Preaching Tips

Easter is a joyous occasion. Your preaching should be joyous as well. Think of incorporating worship and sermon time that allows people to celebrate with you –to sing, to dance, to shout, to wave. Make ways that people can show their joy, not just listen to you tell them to…

Do something different this Palm Sunday!  Do something entirely unexpected.  One thing that plagues sermons and worship is doing the same thing over and over.  While some tradition is good, people should have their interest piqued as to what the pastor might do next! Think about bringing a live lamb…

As we near the end of Lent, you may want to incorporate some physical activities that help people embody the message of Jesus and His salvation road to the cross.  One way is to incorporate foot washing either as part of your sermon or part of your worship. Taking the time…

Make the end of Lent more experiential for people by using colors, textures, and props effectively. Create a mood in worship or in your place of worship, or merely for your altar or a specific service.  In fact, you can create a mood with color and texture just for your…

Lenten services (typically held on Wednesdays….but can be any day or days of the week in addition to the regular weekly service) can be times of experimentation and creativity.  Try 15 minute or half hour services that focus on one metaphor or on one brief story. Or center them around…

If you want people to remember your sermon, let them smell it, touch it, feel it, see it, hear it.  Think of ways to make your sermons experiential, so that people not only hear what you say, but experience the dynamics of your story or metaphor.  

Make room in your worship for repentance.  It sounds strange. But as Christians, we have, many of us, gotten away from the idea of repentance.  We don’t want to make people feel bad for fear they’ll never return.  We want to concentrate on hope.  We want to concentrate on the…

When I think of metaphor I think of Alice in Wonderland and the hall of many, different sized and shaped doors.  Metaphors unlock meanings that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Metaphors are like pathways that you travel in order to seek meanings that are otherwise hidden or elusive.…

Today, we stand in one of the worst political divides of our century, perhaps our last two centuries.  But as pastors, we must pastor ALL of our people, or rather all of GOD’s people. When you preach, make sure you are not preaching your own party, your own agenda, or…

A metaphor is an abstract word that “points” to something greater, more complex, more often indescribable.  A metaphor is always a noun.  For example, a metaphor of a mountain may be used to describe something about God –God’s loftiness, distance, height above our understanding, cloudy or misty knowledge, a higher…