I’ve written several times on preaching before, but here’s a few of my latest reflections as I’m preparing for tomorrow morning.
- The challenge of preaching is you’re always calling people to a place you’re struggling to go yourself.
- Preaching in different places four of the last five weekends, I can see how this can get a bit tiring if you’re going 52 weeks of the year.
- I’m no where near as short on ‘material’ as I had been warned before, the Word of God is so densely rich!
- I find I learn so much when I’m just handed a passage to preach on rather than picking and choosing stuff myself
- Although I enjoy speaking and I do find it an art-form, I still have questions on it’s place in effectively transforming lives
- Cutting down content in a sermon for good reasons like clarity and time can be like killing your babies. Holding back fresh gems that God has revealed to me is easier said than done.
You question about the effectiveness of preaching to change lives is warranted. Putting it simply, lectures do not change lives. Only when someone with the spiritual gift of teaching/preaching is presenting God’s Word do lives get changed. Often different spiritual gifts/blessings can be administered through the 30-45 minute time slot. In smaller churches shepherding is often given. In larger churches it is often leadership which is being given out by the Spirit. Sometimes Mercy or Encouragement. The channel is questionable, but the work of the spirit through that “time slot” is not. Just my thoughts. (And I’m not even Charismatic!)dt
Hey Dave, thanks so much for your thoughts! I think you’re spot on.