Friday, September 12, 2014

The Elements of Sermonizing Style

From The Wall Street Journal-

'Good sermon," is the worst possible praise a preacher can receive. Perfunctory at best, "good sermon" means what you said probably wasn't heard or understood or relevant.

"Your sermon touched me or troubled me." "You were talking to me." These are the compliments that we preachers want to hear. Even an argument with a sermon's content can be welcome—at least it shows somebody was listening.

Preaching is really hard, and many churchgoing people have no idea what goes into preparing a sermon. Perhaps they shouldn't care, but preachers are disappointed to find that many folks think we just preach on Sundays and do little else. There are preachers who wait until Saturday night to get their sermons ready; they are either extremely gifted or stupid and lazy.


More here-

http://online.wsj.com/articles/j-perry-smith-the-elements-of-sermonizing-style-1410479239

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