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Another discipline for taking your preaching to the next level is to keep the focus God-centered rather than human-centered. I know, it sounds like a ‘given.’ But the temptation is to dwell on the needs of people rather than to address those needs in the context of God’s majesty. I’ve faced this challenge recently while preaching through Proverbs. In two days, I’m preaching Proverbs 30:24-38. How will I preach God-centered sermon from this text which contain no direct reference to God? Likewise, if I’m in a N.T. epistle, I must wrestle with how to preach from the ‘imperative’ section of the book so that God’s supremacy and glory dominates the sermon.

I'm sorry if it seems I'm warming up a meal from a few weeks ago and trying to pass it off as fine, fresh cuisine, but I cannot shake the awful risk Buechner points out in a short passage from Telling Secrets. I have to agree with him: as I reflect on many of the preachers I have heard in my life, "there is precious little in most of their preaching to suggest that they have rejoiced or suffered with the rest of mankind."

In my last post, I advocated preparing sermons in community. One way to do this is to use study groups or focus groups composed of people in the congregation who do not serve on staff or a leadership board. Today, I’d like to share a story about how this approach made a huge difference in a sermon I preached.

In his workshop "The Three Questions of Preaching," Colin Smith examines three questions that guide the preacher toward Christian expository preaching. One of the key questions he lists is, "Does the sermon say what the text says?" Smith argues that if the preacher's answer is an honest "yes," the sermon is more than likely an expository one. He then offers a personal illustration about his coming close to abusing a text from the Book of Micah. In the original recording, he goes a step further to offer another personal illustration that includes a fascinating word about the dangers of topical preaching. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the concern he raises in the quote below:

Preaching appears to be an intensely individual activity. But another discipline for taking your preaching to the next level is to prepare your sermons in community. The obvious questions to ask are “Why?” and “How?”

At some point in the process of putting a movie together, the director always has to say goodbye to some very dear friends. But then, to some it may seem odd that he even calls them friends. They're inanimate. But not to him! To him they are his own—his children. They are those slices of film that painfully must call the cutting room floor their home. Sometimes they're snipped from the projector because they just don't "fit" when all is said and done. Sometimes they're sent away because they've become those stubborn creatures that stand between the adjectives "lean" and "mean." More often than not, they are banished only because of time.

Last Sunday I preached on Ephesians 5:15–20, which includes the call to "be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

One of the most important things pastors do is teach believers to worship.

Today, I’d like to share some thoughts about prayer and sermon preparation. One of the six disciplines I suggest for taking your preaching to the next level is to saturate your sermon preparation with prayer (see August 17, 2007 post). It’s through the discipline of prayer that I move from being a preacher who ‘has to say something on Sunday’ to being a preacher who ‘has something to say on Sunday.’

Our cart was filled with red ink pens, file folders, scotch tape, and blocks of putty for hanging posters. That can only mean one thing for my wife the teacher: back to school. While I walked the aisles beside her, I spotted a family of four. The boy held his dad's hand while he stared back longingly at the bikes. The girl hung her head and walked slowly behind her mother, peeking up every now and then when asked what folder she liked best. I felt like I was watching a funeral. In a way, I was: summer, may she rest in peace.

The same scene is probably being played out right this very moment at your local Target or Wal-Mart. Shopping carts are banging into one another, and they're all filled to the brim with the usual array of school supplies. If two Boston fathers have it their way, there among the High School Musical folders and colored pencils you'll find a backpack—a bulletproof backpack. The long shadow cast by Columbine, Virginia Tech, and other assorted school shootings inspired the two men to design a $175 knapsack that is lined with a lightweight, bulletproof plate. Should a shooting occur, the student need only curl up behind the bag or wear it across their chest for protection ("Back-to-School Armor," TIME [8-27-07], p. 17).

Three years ago, I delivered the preaching lectures at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. This opportunity forced me to wrestle with how preachers can take their preaching to the next level. By the ‘next level,’ I’m referring to greater effectiveness in helping listeners see the glory and majesty of God from the Scriptures so that they are inspired and challenged to live grace-based, mission-focused, Christ-exalting lives. I eventually settled on six disciplines which help us preach Scripture in a way that leads people to encounter and worship the true and living God. Here is my list of disciplines.

The first book on preaching I ever read was Bryan Chapell's Christ-Centered Preaching. I was a sophomore at Lincoln Christian College in Lincoln, Illinois. As best I can recall, the syllabus called for us to read it over the course of a month. I read the whole thing in a day, pent-up in my dorm room, trying to ignore blasting stereos and the two guys who always seemed to want to wrestle just outside my door. My roommate was speechless when I explained, "I couldn't put it down." By uttering that line usually reserved for the literary likes of Harry Potter books, Stephen King novels, and other assorted thrillers, I sealed my fate as a nerd; but I was only being honest. That book left my heart racing as a young preaching major, and it still has its hand on my shoulder when I'm preparing a message, urging me to always make my way toward Christ when I ride that ball of fire we call preaching.

I'm re-reading Eugene Peterson's masterpiece, Eat This Book. I first read it in April 2006, and it challenged, encouraged, and stimulated me so much as a minister of the Word that I vowed I'd read it again! Today, I invite you to reflect on a bold claim that Peterson makes: "Exegesis is foundational to Christian spirituality" (p. 52).

Between the preacher and his goal of strengthening Christ's church stands a gauntlet of formidable obstacles. For example, life in a media-driven society pressures ministers to knead into their sermons equal parts content and entertainment, while short attention spans mean they have less than half an hour to strike the perfect balance. If the sermon's dull, the preacher will be called a bore; if it's too exciting, he'll be called a showman. No one should envy the preacher's vocation.

The good news is, you're in good company. I was encouraged by a little book published many years ago that confirmed for me that preachers have faced the same challenges since the very beginning. John Chrysostom's On the Priesthood, completed sometime before 386 AD, is the author's attempt to talk his superiors out of ordaining him for the ministry—John has read the job description, and he doesn't want anything to do with it. His reasons may sound familiar.

If you believe there is value in studying the biblical texts you preach in their original languages, then how do you make this happen? How can you maintain, jump-start, re-learn, or revive your language skills? Furthermore, how can you maximize the time you spend in your Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament? Here are some ideas.

In Preaching to a Postmodern World, Graham Johnston writes (p. 79):

It's no longer enough just to know one's Bible. Preaching must demonstrate a working understanding of the issues, concerns, and the interaction of people's daily lives, helping listeners to interpret their world from a biblical standpoint.

Look at the apostle Paul's approach on Mars Hill in Acts 17. The apostle evidences some prior inquiry into the nature of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophies, which disregarded any belief in an afterlife.

The preacher in the twenty-first century will be one-part theologian, one-part sociologist, one-part evangelist, and one-part mystic.

This week I'd like to wrestle with the use of Hebrew and Greek in sermon preparation. For starters, is it reasonable or even desirable to expect pastors to study the biblical texts they preach in their original languages? Is this a wise investment or a poor investment of time?

From October 2006 through March 2007, Preaching Today surveyed listeners and readers about preaching on family topics. I thought I would put together some highlights from the feedback we received (349 respondents, +/- 5.25 percentage points). Enjoy!

We asked preachers what family-oriented topics should be addressed from the pulpit. As a follow-up question, we asked how many of them had actually addressed those topics from his or her pulpit. Here's what we discovered:

"I am so eager to preach the gospel . . . I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." (Romans 1:15-16).

Like the Apostle Paul (Romans 1:15-16), I'm eager to preach this Sunday. It's not because I think I might deliver one of the top five sermons I've ever preached or because of any personal satisfaction I might get - whether relief, fulfillment, self-expression, or affirmation from hearers. Of course, the flesh is relentless, and I have to guard against those temptations like any other preacher. But my eagerness stems from something deeper.

The folks at our sister site, FaithVisuals, have just posted the second part of their conversation with Shane Hipps, author of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. I'm particularly intrigued by Shane's notion that our emphasis upon the visual may work against stirring the intellectual side of folks. More alarmingly, he attests the emphasis upon the visual may bring about a disappearance of the Pauline side of matters, just as it did in the Middle Ages. Interesting stuff! If you'd like to revisit part one before you read the "sequel," click here.

In one of our recent brainstorming meetings for PT.com, Brandon O'Brien (our new editorial assistant) mentioned how the American public is being overrun with remakes, do-overs, and variations of older themes. We all agreed with his assessment of culture. How could we not? All you have to do is go to the movies this summer, and you're going to feel a bit of de ja  vu. The Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt Damon, sees its theatrical release tomorrow. It's the third part of a trilogy of films that started with The Bourne Identity. The Bourne Identity is a remake of a television miniseries of the same name, starring Richard Chamberlain. All the films are based on a series of books that Robert Ludlum wrote back in the 1980s. Or ponder Ocean's Thirteen. There would be no Thirteen if there hadn't been an Ocean's Eleven two movies prior. And Eleven was a remake of a Rat Pack classic from many years ago. All this and one of the biggest moneymakers of the summer is Transformers - a variation on a cartoon from my youth.

I've found myself mulling over these words put to page by one of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner. I can certainly see how the words may challenge or anger you. But then again, they may encourage you as you've been allowing (or at least thinking about allowing) a little more flesh-and-blood into the pulpit as a preacher:

Sad to say, the people who seem to lose touch with themselves and with God most conspicuously are of all things ministers ... there is precious little in most of their preaching to suggest that they have rejoiced or suffered with the rest of mankind ...

Along with much of the rest of mankind, ministers have had such moments, we can only assume, but more often than not they don't seem to trust them, don't draw on them, don't talk about them.