Galli was told to cut down on the biblical references in his sermon. “You’ll lose people,” the staff member warned. In a Bible study session on creation, the teacher was requested to come back the next Sunday prepared to take questions at the expense of reading the relevant scriptural texts on the doctrine. Cutting down on the number of Bible verses “would save time and, it was strongly implied, would better hold people’s interest.”

As Galli reflected, “Anyone who’s been in the preaching and teaching business knows these are not isolated examples but represent the larger reality.” Keep reading

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