This past weekend I listened and looked on the internet to a preacher who was preaching without notes. The preacher simply stated everything that came to his mind on the subject or not on the subject. He had highs and lows, but there was no rhyme or reason to the sermon. Then the preacher ended with a whimper and sat down.

At the end of the sermon it was difficult to remember any points from the sermon. There were a few “flashes of brilliance” but largely it was a long “stream of consciousness” without purpose. What went wrong?

OK, I admit this is tangentially related to the point of this blog, but a few of you wanted me to put this up for discussion. Setting aside the obvious discussion about Bishop Eddie Long …

An interesting question came in this week.

When do you tell people the point of the sermon? Is it in the introduction or some other point of the sermon?

In The Beginning
This is a good question, …

The sermon is not a Biblical lecture designed merely to inform the hearer of some interesting fact. No, the sermon is a vehicle for an encounter with the Most High God. This encounter does “inform,” …

BiblicalPreaching.Net has an interesting post up on the use of commentaries in your preaching. You can find the link to the Biblical Preaching Post here. Mead, the author of the article, notes that preachers should …

Our next Top 10 is about the Saturday Night Special. You know where you up all night Saturday night to preach that Sermon on Sunday Morning. Well without further ado, here are the …

We all bring to our reading certain presuppositions. It is always interesting when a pastor comes to SoulPreaching.Com and subtly accuses us of assuming that preaching is all there is to the pastor’s vocation. To …

H. Beecher Hicks in the second chapter of his book Preaching Through a Storm has a sermon entitled How to Silence a Preacher; or, Shut Your Mouth!. Rev. Hicks preached this sermon at the ordination …

Well I spent a significant amount of time practicing the fundamentals of music. I played many scales and arpeggios (chords). I turned them into patterns and exercises. I played major and minor scales. I played them from memory as well as sight read the scales and patterns. I would play many different patterns and piece them together in different ways. I played them high, play them low, play them staccato, play them legato, play them whole notes, half notes, quarter, etc.

Thought we might have a little fun with this one. So here is my David Letterman impression:
10) The Spirit moved in a mighty way and the people were energized to do God’s work during …