The Preacher's Craft: "Dave Stone’s 8 Principles to Great Preaching" and More

Dave Stone’s 8 Principles to Great Preaching

At the 2017 North American Christian Convention, I got to attend a preaching workshop led by Dave Stone, Senior Pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. Dave is a great preacher of God’s word. He’s funny, a really good story teller, and very relatable.

In the workshop, he laid out the following 8 principles to great preaching. Read More

The 10 Commandments of an Effective Sermon Introduction

What happens if you bomb the sermon introduction? Lean in. Are you ready for this? Nothing, absolutely nothing, good happens if you bomb the sermon introduction. Nothing communicates I don’t care much for what I’m about to say so you can just take a nap like bombing on the first couple minutes of your sermon. And yes, I do mean to be dramatic about this.

If you haven’t grasped this yet, your sermon introduction is vitally important. But what does it look like to knock the introduction out of the park? What are some things to avoid? What are some things to ensure are a part of it? Let’s dive into the 10 commandments of an effective sermon introduction! Read More

Preacher! Please Expand Your Illustration Pool

I remember walking into the church office one day and one of our pastorss [sic] was visibly frustrated. She looked at me and said, “If I read one more sports illustration in this book, I’m going to lose my mind.” (She was reading a popular book on leadership.) Lately, I’ve been listening to a very well known preacher and enjoying the way he unfolds Scripture. As I’ve listened, I’ve begun to realize that his illustration default is C.S. Lewis. He can quote him 3-4 times in one message. (Can I still go to heaven if I’m not a great lover of Narnia?) Another pastor whose church I often visit while on vacation has personal illustrations as his “go to”. These are not criticisms just observations.

Sermon illustrations are windows in a message and for me the more windows the better. Just like it is important to have more than just one move on the basketball court it’s important to have more than just one move with your illustrations. If not, you limit your ability to reach your audience. For instance, I love history and I need to be careful not to get caught in the weeds with Biblical archeology/history in my messages. Otherwise, what can add seasoning to a message will actually ruin it. Read More

I added the [sic] after "pastorss." It was obviously a typographic error but since I did not know how it should be corrected, I added the [sic]. it may have been "pastors" but I was not certain.

How Can I Better Study a Bible Passage?

Arcing is a way of taking a paragraph of Scripture, a unit of Scripture, let’s just say a paragraph, breaking it down into individual statements, and seeing how each of those statements relate to each other logically.

Is one the cause of the other? Is one the result of the other? Does one explain the other? Seeing the relationships, and then putting all those statements together, according to those relationships, so that we can see the one main thing that the paragraph is saying, and how each of those individual parts of the paragraph, those statements, work to support it and explain it. Read More

3 Reasons Good Preaching is as Important as Ever

People love to tell you that preaching is irrelevant in this day and age. “People just do not submit to that kind of authority anymore” or “no one has that kind of attention span anymore” or “that just is not the best way to communicate in this day and age” are common protests I hear against the traditional form of preaching.

But contrary to the above thinking good preaching does remain important. In fact preaching remains as important as it has ever been.

Here are three reasons why... Read More

Three Types of Bad Preaching (And Their Remedies)

What if there was a way to identify bad preaching? Having grown up in church, I have probably listened to over 1,000 sermons in my lifetime. In all my time listening to (and now delivering) sermons, I have heard three types of bad preaching.... Read More