The Limits of the Big Idea in Preaching
Do biblical writers always write with a singular theme, or are tangential and auxiliary points sometimes an important feature? Do all biblical genres equally lend themselves to this kind of distillation?
Do biblical writers always write with a singular theme, or are tangential and auxiliary points sometimes an important feature? Do all biblical genres equally lend themselves to this kind of distillation?
Please note TGCA subscribers can access a longer version of this article on our main website. TGCA subscribers can access a longer version of this article. Click here to sign-up. If you are already on our mailing list, check at the bottom of the latest “Recent Articles” email to find out how to read the longer version. There is longer version of this article. Click here to read it. This is the extended subscriber-exclusive version of this article. Click here to read the short version. Peter Adam offers some valuable tips to continue our Preparing Talks and Sermons series. Time Don’t...
In Rory Shiner’s first post in this “Preparing Talks and Sermons” series, he hoped that others would also share their processes. Chris Thomas is the first preacher to take up the challenge. Forty-three minutes. That’s my average sermon time so far this year. It used to be longer and it is meant to be shorter. I serve in a church where our guideline for preachers is 40 minutes; I’m working to consistently reach this target by the end of this year. But what goes into preparing for those 43 minutes? Well, to go by the amount of conversation that passes between...
Rory Shiner kicks off a new series, sharing the nitty-gritty of his sermon preparation process The way preachers go about preparing their sermons is, for whatever reason, something we don’t talk much about. I don’t know why. Perhaps we preachers are coy about sharing our process, worried that others get theirs written more quickly, more efficiently, or with more attention to the original languages. Perhaps it’s intuitive, and we are not entirely conscious of our process. Or, perhaps it’s simply a topic too boring to warrant a discussion? Anyway, for what’s it’s worth, I’m very interested in how others prepare...
Sam Chan preaching from Philippians 1.27-2.18