Principles of Sermon Prep
Essay Preview: Principles of Sermon Prep
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The best method for research in my opinion is good old fashion Bible reading/study. There are other methods that are affective as well such as internet and audio. There is the liturgical approach which I am not too familiar with, but from my understanding the sermon is prepared on what you will be speaking on and your follow the planner. One of my favorites is the expository preaching; you start with a certain Book in the Bible and preach through it. The most common for myself is topical preaching; I will choose a certain topic that I believe is important for my church to hear and become educated about and create a sermon or series of sermons from that topic. It is one of the most popular I believe, but is sometime more difficult to create a theme or topic to preach off of. I have heard of what is called the random approach where whatever the preacher opens the Bible to is what they will preach on that Sunday, although I see this as a little chancy but will keep things interesting behind the pulpit.
Also there is what some would consider a method and some will not, Testimony Sunday. The preacher will ask for the members of the congregation to come and up and share what God has done in their lives. This is very helpful if the preacher did not find the time to study and prepare a sermon for that week. This will allow a small break for the preacher if you will and provide a chance for them to listen to the members of the congregation tell about the Lord instead of the other way around. Then there is a not so favorable method, the borrowing method. There are thousands of web sites where pastors offer their sermons to other pastors to preach and also many books filled with nothing but pre-written sermons. This is not the best approach but is sometimes okay I assume if it is permissible from the preacher that authored it originally, although I would suggest adding your own touch if it was something that you were going to try out.
There are many tools for study when it comes to sermon preparation; the internet, books, pastor magazines, but my personal favorite and most accurate and concrete tool is the Bible. The internet offers many helpful Bible research tools to where you can type the subject you are searching and it will list all the Bible Scriptures that reference that particular subject. There are also hundreds of books other than the Bible, which are filled with resources that deal with sermon preparation. As I mentioned the Bible is my choice of preference when using tools for sermon preparation, it is right to the source of what you are supposed to be teaching on in the first place. A strong Concordance is a helpful addition to any Bible; it serves as an index for the Bible and also includes Hebrew and Greek translations of the Scriptures. There are also several pastoral books that can come in quite handy when preparing a sermon, and biblical commentaries.
Another great tool for sermon preparation is people and listening to them. People can be a great tool because everyone has a story and could be a valuable lesson to teach to the congregation in what they have to say in their