Folks will sometimes say that a young man or woman who obviously has gifts in ministry is running from the ministry when she or he does not want any part of the ministry.
God has called them and instead of walking in that ministry, they want to do something else. That is a definition of “running from the ministry,” but there are other ways to run from the ministry.
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At this link you will find a bunch of sermon titles connected to the scripture. Some are not bad, some are terrible, some are bizarre. I find that looking at sermon titles can help to rejuvinate the creative juices. It might help you, but be careful, some are absolutely terrible, for example:
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One of the greatest temptations of preachers is the unrelated point. It seems that preachers often want to add in asides while preaching their sermons. You know when preachers are on a topic and something immediately comes to mind. Instead of evaluating whether the point is relevant to the topic at hand, the preacher simply determines if the added content is true. If it is true, they present it.
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Preachers determine the meaning of scripture so that they can convey that meaning to the congregation in the preaching moment. Preachers go to considerable lengths to make sure that they preach the truth and not error. They study the passage within the context of the chapter, book, and even the whole cannon of scripture. In many cases, the preacher derives valid and truthful points from the text and then present those vital truths to the people. This is good, but often when you take the points from the story, you remove the ability of the people to fully experience the truth that you are presenting. But before the people can experience the text, we have to both understand and experience the text ourselves.
But how do you experience the text? Well you should do a full exegesis as you have done in the past, but I would also suggest that you might allow all of your senses to guide your understanding of the text. Yes, allow all five senses of touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste to help you ask questions of the text that you are presenting.
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I was talking to one of our readers during my office hours and the subject came to the preachers who get all the invitations. In some cases they are the ones who tell people about the car, house, job, spouse, etc that you are guaranteed when you plant a seed or are obedient to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He talked about the problems with such a theology, and he was concerned that so many people want to hear that message.
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You have been called to preach, but it seems that your opportunities to preach are slim to none. You see your other associate colleagues who have more invitations than they can even fill and yet you have only preached twice in the last year. You are beginning to wonder if the call is real. You also might be allowing envy to cause you to talk about other preachers who are getting invitations.
It can be frustrating and we must take some active steps to make this season of waiting valuable and profitable. if you find yourself waiting for your opportunity, I would encourage you to do the following important things:
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This is another one of the most popular questions. Whenever I have a seminar or receive questions through the mail, someone asks, “How do I know my sermon is ready for preaching.”
This is a very important question, but often our own misunderstandings of what “ready to preach” means can cause issues. For example, “Ready to preach” does not mean that the sermon can not be made better with more thought, study, and prayer.
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One of the most persistent misunderstandings that people have with SoulPreaching.Com is the idea that Soul Preaching is teaching Black people to only preach to Black people. One white preacher asked me on Facebook once, “Why do you talk about preaching only to Black people? Everybody needs to hear the gospel. Some of my favorite preachers are Black preachers…”
I asked him, “Why were Black preachers some of your favorites?” He answered that he likes the way these preachers used story and applied the scripture to real life. I then told him, I try to teach all of my readers (black and white) to incorporate such insights as that into their preaching.”
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There is a lot of preaching today that does not address the reality of our membership in the Kingdom of God. Neither does it address the reality of the “present evil world” (Galatians 1:4) that we might be delviered from it. We often fall into the trap of preaching that is designed to merely provides tools to help us become better situated or more successful in this present world rather than helping us to become ambassodors of the coming Kingdom.
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I have referred to the power that lies in the parables. They are like dynamite that can blow up at any time. We do well to tread lightly around these powerful stories that attack our complacency. Sometimes when I say things like that, preachers chalk this up to simple hyperbole. They see the parables simply as a story that illustrates various aspects of truth, like many other stories.
I don’t have a big problem when people disagree with me. That will happen from time to time. Actually, disagreements help me immensely. I learn a lot from disagreements. No, it is not disagreements that I hate most, what I hate is to be misunderstood. Sometimes the misunderstanding comes from the imprecision of the English language. Sometimes, it comes from the hearer not listening carefully. Sometimes, it comes form the hearer not having the full context of my work to understand what I am sayng.
But then sometimes it is due to my own mistakes in articulating my understanding. But be that as it may, I wanted to talk about a recurring theme in my work that is misunderstood by many.
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One of our readers, C. Johnson, wrote a perceptive comment which reads in part:
To a large degree, what is said, heard and done (in the pulpit) is all prepackaged. Even the words that are used, are for the most part scripted long before a text is exegeted and expounded.
he continued,
Too many who populate pulpits reduce the Bible to the script of the people we serve and as a result, lead them into both mediocrity and blindness.
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The Parables have power, but how do you preach them? Do you preach them as a monument to the status quo? Do you preach them after a few minutes of analysis? Do you preach them simply to illustrate pretty tame points in your sermons? Or do you let them attack us in our deep beliefs [...]
Black Preaching. “Isn’t that racist?” “Good Preaching Has No Color!” “I’m Glad Jesus Loves All Races Unlike You.” Yep, I have heard statements like these as well as other more pointed ones. Yes, I have been called a racist for addressing “Black Preaching.” But even some of my supporters miss what I am attempting to [...]
We are going to begin a series of posts about the myths of Black Preaching. There are a number of these that we need to clarify if we are going to understand how black Preaching helps us. the first of these myths is that Black Preaching is primarily about preaching style. Often when one thinks [...]
It is interesting how many budding preachers turn on the television and think that copying the various personalities is effective preaching.  They end up with superficial copies of some preachers. Sometimes they even copy preachers with incorrect or superficial theology. So you end up with a superficial copy of a superficial original. Certainly I am [...]
I was talking to a laymember the other day who was very excited about a sermon he had heard. The member gave me all four of the points of the sermon and was excited about applying the sermon to his daily life. Interestingly enough, he searched on the internet to try to find this sermon [...]
Don’t Commentate….Preach!
Peter Mead is running a series on his helpful website on the subject of “Preaching Epistles.” People ask me to bring different perspectives, so here is one that I read from time to time.
At any rate, one of his points for preaching epistles effectively is:
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