I am introducing a new regular posting with this one called ‘Sermon Redux’. The idea is to bring back the text and subject of my sermon on Sunday and post on it on Monday. The hope is that some additional thoughts might surface as they always seem to do ‘the day after’. I have lost count of the times that something struck me after a sermon was preached and so it seems that these thoughts will live in some way. Hopefully this will allow me to revisit these things and over time get better at being a preacher. I also want to give people an inside view of what goes on with a preacher as far as how he puts something together and how he feels about a sermon afterward. Transparency never killed a preacher yet. This is not so much about the content of each message (I hope before the year is out to figure out some way to get the audio of each one on here so you can listen) but how I felt about it both in preparation and after thoughts.
I started a new series of messages this Sunday called “Healing Our Land” based on 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. I have reviewed this passage now prayerfully for over a year when it was first mentioned to me by a parishioner last year. He had not heard it preached for a long time. I set about prayerfully considering the passage and realized it would take some time before I was ready to preach it. That time has come and so last Sunday I opened the series with a message entitled “If I..”
I preach in series now almost exclusively. Solo sermons are a rarity for me. Mostly because I often find passages are a little too deep for me to get all in one shot. It also form a practical point of view keeps people coming back for the next installment. In October and November of the end of a year I start my planning for the next year. I don’t follow a lectionary so I do a lot of planning on my own to make sure that 1) I am not getting on a single subject soapbox style all the time and 2) to make sure I am giving the whole council of God. This series will run through July and August and it looks like this:
July 7th – “If I…”
July 14th – “And My People Who are Called by My Name”
July 21st – “Will Humble Themselves”
July 28th – “Pray”
August 4th – “Seek My Face”
August 11th – “Turn From Their Wicked Ways”
August 18th – “Then I Will Hear from Heaven”
August 25th – “Forgive Them and Heal Their Land”
As I did my planning, I realized that each part of the verse had a message and my thoughts on each part were quite extensive. The goal of the entire series is to bring this passage to life and in the end if people follow what is said will bring them to personal, corporate and national revival. Yeah, I think BIG with each message because to me there is little point in getting into the pulpit and preaching the Word of God if you don’t a) believe in its inherent transforming power and b) don’t believe that it can have an effect on people beyond the walls of your church.
The message this last Sunday was about how God is the central authority, source and provider of revival for any person, group of people or nation. It will not be accomplished by votes, political parties, petitions, picket lines or ballot initiatives. Either revival has its source in God or it is not revival at all. If the church of Jesus Christ does not acknowledge this they can pray for revival all they want, it will not happen. To have a revival it means acknowledging two things: 1) That we need revival from God because we are spiritually dead and or dying and 2) We need to discard the notion that if we change others or ourselves we will get revival as the only true source of spiritual life is God himself. Without God we are dead.
After preaching the first one, I always feel better and this one, once I got going, practically wrote itself. I got some great feedback and I felt I had done what God had asked me to do (very important). I thought of some things afterwards that I thought I had missed but realized that because this is the beginning, I still have time to weave these ideas in later. This is another advantage of preaching in series.
A word on my preparation so people will understand. I carefully consider, study and meditate on each message the week before. I do not write an outline as I have discovered it does not help me anymore. I very rarely stay on outline in the first place and once in the pulpit I never looked at my outline anyway. Much of what I do is form a theme, outline and propositional statement in my head and then preach it on Sunday. I don’t recommend this style to new preachers, I do this after much practice and habit. Learn to use and outline and stuff first and then gravitate to something your more comfortable with later. Preaching like all things gets better the more you do it and are willing to improve.
I am very passionate about what I preach as well. I think the last thing the world needs right now is a preacher that is just going through them motions in preaching and ahs no passionate belief in what they are saying. This sermon and series has very much been on my heart for a long time so passion is easy.
We will see what next Sunday brings as I switch our focus from God to God’s people.