One of the subjects I plan to address in this blog as it seems helpful is my current experience in preaching.
On February 11th I resumed preaching a series through Ephesians, and I am now in the opening verses of chapter 4. My habit for several years has been to alternate on a monthly or seasonal basis between preaching sequentially through a Bible book and preaching topics that I feel are currently needed in our church.
So in January, for example, I focused three messages on the theme of giving to the needy. My texts for the three messages were Psalm 112, Luke 12:13–34, and Isaiah 58. I was extremely pleased with that series and how those texts complimented one another.
For the last two Sundays, as I said, I am back in the Book of Ephesians after a several-month hiatus. I began the journey early in 2006. Moving now into chapter 4, I faced the important decision of how much text to bite off for each message.
I generally lean toward using sections/pericopes for a message but occasionally will slow down to focus on a verse that I feel needs extra development and application. I like preaching sections because I love to show the large-scale flow of ideas so that people sense the context and grasp the overall flow of the Bible. Otherwise people tend to discard much of the Bible as irrelevant. I want them to learn how to pay attention to the macro flow of ideas and to see that they can understand the Bible, not just the underlined mountaintop verses.
However, for the last two Sundays I felt I needed to do something I almost never do: I slowed to a crawl to preach several messages from one verse, verse 2: "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."
This post is getting long, so let me leave you for now with one analogy that I found helpful, and I'll pick up my discussion of this sermon series in my next post. Paul says in verse 1, "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." I developed for some time the idea of walking worthy of our calling, and the analogy that I liked best was to compare this to the expectations of a first-round draft pick in the NFL. Those who don't walk worthy of being a number one pick—by doing drugs, playing without motivation, holding out from training camp, breaking the law, ignoring the coaches—are an enormous disappointment to fans and the team. All Christians are God's first-round draft picks. All are called. All must face the reality of high standards and expectations that come with being a first-rounder.
Brian Larson is editor of Preaching Today Blog and pastor of Lake Shore Church in Chicago.
Posted by Brian Larson at 6:27 AM on February 22, 2007
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This sounds like good preaching. But when a series runs so long (if I follow, you've been in Ephesians for a year, with breaks, and are halfway through) what is the value of preaching through a book at all? THIS is the sticking point I keep hitting in my own preaching. Even in a two-month series (I think), the beginning is forgotten before the end.
Thanks for a great post.
Posted by: Dennis Mullen on February 22, 2007
Thanks for the helpful post Brian. I have been learning some from Randy Frazee (author of The Connecting Church and others) a challenging new approach to setting the sermon schedule. He's radically intentional in his preaching.
He has set out the major ways the scriptures call people to grow to be like Jesus - he's broken it down into 10 major beliefs, 10 major practices, and 10 major virtues. And he preaches those things, and essentially those things only, each year.
He's ruthless in his goal, because he's convinced that if we don't have a goal, we'll can't make progress. He's worked with Gallup and Barna to determine accurate measuring instruments to see how his congregation is doing in these areas, so he's actually trying to help his people make measurable changes in their faith.
I'd be interested in comments or feedback on this approach - I'm still processing it.
Posted by: Bill White on March 1, 2007