After watching the film …

Bring to mind the most memorable sermon you’ve heard.

What made it so?

Transcript

Welcome to the first segment in this preaching masterclass.

My name is Ian White and I’ll be walking you through some core material about the art of preaching

I’m looking forward to sharing some of my journey with you and you can share yours with me as we go through these sessions together.

We’ll also be talking to some other preachers about aspects of their preaching and how they go about it

You may be watching this because you’re already a preacher and you regularly communicate God’s word to a congregation of God’s people

You may be just starting out and want to learn some skills to do the best you can to got God’s word across

or you may already be a public speaker and be curious about how preachers go about their task and find the nuts and bolts fascinating.

Wherever you’re coming from I hope these films will inspire and equip you to

• take God’s word,

• to make it clear

• to communicate it compellingly

• help it have an impact in the lives of the people you’re speaking to.

Graham’s story

I’d like to share with you how this all started

A few years ago, I was mentoring a younger pastor, let’s call him Graham

• As part of his training he was placed in a small church (20-30)

• One of his duties was to preach every 2 or 3 weeks.

• He’d had preached a handful of sermons and all appeared to be going well. ,

But one day I got a call from him – sounded worried

“Ian, I just can’t get anything to say on Sunday morning. What can I do? Can you help me?”

“What does your Bible School tell you about preaching – I’m assuming they’re giving you some turition on it.

“Oh yes” he said “last week we had one. The lecturer said “you have to read, read and re-read the passage of the Bible until God speaks to you – until His Word strikes you – until the Holy Spirit ignites a fire in your heart,

then start working on the message.

Ian I’ve done that

I’ve been reading this passage ad nauseam (in John’s gospel) for half an hour now and I don’t hear God saying anything.

Time is running out and I’m stuck

What do I do?

He sounded desperate

My heart went out to him!

“Look” “ring me back in half an hour and I’ll come up with something for you.”

What bothered me was that he was being fed such a subjective approach to hearing God’s word from the scriptures, it had disempowered him.

(We all get preachers block from time to time)

So in that half hour I did what I had always resisted doing up to that point,

I wrote down a process.

A sequence of steps that I hoped would help Graham out of his predicament.

I chose seven steps – for no particular reason other than it sounded about the right number

• and it’s often associated in the Bible with perfection – or at least completion!

• So if he was to follow them through, at least he wouldn’t be bereft of material.

“Graham, do these things and you’ll at least have something to say. It might not be the world’s greatest sermon (of even your greatest) but it will be something – and that’s much, much better than nothing!

(I think he might nave been hoping I would write his sermon for him – but that would be … cheating)

He rang back and we talked. At least he now had a few things to actually do.

A week later we were on the phone again

This time he was quite excited

“Ian – it worked! It took me a lot longer to prepare than I expected (!) but they really liked it! They felt God spoke to them – someone even complimented me on it!”

That thrilled my heart!

• To know that this young pastor had taken God’s word

• he’d made it clear

• he’d been compelling

• and people listening to him felt they’d heard God’s voice from his voice-box.

That’s what preaching is all about!

So what we’re going to do together in this masterclass is a development of those steps.

So whether you’re a rookie preacher, or an occasional preacher or been doing it for years, I hope these sessions will inspire you an equip you to take God’s word,

• to make it clear

• to be compelling

• and help the people you love and you speak to be more like Jesus Christ.

The beginnings

Like anyone learning to preach, I started with a first time. I was 14

My first sermon was to a room full of elderly people in a care home. It lasted less than five minutes and I can still remember the outline.

It was neither glamorous nor noteworthy, but it was the beginning.

Even at a young age, my mentor (who happened to be my father) grounded me in the elementary disciplines of working at God’s word,

• making it as clear as I could and communicating His word using my words.

Preaching is an art form.

Think of yourself as a painter with a palette of colours.

• They are all at your disposal and you can make choices about which nuance to put where to place it in your painting.

It’s the same as we preach.

• Given a passage from the Bible there may be three or four different messages we can derive from the text, and still be faithful to the original intention of the author.

• We have to settle on which one is most appropriate for our congregation on that particular day.

And sometimes I find that decision heart-rending because I know I can’t say all I would like to!

Preaching is a very challenging process.

If you want to be a preacher you will have to (at the very least) overcome one of humanities greatest fears.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, ‘glossophobia’ – or the fear of speaking in public is greater than the fear of death for most people!

And way ahead of the fear of spiders or heights.

So some of us would rather be dead than speak in public!

And that’s not all. As preachers,

• we need to do research,

• we need to bother about exegesis (am I getting the right message out of this passage of the Bible)

• we have to bother about a writing process to get our material down on paper or into a file on our device

• and, on the day, we have to bother about carrying people with us when we’re speaking

No pressure, then!

But the rewards are incalculable.

As we go go through these segments, keep in mind the concepts we’ll discuss are only the foundation.

• We will each build differently upon them

My prayer is that, through this masterclass you will hear God’s voice speaking to you, and have opportunities to communicate it and see it take root in people’s lives.

So, embrace the discovery process – enjoy the journey and above all have some fun with it!

God bless you