Give me ten minutes, and I'll teach you an approach to writing your messages that might be a game changer. This is an approach that can be used with any preaching archetype, any personality, any length of message, any passage, etc. In seminary, I was taught the "3 point" outline, which I quickly abandoned after about a year of preaching. Then I experimented with Andy … [Read more...]
A Month By Month Guide To Understanding Your Listener’s Mindsets
All great communicators begin with focusing on their listener's mindset, not their topic. Senior Pastor’s who are great preachers are no exception to this rule. Below is a guide that our Teaching Team created a few years ago to help us when planning upcoming sermon series. Over the years we had found that oftentimes what seemed like a great sermon series in January, wasn’t … [Read more...]
3 Ways To Take Your Preaching To The Next Level
One of my biggest problems 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. 1. Do a Two-Minute Warning. To cure this I started implementing something I call my “two-minute warning.” I stole it from my high school head football coach. Our high school football team went … [Read more...]
Why We Procrastinate On Writing Sermons (And How I’m Trying To Fix It)
I procrastinate on writing my messages. I plan lots of time at the beginning of my week to study and write my message but inevitably something arises leadership-wise that causes me to take the time I planned for sermon development and devote it to some other worthy cause. Why do I keep doing that? Let me pull the lid off this thing and examine it. The Cause of … [Read more...]
What To Do When Your Sermon Bombs
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...]
5 Steps To Writing Excellent Sermons In 8 Hours Or Less
If you're going to lead your church through the next growth barrier, you can't squander the most precious personal resource you have: time. This includes wasting time on unfocused sermon preparation. I’ve always been a bit suspicious of how long Senior Pastors spend in sermon preparation anyway. The leaders I run in circles with throw around numbers like 15 to 20 hours a … [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...]
