The sermon is not like a Chinese firecracker to be fired off for the noise it makes. It is a hunter’s gun, and at every discharge he should look to see his game fall
—Henry Ward Beecher
A sermon should have a clear purpose, a target. Like the rifle, it should be aimed carefully at the target to hit the mark.
“I am not against numbers. I want more people to come to know Christ like they did in Acts. I like it when my church is growing. I know that every number represents a person. I am not against big churches. What I am against is the assumption that numbers are the best, or even one of the most significant, indicators of church health. The church in Jerusalem grew rapidly at first, but then it took slow steady growth over centuries for Europe to be Christianized. More to the point, while Paul frequently prayed for conversion and opportunities to preach the gospel, you never see him concerned over the growth patterns in his churches. He made faithfulness and fidelity aims of his ministry (and this includes reaching out and evangelizing). But he neither assumed church growth nor thought it could be accomplished by the right methodology.”
Excerpted from Kevin DeYoung’s Listening to and Questioning the Seeker Church
“The more important and needed I feel, the less I find myself carrying out my proper calling before God. All those indispensables have piled up on me to the point of actually threatening my opportunity to stay with the church I now pastor. By being busy in too many areas I’ve jeopardized my usefulness in the one main area to which I’ve been called by God.”
—Bruce Mawhinney
Bruce Mawhinney on pastors who quit their post to move to another church:
A few years out of seminary, [a pastor’s] reservoir runs dry, usually about the same time the enthusiasm for the ministry starts to wane. It’s a deadly combination, leaving the preacher with little left to say and even less desire to say it. So he starts to struggle with whether it’s time to leave…
The minister [gets] a call to another congregation…
And when he gets to the new church he’s enthusiastic and they’re enthusiastic. His preaching is fresh and new to them, not like the preacher’s that just left. But what they don’t know is that the new minister is not saying anything new and fresh at all; he’s merely repeating himself from his prior ministry. He’s being very repetitious, but they haven’t been around long enough to hear the repetition yet. Continue reading Mawhinney on Pastors Who Quit
Bruce Mawhinney on sermon preparation:
What use will it be to learn the principles of fresh preaching if you never have time to use them? Knowing what to do and not having the time to do it will only add to your discouragement. You must break that vicious circle. Right now you are spending too much time doing many good things and not enough time doing the one best thing that you’ve been called to do. Remember the first step to fresh preaching is making the commitment to do whatever it takes to get there…
Most of us started out in the ministry with the fear that we’d run out of things to say after the first seven minutes of a 25-minute message. You probably studied and prepared harder and longer for the sermon during those early years than you ever have since… Continue reading Fresh Preaching
I love the eloquence of this prayer for humility and confession. Taken from the order of the Mass as the Church at Strasbourg now celebrates it:
Make your confession to God the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy is everlasting. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the inquity of my sin. And I, poor sinner, confess before God the Almighty, that I have sinned grievously through the transgression of His Law; that I have done much that I should not have done, and have left undone much that I should have done, through unbelief and distrust towards God; and that I am lacking in love towards my fellow-ministers and to-wards my neighbours.
God knoweth how great is my guilt, and I repent, O God, be gracious unto me, a poor sinner; and be merciful, for my sins are many. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to”save sinners, of whom I am the chief. Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief, and grant me salvation. Amen.
Excerpted from William D. Maxwell’s An Outline of Christian Worship- Its Development and Forms
Jojo Agot 