Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Let's Talk Preaching
I spend a lot of time praying and thinking about what books I will preach through first if Shiloh calls me as their pastor. I would really like to nail this down over the next few weeks and be outlining messages and laying out a preaching calendar if at all possible. There is a Sunday morning and evening service and a Wednesday night prayer and bible study service at the church. Maybe all the experienced pastors who view this blog everyday can share some wisdom with me and comment on what books they would preach through first on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. Thanks for your help.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Well being the experienced Pastor that I am :) (almost two years now), my first suggestion would be to preach/teach simultanioulsy in both the NT and OT. If your Sunday morning series is in Matthew then let your Sunday night series be from the OT. And then switch this up because some members might not come but only to the AM service. They need OT as well.
My second suggestion would be to try to balance your preaching from the different genres in Scripture. For instance, if your first OT Book you preach from is Jonah (that was mine) then next preach from the Writings/Wisdom or Torah.
Likewise in the NT. If you begin with a series in Galatians, then choose following this series gospel, apocalyptic, history, or perhaps a letter written by someone other than Paul.
An early (first year or two) Doctrinal Series might be one on the Doctrine of the Church. In this series you will be able to present the biblical vision of the church to your congregation and together work towards this end.
My last suggestion would be that if you do not desire at a particular time to preach through a long book (perhaps you have just come from one) then preach through smaller sections that stand well together like the Sermon on the Mount, Romans 12:9-21, The narrative of Joseph (Gen. 37-50).
Brent, here were some of the deliberations I had when I first began to choose particular series.
1. I did not want to start with a massive book because I was unsure if the congregation could tolerate it. Let me elaborate. If the former pastor did not exposite Bible books then the congregation might have a hard time at first digesting this style. So with that thought, I started our with smaller books or sections of books. For example, my first three series were:
Sunday AM: Sermon on the Mount
Sunday PM: Jonah
Wednesday: Galatians
2. Personally, I wanted to get some confidence preaching through smaller series before I tackled a large or difficult book. So books like Isaiah, Genesis (long) Ezekiel & Hebrews (long and difficult) were off the immediate list (nor have I heard of too many starting with Ezekiel anyway).
3. Two strong considerations were: did I have the necessary resources for the series and seminary exegesis classes. I took Galatians, so I had both class and book resources available.
Hope these ideas have been helpful, let us know what series you decide on.
Post a Comment