We've been thinking about the nature of preaching and the tone of it. Here we get more practical with ten steps to preparing a talk...
STEP ONE: Read, Read and Read again.
STEP TWO: Write an initial SUMMARY
STEP THREE: Make NOTES on each and every verse.
STEP FOUR: Consult the WISDOM of others.
STEP FIVE: Return to the SUMMARY
STEP SIX: SHAPE it for your audience
STEP SEVEN: Make an OUTLINE
STEP EIGHT: WRITE it
STEP NINE: Add COLOUR.
STEP TEN: Final FORM.
Great advice, thank you!
How would this process differ for (for you) when you do a "normal" sermon in a church? It seems like these steps could just as easily be applied to that as well as for evangelistic talks.
Here's one more;
Pull the gospel out of the text…and not just the text off of the page.
Hand over Christ.
Do the gospel to them.
That is what separates a sermon…from a talk about…whatever.
Hey Michael,
Yeah this is based on thoughts for a church-based sermon. Not sure what the difference is myself - given I reckon we need to preach *the gospel* a heck of a lot more on Sundays anyway. Maybe the big application is for Sunday sermons in general to have a lot more evangel to them :)
Good points Steve :)
I thought you would say that, but then I was confused as to why your emphasis in the podcast had been on "evangelistic *talks*" instead of just any "sermons". I just remembered that it is called "The Evangelist's Podcast", and is called that for a reason! :)
You've done some good source criticism there. The origins of the podcast came from a blog post on preaching. I shoe-horned it into a piece on evangelistic preaching. Now you know all my secrets ;-)
Ha!
& thanks for the podcast response :)
Pleasure - thanks for the question. Glad to have some interaction