preaching hazard
One of the hazards of preaching is going through a self-evaluation after you felt you have not preached well. Last Sunday I preached from John 21 about how Christ restores us. Yes I am sure there were those who felt it was helpful and others who thought it was okay since the outline was pretty good with its alliteration on FOCUS, FAITH and FUTURE and the powerpoint was okay too. But yet I felt like I didn’t really connect with the people.
So this week I was analysing the sermon again and again and I have come to a few conclusions. Firstly, I tried to cover too many substantial truths at one go and in the end did justice to none. It was a three in one; and could have been a series of three separate messages instead of one message with three points. Instead of skimming through three points, I should have taken just one major point and stayed there and go deep into its meaning and wide in its application. Secondly, there weren’t sufficient illustrations and applications and this is a capital crime in preaching.
Then this week as I was preparing this Sundays message I was so tempted to sort of sum up the 21-parts John series with a message titled “the Seven ‘I AM’s’ of John’s Gospel”. You know, I am….the bread of life…the light of the world..the good shepherd..etc. It will give a sense of completion, of having tied together the 21 separate messages, a reinforcement. This is a teacher kind of need. Must be my past training . But then this will be repeating my mistake with a seven point sermon, a seven-in-one!! ha ha. We preachers just never learn, do we? This is good for church camps, teaching seminars and conferences where 1 hour messages with lots of points are the order of the day, but not for Sunday sermons where the object is to facilitate encounter with God. So I aborted the sermon.
Thankfully, as I prayed for the people and their needs, trying to discern their condition, a new theme and text was conceived in me and that is what you will hear when the “new baby” is delivered tomorrow.
Praying that God will strengthen and encourage His people tomorrow.
Add comment September 17th, 2005
