Don’t Break the Preaching Covenant In the last post I introduced the idea of the preaching contract, the things that the congregation expects of its preachers. We saw that these expectations are usually unwritten, but are very real, and are essential for the preacher to understand if he doesn’t want to erect barriers to his message. […]
The Preaching Contract We’ve been looking at the question, “What kind of preacher are you?” In the last couple of posts, we’ve looked at the difference between preaching and teaching, and saw that according to one definition, preaching is more appreciated by listeners. In this post I want to continue answer that question by considering […]
Preaching Is Better than Teaching In the last post, I began this series of reflections on the question, What Kind of Preacher Are You? We recognized that there is not necessarily a “right” kind of preacher. Of course, I’m referring to style, not content. When it comes to content, there is a “right” kind of […]
What Kind of Preacher Are You? What kind of preacher area you? That’s a question that has many possible answers, I suspect. Let me give you some context for the question. I had a friend who was a pastor in a largely African-American Church. Once, as we met for coffee, he made this offer to […]
The Worst Sermon In the last post I shared about how I learned to look at the big picture in preaching. I recently engaged in a class to improve preaching. The discussion among those who were part of the class made me remember the worst sermon I ever preached. It was, without a doubt, awful, […]
See the Big Picture In the last several posts we’ve been looking at what to do when things go wrong in the worship service. Here’s a link to the first post in that series. Today we’re going to explore how to see the big picture in your preaching. This past week I read some missionary […]
When Your Main Point Isn’t We have been looking at some stories of when things went wrong in the preaching context, and then trying to come up with a plan for meeting these challenges. This is part of a series, and you can connect with the first one through this link. In today’s post I […]
Preaching When Someone Makes A Scene How do you go about preaching when someone makes a scene in the service? That’s the theme of this blog. If you are a regular reader, remember that we are looking at what to do when things go wrong. This link will give you the first in the series, […]
When Someone Gets Sick In The Worship Service This really isn’t a story about funny things happening, but it does give us something to reflect on. What do you do when someone gets sick during a worship service, or while you are preaching? The Setting It was my very first Sunday at Covenant Life Church […]
When Perceived Disaster Strikes In these last couple of posts I’ve been using stories from preachers to illustrate what to do when things go wrong. We’ve looked at what to do with a major mistake in your sermon, as well as what to do if communion goes badly. Today I want to illustrate something that […]