Superhua

“There are few more encouraging noises for the preacher than the rustle of Bible pages among the congregation when he announces his text.  He should draw comfort from that, more than from the sounds of approval for what he is saying during the sermon.

A faithful congregation will draw faithful preaching out of their pastor.  Conversely, it is very hard to persevere as a faithful teacher of the Word of God to a congregation that does not want it taught to them.  To some extent congregations get the preachers they deserve, because preaching is a two-way process: the attitudes of the preacher and congregation must unite in a humble hunger for God’s Word.”

(Mark Ashton in Worship by the Book)

Ken Fong recommended the book Made to Stick. Checking out the downloadable resources now.

Looks like it could be very helpful for those who communicate.

Wait for 1:35 on!

[ht: Tim L.]

Given the plethora of commentaries in English, how is one to evaluate which are worth his or her time?  Here are some resources which might help:

1. Old Testament Commentary Survey / New Testament Commentary Survey – These books review commentaries to help you decide.  (Here is a review of the NTCS to give you a flavor of what is included.)
2. BestCommentaries.com – A dynamic site which sorts through a wide variety of commentaries.
3. Two commentary resources from Ligonier Ministries: One / Two
4. Links for expository preaching – Currently on NT, but many good resources!

We just completed our series through the book of Judges.  Although biased, I enjoyed both retelling the accounts and framing each account within the overarching narrative of the Bible (read: Biblical Theology).

Here are few helpful resources:

Generally:

• The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative by Steve Mathewson
• Preaching the Old Testament by Scott Gibson [note: while I haven't read this (yet), it looks to be excellent!]
• John Woodhouse's recent lectures on reading and preaching OT narrative

Specifically:

• The NIV Application Commentary on Judges and Ruth by K. Lawson Younger – Dr. Younger was the reason I ever thought of preaching through Judges.  His brief teaching on it during class (greatly expanded in his commentary) opened my eyes to the compelling nature of the book.
• The New American Commentary: Judges, Ruth by Daniel Block
• Steve Mathewson's interview on Preaching Today about how he preached the Gospel in Judges.  [part I; part II]
• Southern Seminary's Spring 2008 magazine has an article on preaching Christ from Judges.

Tomorrow we start our YouPick sermon series.  From mid-December 2008 to mid-January 2009 all were invited to submit and rate questions on our website.  The top four questions would then form the basis for the four sermons in February 2009.

This concept is not original.  :-)

Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill did something similar one year ago:

So did Southeast Christian Church [swag here]. 

Special thanks to Fivestar module for helping make this happen!

You can follow along here.

A number of years ago my friend (who was studying at Dallas Theological Seminary) recounted how his preaching classes highly emphasized the memorization of sermons. For some odd reason that blew my mind: How could anyone memorize a sermon?!

I tried it a few times and somehow got through it. The freedom from preaching without notes was only achieved through countless extra hours of slaving over the outline and was always a bit tenuous–as if I was walking along the edge of a knife the entire sermon.

Although I shelved the idea, it continue to linger in the back of my mind.

Finally, in the Spring of 2008 I read two books on preaching which both advocated preaching without notes. Further, I took an American church history course in which we discussed the progression of Jonathan Edward’s own preaching. As I understand it, although Edwards began with strict manuscripts, he eventually moved to a much more freeform style as he saw the effect and power of the Holy Spirit. (You might remember the Edwards was part of the First Great Awakening.)

I was sold.

After preaching without notes for a number of months, I cannot imagine going back. The freedom to do away with a lecturn and look the congregation in the eye is priceless. The connection is much more palpable.

I used to mind map out my sermons–and probably would if I was guest preaching in a different setting. However, I have found that if I carefully organize my slides (of which I can preview the next slide using a dual-monitor setup in Keynote–the same can be done in Powerpoint), I get enough of a prompt in case I forget.

If you preach, I encourage you to try preaching without notes.

While looking for sermon hosting solutions, I came across three. Here are my initial thoughts.

Sermon Drop

Pros

• Easy to use: good back-end interface
• Easy to use: good front-end interface.  That is, it has a clean layout — I particularly like the big play button.

Cons

• Free version is limited to 500MB; then oldest sermons are deleted as new ones are added.
• Can filter, but not easily search by speaker or series
• iTunes link does not denote that your podcast was actually submitted to the iTunes Store.  It only means that iTunes is the application which opens the feed.  In other words, I do not think Sermon Drop actually submits your feed to iTunes thereby making it findable to the rest of the world from within the iTunes Store.

Sermon Player

Pros

• Unlimited storage
• Robust player including Bible, multiple sharing avenues (e.g. – Facebook, MySpace, WordPress, etc.), search and search/filter functionalities
• Extensive stats

Cons

• Ad-supported player in free version with non-intuitive play button. That is, I fumbled around trying to find the play button–I would like a bigger and clearer button that plays the most recent sermon. In addition, in the list of sermons, one must click the speaker icon to play the sermon–and not the play icon . This doesn’t seem to be consistent nor intuitive.
• Like Sermon Drop, iTunes link does not denote that your podcast was actually submitted to the iTunes Store.

Sermon Cloud

Pros

• This is the first sermon hosting service that I remember.

Cons

• Seems very similar to how it was back in the day. (Supporting this is that their last blog post was over a year ago.)
• Free version stores sermons for 1 year before deleting. (I believe.)
• Pop-up player (as opposed to in-line)
• No direct iTunes link (but see comment below on the iTunes link in the other sites).
• Cannot easily search by speaker or series

One pro for all the sites is that all of these services get your sermon and church “out there”–perhaps more than if your sermons were hosted on your own site.

One con for all three is the lack of customization available. (This is to be expected from a hosted service, but still important to note.) For example, the RSS feed is static–which means that if you ever move from that site, your RSS feed address will change. Allowing a user to specify a Feedburner feed address would be excellent and would avoid this pitfall.

Conclusion

Sermon Player has a lot of great features, but I like the layout and presentation of Sermon Drop.  At the end of the day, I think most users care more about presentation than features.  (After all, if they can’t figure out how to play a sermon, they probably won’t care about much else.)

Any of these sites would be a boon to the majority of churches.  Churches with the resources, however, may consider using a solution based on Drupal likk the Fieldfield + jQuery recipe.  Hopefully this plus the View2 Enclosure (referenced here) will made a good solution for churches looking to go this route.

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his ‘n her silhouettes, originally uploaded by zen.

Two interesting resources particularly for male preachers:

• What Women Want – Dr. Alice Mathews helps us think about the differences between men and women on Gordon-Conwell’s Preaching Points podcast.
• What Women Wish Pastors Knew: Understanding the Hopes, Hurts, Needs, and Dreams of Women in the Church – ““What do you wish your pastor knew about women in the church?” The question went out to hundreds of Christian women. This book is the result of that survey: powerful new insights and guidance that can help pastors build up women, heal them, empower them, and help them contribute fully and gladly to the church.”

edit: another resource: a summary of Practical Theology for Women: How Knowing God Makes a Difference in Our Daily Lives (Crossway) by Wendy Horger Alsup.

abcpastor has an insightful piece examining the ministry of Tim Keller as it relates to Asian-American churches.

Those of us who minister to Asian-Americans should take a look into what Redeemer is all about. The number of Asian Americans that attend Redeemer services are phenomenal. Worship services are held primarily in an auditorium at Hunter College. As the article points out, there’s nothing sexy here. The congregation is led by chamber musicians and hymns. The service is simply done. It’s a sharp contrast to the high production efforts found in other megachurches that lean more on the experiential.

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