“Don’t go because you’ve got to say something; go because you’ve got something to say.”

2. “Don’t go because you’ve got to say something; go because you’ve got something to say.” Dr. C.B. Akins

3. Proclaiming the Word Sermon Preparation and Delivery

4. “…preaching is the most public of pastoral acts. The quality and depth of Christian discipleship in a congregation depend heavily upon it.” Thomas Oden

5. Our Task Today… • Define “preaching” • Identify the participants in the preaching event • Examine what constitutes an “effective” sermon

6. Our Task Today… • Explore sermon preparation • Develop “tools” for use in the “preacher’s workshop”

7. What is preaching?

8. “Truth through personality is our description of real preaching. The truth must come really through the person, not merely into his understanding and out through his pen.

9. It must come through his character, his affections, his whole intellectual and moral being. It must come genuinely through him.” Phillips Brooks

10. Be who you is… …if you ain’t who you is, you is who you ain’t! Satchel Paige

11. “Preaching is the clear articulation of the message of God, by a messenger called of God to be delivered to a community who needs to hear what God has to say.”

12. The Participants… • The preacher • The congregation • God

13. Interaction of Roles • Preacher/Pastor or Pastor/Preacher? • Sixteen dimensions

14. “Preparation for preaching is a mixture of everything the pastor does. The academic studies, the relationship with the congregation, the involvement in the community, the administration of the church,

15. personal devotional time, the continual reading of periodicals and books – all of these contribute to preaching. Sermons are not developed or delivered in a vacuum or outside of one.

16. The sermon comes from many streams of thought and work.” Bishop Robert Spain, Getting Ready to Preach, 73.

17. “Effective sermons are interesting, relevant, biblical, understandable, offer clear application to the hearer’s daily life, address real-life

18. issues, and are preached with conviction, passion, love, integrity and humility.” Adam Hamilton

19. The first step is… “The character of our praying will determine the character of our preaching. Light praying makes light preaching…” E. M. Bound

20. Selecting our text… • Understanding the Revised Common Lectionary • The need for advance work…

21. Movements of a Sermon • From the page to the preacher • From the preacher to the pulpit • From the pulpit to the pew • From the pew to the parking lot • From the parking lot to practice

22. From page to preacher “Exegesis” relates to what the text originally meant when it was written.

23. “Hermeneutics” concerns itself with what the text means for us today and the process by which we determine that.

24. “Interpretation – or more commonly in the academy, hermeneutics – is the process of ascertaining for a reader or readers the meaning of a document written to another reader or readers.” Craddock, Preaching, 125

25. The First Step in Hermeneutics • C.I.E. • Context • Is • Everything

26. "A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text." D.A. Carlson

27. “The principle of procedure fundamental to the task of sermon preparation is this: the process of arriving at something to say is to be distinguished from the process of determining how to say it.”

28. “The two processes cannot be collapsed into one. It can be said, however, that there will be times during the process of arriving at the message when the form of the sermon will suggest

29. itself. One can hope that the text being interpreted will provide the key to the movement of the sermon. After all, to impose upon a message a sermon form alien to the text that yielded the message could result in

30. preaching what the text does not say and doing with the sermon what the text does not do.” Craddock, Preaching, 84

31. Practical tips for Sermon Preparation • Immerse yourself in the text • Read, re-read and re-re-read it aloud. • Listen to someone else read the text. • Read it from different translations

32. Practical tips for Sermon Preparation • Utilize a holy imagination and engage your senses. • What are you seeing? • What are you smelling? • What are you hearing? • What are you tasting? • What are you touching?

33. “Empathy, intuition, and imagination move in and out of the most disciplined and calculated procedures of interpretation.” Craddock, 125

34. Practical tips for Sermon Preparation • Develop a single sentence that encapsulates the entire message. • Develop “sound bytes” • Anticipate questions and objections

35. Practical tips for Sermon Preparation • Immerse yourself in the congregation • Go and sit in the pews. Think about who sits there. • Immerse yourself into that person’s life. • Ask, “What is the Word of the Lord for this person?”

36. Practical tips for Sermon Preparation • Learn how to prepare a variety of sermons • Expository sermons • Character sketches • Topical sermons

37. “In short, the work of the sermon is to help God’s future happen in the lives of its hearers.” William E. Hull, Strategic Preaching: The Role of the Pulpit in Pastoral Leadership

38. Monday Morning Evaluation • Was the Gospel preached? • Was the message true to the text? • Were the people challenged? • Did hope and grace show up?

39. Monday Morning Evaluation • Was “The Monday Connection” made? (William E. Diehl, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991)

40. Questions?

42. Worship Planning Practical Tips and Insights

43. An Understanding of Worship from Isaiah • Celebration of God’s holiness • Conviction of sin • Cleansing and assurance • Call • Commissioning

44. “Worship isn’t a means to an end; it’s an end in itself.” Ronald Byars, The Future of Protestant Worship

45. What are we teaching? • Explicit • Implicit • Null

46. Worship Styles & Wars

47. Styles found in Kentucky Methodism • Country/Bluegrass • Southern Gospel/Gaither • Country/Wesleyan • Classical/High Church • Blended • Multi-sensory/Multimedia

48. Context is Everything • Assess your context • Work with your musicians • How to introduce new hymns • Sharing the responsibility

49. The Liturgical Year • Advent (Purple or Blue) • Christmas (White) • Season after Epiphany (Green) • Lent (Purple)

50. The Liturgical Year • Pentecost (Red) • Sundays after Pentecost (Green) • Trinity Sunday (White) • All Saints’ Sunday (White)