A few weeks ago, my sermon in our first service completely bombed. It was the worst in recent memory. Between first and second service, I re-wrote it and it turned out pretty good for the second and third services. The total time went from 26 minutes to around 21 minutes. Needing to quickly re-write made me ask myself three questions that I am going to end up asking … [Read more...]
How To Keep Critics From Messing With Your Head
A few years ago a couple approached me with clenched fists after a sermon. I thought, this can’t be good. All weekend people thanked me for teaching on a topic that had frustrated them for years. I worked tirelessly on the message and felt that God had honored the time on my knees and at my computer. It was a good weekend. Then, this couple, ironically both … [Read more...]
6 Reasons You SHOULD Preach Other Pastor’s Sermons
The secret to leading a growing church is steal, steal, steal. If you want to lead your church in dynamic spiritual and numerical growth you don’t have time to reinvent the wheel each time you recognize that something original needs to be created in your church. That’s why the most Christ honoring thing you can do is be on the lookout for great ideas that you can take and … [Read more...]
The Difference Between A Good Sermon And A Great Sermon
Recently I spent the better part of a week going through 10 years of sermons – re-labeling, re-organizing, and re-categorizing them so I could share them with my staff on Dropbox. It was enlightening to say the least. I saw larger patterns of things I was proud of, and not so proud of. Here’s a list of things I took note of that I wanted to change, continue, or forever expunge … [Read more...]
3 Practical Ways To Take Your Preaching To The Next Level
Here are a few practical things that you can do to take your preaching to the next level, with minimal effort. 1. Do a two-minute warning. My biggest problem in sermon writing is what people call “analysis paralysis” – I get so involved studying for a sermon that, eventually, the more I study, the worse it becomes. To cure this I started implementing something I call my … [Read more...]
