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Constructing the Sermon
Public Group active 3 weeks, 2 days agoThe second stage in preparing to preach is the construction of a sermon. The sermon is the instrument or vehicle that allows the preacher to communicate the message. This group allows members to discuss issues related to sermon construction, testing ideas, raising questions, and offering examples. Don’t forget, also, to check the preaching.org “classroom” for further insight.
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Kevin Corbin posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon 3 weeks, 2 days agoKevin Corbin posted an update right now
Help needed on a sermon — As part of my series on Hebrews, I am preaching a subset on the covenants and am working on the Phinehasic covenant (Numbers 25) – here is my dilemma … God gives Phinehas the perpetual priesthood because … the text says … “‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it…[Read more]
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Bruce Wood joined the group
Constructing the Sermon 3 weeks, 6 days ago -
don bry posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon 1 month, 1 week agoidea which works really well for me over the last 30 years/every sunday preaching preparation time ease/is this. keep sermons real in matter drawn from your nearby weeks. draw from your church’s vision or community progress or challenges. Allow sermon ideas, focus to run through your heart and mind for a bit each day and every event. (don’t seek…[Read more]
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I agree, Don. I remember Haddon Robinson saying that the most powerful illustrations he has used or heard were the ones most closely drawn from the preacher and listener’s recent life experience. What you are talking about is that we learn to live like a preacher, where everything we experience is viewed through the prism of our preaching. This…[Read more]
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don bry joined the group
Constructing the Sermon 1 month, 1 week ago -
Dave Navarro posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon: 2 months, 3 weeks agoHow do we get that concrete application into the sermon? I want to give some kind of impulse/imperative toward changed behaviour, but the best I can do is to state the general principle, and then say two or three examples. Is there a way to make it a little less clunky?
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Ryan Giesbrecht posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon: 4 months agoI have a question regarding the use of quotes in a sermon. Does a good sermon need to have a quote or two from authors outside the Bible? Sometimes I wonder if this demonstrates a lack of confidence in the authority of the text itself. I am not against quoting others, and I know that it often serves to keep our own interpretations in check or…[Read more]
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i think it depends, from few circumstances.
1. if the quote helps you make the point
2. if it is true
3. do you feel it nessesary to say it.you dont have to quote always,
the lack of confidence must dealt because if you preach the word of God
and you know that it is the right way to say the word of God than you dont have to prove anyone. just…[Read more]
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Jonathan Daniels posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon: 9 months agoHere’s a question for those of you who are pastors who preach every week: How do you schedule your week so that you have adequate study time?
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I like to start three weeks out. In a given week I will be doing exegetical work (”discovery”) on one sermon, sermon construction on a second, and delivering a third. That way my sermons have a much lomger gestation.
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Thanks, Kent. That’s a great idea…will see if I can begin implementing it in some way in my present ministry setting.
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I was always taught this two-weeks prior stuff. Honestly, it worked for one week. I have a hard time cultivating that. I read the texts for the week several times on Monday. Usually by Tuesday I have a good notion of the passage I will be preaching on – to which I go an make my notes about the passage. On wednesday I cultult Commentaries.…[Read more]
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Kyle, that sounds pretty much like my routine. I can’t keep it all in one pile if I try to schedule three weeks out like Kent does. Too many unforeseen things like hospital visits, funerals, and other day to day events in the life of a pastor. However, I will say this. If it works for Kent, that’s the route he should follow. We all have…[Read more]
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Also key that you start preparation early in the week as other pastoral issues and meeting can take you away from the study and the sermon preparation. It is easier when in a settled ministry to do a series through books of scripture where you have a lot of the spade work done early. No one preaches the perfect sermon, pray & reflect as to what…[Read more]
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I too have aspired to Kent’s three week process. Hasn’t happened that often for me. I’m still going to try. I recommend an idea from Rob Bell’s stuff (whatever you think of Rob Bell, he’s got some great ideas on preaching) – its from his preaching conference called “Poets, Prophets and Preachers.” The session is called “Radar, Buckets,…[Read more]
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I study every day, pray every day, I don’t necessarily study for the sermon right a way, but God seems to bring it all together after I know the subject that I plan to preach on. I have had sermons prepared and when I get up to preach, God takes me in a different direction but it usually comes from my recent studies. I can’t explain it, it just…[Read more]
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Revd Kate Bruce posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon: 10 months, 3 weeks agoSpent a big chink of time today wrestling with John 11.1.45 – massive chunk of text – raises all kinds of big questions, not least .. I wonder how martha’s neighbour (the one whose brother died last year) is feeling about Lazarus’s re-appearance on the scene? In short what to do with the pastoral questions raised by Lazarus being raised? Working…[Read more]
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Kate, you are onto something. Keep asking!! That is one way the Holy Spirit moves us into the ”slot” He wants us to dive into. It is these kinds of questions that interest others and thus capture their attention as the Gospel becomes more clear to them in your words from God.
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Roger Helland posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon: 10 months, 3 weeks agoStruggling to know a balance between scholarship and spirituality when it comes to preaching the Bible. Often we are taught and I see practiced, to spend a lot of time in study and preparation with exegesis, exposition, homiletical idea, illustrations, application, etc. etc. A lot goes into study and scholarship and then preaching often becomes…[Read more]
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I believe that there is not correct formula. Whatever construction we think is more noble or more spiritual or most diligent is just window dressing in actual fact. I am not endorsing that we don’t pray, or don’t study, or don’t prepare… I do all three, and I am very nervous if I haven’t done enough of all three, but what matters is that I…[Read more]
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Everything begins with prayer. Everything ends with prayer. What goes on between these two poles is what God wants from you to have in your heart. You keep it there by living it. Pray during the whole preparation time. No such thing as to much prayer.
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Marvin Penner posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon: 10 months, 3 weeks agoCharlie, Check out the ”Preaching the Psalms” group.
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Charlie Worley posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon: 10 months, 3 weeks agoRecently preached through several Psalms in a series titled ”Short Psalms for the Long Haul.” One of the challenges I had was to come up with a big idea on a Psalm when the genre is poetry. Anyone have any ideas on how to come up with the big idea from a poetic passage?
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Kent posted an update in the group
Constructing the Sermon: 11 months, 2 weeks agoI’m working on a tutoring session with a pastor right now. He’s done a fabulous job working through the text, explaining issues as the come, but there is no coherent “big idea” it seems. He’s given me the text, but he hasn’t brought it into focus. Perhaps that is because the text isn’t sharply focussed. What do you think? Is that a problem?…[Read more]
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I guess I agree with both sides of the issue. I often “let it run” and then ask God to show me what he wants to say out of the “run” to these people at this time. I will often write a clear objective near the end of the preparation. Then I will go back through and cut everything that does not help the objective. It’s hard because some of the…[Read more]
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Hey Marvin. Great to see you here.
I like what you said about the long relationship with people. I think we really under-appreciate the value of that. People will take the longer road -bigger picture approach when they really know us and trust us.
Still, the challenge I struggle with is trying to understand what the biblical author’s intent…[Read more]
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I often take a text like Romans 12:9-12 or Colossians 4:2-6 and preach right through it, verse by verse, without one main idea (which could be construed as somewhat of a modern propositional practice perhaps) and basically unfold the meaning and application of the text inductively. Did Paul have a “one idea” for any given passage? And what if…[Read more]
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I think you are right Roger. That is why I mostly preach through whole books of the Bible. I don’t get to choose the topics. I end up preaching the issues that God has already chosen. But I like to give people a “handle”. One thing that they can hold on to when they leave. Sometimes the text does not allow this and sometimes I pick one of many…[Read more]
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Sometimes there is within Scripture more than Man can comprehend nor place within their banks of Human Knowledge. Allow Him to speak and ourselves the opportunity to bear witness to the Word. Nothing more…
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Kent created the group
Constructing the Sermon 11 months, 2 weeks ago-
Sometimes I think that the author might have multiple primary intents. Systematizing a passage into one main idea, while focusing the congregation on one theme, and allowing them to “get something” out of the sermon is a worthy goal, might do disservice to the text. (Case in point: Christ hymn in philippians being preached as a systematic…[Read more]
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Really well said, Jake. My comments assumed that we actually care about exegesis rather than eisegesis.
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The same issue is with narratives, which are often preached to get some “principles” from the text to apply today, rather than discover the theological meaning and application that the narratives are getting at, and sometimes it takes a series of them that construct the actual theological story, not just Chapter 15:1-17, for example. What does…[Read more]
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One other thing, I see so much ”preaching” out there, that is really a communication of Christian ideas that might start off with a given text, but then the text is left behind, like the launching pad at NASA, when the rocket of the preachers ideas, illustrations, and inspiration take off with basically NO preaching of the Bible itself.
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When preachers say they intend to use the text as a ”point of departure” it’s not a good sign.
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AMEN!!!
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Hi Kevin,
I was hoping someone else might respond to you – particularly someone who had looked at this particular text a little more recently than me. I looked around a little and didn’t find a direct answer to your question, either. What I might suggest is that you stay with what the text actually gives you, which is the statement about how…[Read more]
Thanks Kent.