Have you ever really analyzed your illustrations? I suspect most preachers don’t. I did it one time and found that the vast majority of my illustrations were largely about men. They were mostly american stories. The ethnicity of the people were mostly
The other day I was listening to a preacher close a sermon about pain. The sermon talked about the pain and struggles of this life. In typical African American style, the preacher closed the sermon with a “celebration.” Here the preacher resolved the pain by pointing to being “hooked-up.”
In the African American Preaching Tradition the ability to “tell the story” is highly prized. It is also helpful when preaching to any ethnic group. There is something about stories that captures the imagination of the hearer in ways that no other method can. Stories grab the people and place them in the Bible story as they recognize parts of the story playing out in their own lives. Stories are powerful especially Bible stories.
I was critiquing a sermon for a client the other day who demonstrated a very common and real problem in his sermon construction. The preacher told me that he just couldn’t get his mind around how to tighten the sermon up. He
I wanted to talk a little bit more about a thought described earlier. One of the biggest ways we preach more than one sermon is to attempt to bring a great point into our sermon that is not related to our main
One interesting question came up a little while ago. “Elder Cox, how do you advocate ‘three points and a poem’ while at the same time you advocate ‘one point in a sermon.’”