sremery said... I didnt get all I set out to accomplish last week, I guess the week started getting busy on me, then I couldnt muster the strength to finish. I'm leaving for Florida Thursday, I'm planning on still posting and should get quite a bit of reading done. Thats usually what I do most of time I'm there. So this week at work is very busy, as I'm trying to get things in order so my brother-in-law wont have to do too much with my trucks. I'll post this weeks chapters later.
July 1, 2008 5:44 AM
(I copied this here since it was a July 1 comment.)
My book is called The Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching by Robinson & Larson. I'll be reading 19 chapters as follows: Ch 83 Preaching That Promotes Self-Centeredness Ch 84 The Danger of Practical Preaching Ch 85 Grace: A License To Wander Ch 86 The Rich Sound Of Grace & Holiness
PART 5 : Structure
Ch 87 Set Free From The Cookie Cutter Ch 88 Say & Do Ch 89 Connecting Biblical Content with Contemprary Audiences Ch 90 Clearly Ch 91 Skills of Oral Clarity Ch 92 Questions That Put Muscles on Bones Ch 93 Better Big Ideas Ch 94 The Power Of Sequence Ch 95 Outlines That For You, Not Against You Ch 96 The Tension Between Clarity And Suspense Ch 97 Lifeblood of Preaching Ch 98 Alliteration Downfalls Ch 99 Modulating Tensions Ch 100 The Purpose-Driven Title Ch 101 Why Should I listen To You
Wow, Sean, some intriguing titles this week: Preaching that promotes self-centeredness, The danger of practical preaching, Grace: a license to wander. I'll be interested to see how these are developed. I have an idea on the first one, but I'll wait to see what the author has to say.
Sean, You have three initial comments already. If you will do one more as a chapter summary, you will have the three initial comments we like for you to have. The others can be response comments. You can keep doing chapter summaries if like, or as an alternative, I encourage you to jump over to Tyler's posting area, look at his chapter titles and ask him some questions about some of the titles you find interesting. Look at my posted comment in your section about the danger of practical preaching for an idea of what I am talking about. (Since you will have to have three sentences for a quality post, maybe this will give you an idea of how to comment and then ask your question.) If you go this route, please post at least three questions over there.
Ch 84 The Danger of Practical Preaching speaks of being too practical. He eludes to the problem of some preachers preaching the end of a sermon only.Hitting just the bullet points. To me, there is an importance of reading the Word in a way of applying to the listeners life right now. I want to say "make the Word alive", but keeping in mind that the Spitit does that.
Ch 85 Grace: A License To Wander & Ch 86 The Rich Sound Of Grace & Holiness are chapters dealing with preaching Grace. Chapter 86 speaks of the importance of balancing Grace and works. It touches a little on ones that preach grace, can make it sound as if you're "covered" not matter how bad you've slipped. I believe that if you've been in service of God very long you deal with this. I've learned that there's a penalty for sin no matter what, but I've also found that being able to go to God and confess, and truly repent (turn away), that He is true in helping us out of our problem. We still make the choice of sinning.
I have dealt a lot with the idea "once in grace, always in grace". I do not agree with the modern concept that somehow we are covered by grace to do whatever we like. Some folks take it too far. I think of Hebrews10:26 and that tells me that we still have to live as Christians in order to stay in grace. Let me know what you guys think.
Well, I don't know what happened, but it seems like my example comment and question about the danger of practical preaching didn't show up. I thought I published it. Now, I don't remember for sure how I put it, but I think it may have been something like this: "I could see a danger in practical preaching when someone gets more concerned about talking about things that people are interested in than in what the Word has to say. (Sorry, I know that's not what I said.)
Basically what I was trying to illustrate was that I gave two ideas of what the author may have been talking about even though I hadn't read the chapter. Then I asked if I was on track or anywhere near to what the author had to say.
Any way, I hope you get the idea. I see you did go to the other areas and comment and ask some questions. That was the idea.
Concerning the grace question, I think the key is that we are saved by grace through faith. The key to knowing that we are "in" grace is that we continue to be believers. As such, we can fail, miss the mark, which is a definition of sin, but if that act makes us ashamed or disappointed and we resolve to do better, then I think we could still claim the covering of grace. On the other hand, if we just give lip service to God and do not become new creatures in Christ, then we have no basis for security.
While I would not use the term "eternal security" because of abuse, I would be comfortable with the term, "the security of the believer."
Instead of eternal security, I believe in "Christ security." If you are in christ you are secure. If you persevere in faith, you continue to be secure, and without turning away from christ in this life, that could be eternally secure.
The key is to trust in Christ not in some past memory.
Promises of salvation are only to believers. If a person said he was saved, and even acted like he was saved, and then later said that there was nothing to salvation or later indicated that he "does not believe," then I would not try to convince him (or her in all of these cases) that he was O.K. Instead, I would try to convince him that the only way of salvation is through Christ. A person who is not presently trusting in Christ has no basis for claiming the security of salvation, in my opinion, regardless of how he appeared to be in the past.
In any case, I would encourage any person who says that he is not trusting in Christ for salvation to repent and believe and trust Christ for salvation.
What are some other comments or questions both of you may have?
I'm tring to figure out how to send pics. We're relaxing, having a good time. I've been able to get some reading done. One chapter (Ch 90) is one on speaking clearly. It says you should ask yourself "What am I talking about"" and then ask "What am I saying about what I'm talking about". this is something I've found frustrating about getting my sermons right, I feel like I get sidetracked too much. this book is helping me by reminding me a lot. There are a lot of different authors for these chapters, but iI really like this Haddon Robinson. He seems to write in a way that makes it easier to grasp.
Ch 94 & 95 deal with outlining your sermon. In the 1st one the author calls his points "parallel points. Basically, keeping them on one subject. He also suggests a method of sequntial points, which lead from one to the next. In Ch 95 the author talks of outlines and brings up a good point of making your points in full sentences. So you'll be sure of your point. He says phrases can leave you stray from your point.
Right now the only way I know to get a pic in is by my profile. I updated it if you want to look at it. This pic gives you an idea of how I'm getting my reading done.
Hey, look, your picture showed up by your comment. I started to ask how we get to your profile, but I see when I click on your name, the program takes you to the profile. I actually had considered asking both of you to try to put in some pictures of yourselves during the introduction week, but then I wasn't sure that anyone besides the administrator of the blog could do it.
Haddon Robinson has a book on Biblical Preaching that you will be reading later. I'm glad to hear you enjoy his chapters in this book. He talks about forming "the Big Idea" when you get ready to preach.
On the subject of faith & works, I cant find the word to explain it that satisfies me. I know that when you have joy and peace with the Lord, the works seem to come natural. The opportunities seem to feel right. I know they work together.
Ch 99 speaks of sermons with tension. He states that giving the solution too early, you lose the listener. But to hold the tension by discussing the problem and giving the solutions at the end, you will hold the listeners attention and cause them to think about it through out the message.
I hope your camp goes well Randy, I'm hoping to come up with some messages while I'm down here.
You will notice some posts below that relate to various topics of discussion by our online community of preachers.
One of the purposes of Preachers' Meeting is to provide a place for young ministers or those recently called to preach to interact around the principles in a course of study recommended by our local group of preachers in the Southern Illinois area.
We invite you to look in on our conversations. If you would like to add comments as a guest, you are welcome to do so. If this looks interesting to you, you may join us as we start a new session. You can look in the side bar (or sometimes it is moved to right below this post) to see the weekly requirements. We start new courses every 8 or 9 weeks. As already mentioned, you are welcome to comment as a guest before that time.
Below these posts, you will see the word, "comments." Just click on it, and you will see a box on the right side of the screen where you may add your comments.
Look around. Enjoy yourself, and come back often!
Weekly Requirements
Here is a review of the general requirements for each week.
You have three assignments each week
(1) Make at least two initial posts in your posting area. The first one will be the name of the course, and the names (or numbers of the DVD's) of the chapters or lectures you will be covering during the week. The second one will be a comment on one of those chapters. You will receive one point for getting the first post in on Tuesday or Wednesday. You will also get a point for getting at least one more initial post in.
(2) Go to your fellow student's posting areas, and ask them a question or make comments about their intial posts. You will recieve one point for completing this assignment before 12:00 a.m. on Friday morning (that would be before midnight on Thursday).
(3) Answer the questions asked.
(4) On Fridays, I will also give directions for making remaining posts during the week. Be sure and read those, and take them into account when making at least one of your remaining posts.
In all, we want to make at least nine posts during the week. You will receive points for that as follows:
9 or more posts - 12 points
6-8 posts - 10 points
3-5 posts - 6 points
1-2 posts - 3 points
You will have the extra points you had accumulated by getting things in on time. Those are bonus points that will be used only to move your grade closer to 100 if you need them. They will be awarded each week if needed to move your grade up to 12 for the week. If you do not need them for that week, they will be carried over to the next week(s). Remember the posts that count for points will be at least three sentences long.
Thoughts on Application
Roger gave some good thoughts on application:
"Chapter 75, titled: 'Apply Within' is a lesson in application. The writer explains why it is sometimes difficult applying a sermon to real life situations. I will list some of the reasons application is not applied to our lives.
"First it is "hard work", it is hard to find application to every situation in the congregation,
"second, is wrong assumptions, assuming the audience is able to apply any and all biblical truths is totally a wrong assumption,
"third, is fear, fear of being to deep or to simplistic in the text and failing at application, and then there is training or lack thereof,
"many preachers know the text, and the history and the order of things but are totally untrained in application. One gentleman said it this way," how can you be a good football player when you can pass the ball, or when you can kick the ball, or when you can run with the ball but you don't know the rules of the game."
If you live in the souther Illinois area, we would like to invite you to a Couples' Marriage Enrichment Seminar on Saturday, February 27. It starts at 6:00 p.m and will run to 9:00 p.m.
After the welcome, there will be a dinner. Then there will be an opening session, followed by two breakout sessions, then a short closing.
The Keynote Speaker is Dr. Randy Carney (That's me :)!) and Roger and Janet Dutton will be speaking during the breakout sessions (That's Roger, who is commenting on this blog during this term!). Randy and Rhonda (my wife!) Carney will also have a breakout session discussing "Keys to Marital Bliss."
The Keynote Address will be on the topic of "The Way to a Successful Marriage: The Shocking and Surprising Truth."
Roger and Janet will be talking about "Hope for Restoring your marriage."
The cost is $15.00 per couple and that includes a dinner and all seminar materials. A nursery and childcare will be available. (Please indicate that you need these services when you register.) A book table with resources from Handfuls on Purpose Christian Bookstore will be available.
The seminar is for couples of all ages, ranging from newlyweds to marriage veterans!
To register, call 618-627-2228 to let the church know how may will be attending. Payment can be made at the event. (Make checks to TFBC.) For more information, call the church at 618-627-2228.
The Greatest Love
Since Valentine's Day falls on Sunday this year, I imagine there will be a ton of sermons going out on the topic of love.
Paul talked about love and respect in marriage (Ephesians 5), but he was really saying that that was an illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church.
Christ
Left Heaven to come to this earth.
He
Overcame adversity while here. He even conquered death!
He
Valued mankind so much that He gave Himself on the cross.
He desires fellowship with us. He reconciled the world to Himself, so that people could have an
Intimate realtionship with Him.
He meets all of our
Needs.
He is the supreme example of
Giving.
Do you see the word, LOVING, there? That is what He is--our LOVING Savior! Because of that, we should love one another.
Course 11 Week 4
Scroll down to the week 4 area to begin commenting.
Dealing with the Closed American Mind
One of the chapters Roger is reading is entitled, (something like) "Dealing with the Closed American Mind." I don't know if it is mentioned in the chapter, but I suspect that if you tak about something where a person has a felt need, you can gain their hearing somewhat.
What are your thoughts?
You may scroll down and comment in the week 3 comments area. Visitors are welcome to comment also.
Connecting with Postmoderns
This is something most preachers do every Sunday. If you have young unchurched visitors in your church, you will be trying to reach postmoderns. Even some of your church youth are more influenced by postmodernism than by their previous Sunday school teaching.
Here is my reply to one of Roger's posts:
"Roger, what tips stand out to you for commecting with postmoderns? I think the term modern referred to an age in history that related to new thoughts in science, etc. (If I am off base, refresh my memory.) Post modern refers to the time following that era. Connecting with postmoderns is something you have to do, whether you realize it or not, almost every time you preach."
I will post some of his answers here if he sees the question in time.
Preaching--Proclamation of God's Word
Preaching, by one definition, is the proclamation of God's Word. As such, a person, can take the Scriptural passage and find some of its main points and emphasize those points.
While I believe we should learn all we can about the grammatical construction of the words of Scripture, and that we should learn all we can about the historical setting for when those words were originally spoken; the nice thing about proclaiming the Word is that you can just take what the text says and emphasize it. Then the Word will not return void.
People with all different types of backgrounds have been called to preach throughout the centuries. Some very "unlearned" (as the world would put it) men have had great results by simply taking the main ideas of Scripture and simply emphasizing them. As long as we do not twist the meaning, this simply shows the amazing power of the Word of God.
New Format
I am going to try putting my comments for each day in this left sidebar. The comments areas for the remaining weeks are displayed to the right. That is where you will place your comments for each week.
17 comments:
sremery said...
I didnt get all I set out to accomplish last week, I guess the week started getting busy on me, then I couldnt muster the strength to finish. I'm leaving for Florida Thursday, I'm planning on still posting and should get quite a bit of reading done. Thats usually what I do most of time I'm there. So this week at work is very busy, as I'm trying to get things in order so my brother-in-law wont have to do too much with my trucks.
I'll post this weeks chapters later.
July 1, 2008 5:44 AM
(I copied this here since it was a July 1 comment.)
My book is called The Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching by Robinson & Larson. I'll be reading 19 chapters as follows:
Ch 83 Preaching That Promotes Self-Centeredness
Ch 84 The Danger of Practical Preaching
Ch 85 Grace: A License To Wander
Ch 86 The Rich Sound Of Grace & Holiness
PART 5 : Structure
Ch 87 Set Free From The Cookie Cutter
Ch 88 Say & Do
Ch 89 Connecting Biblical Content with Contemprary Audiences
Ch 90 Clearly
Ch 91 Skills of Oral Clarity
Ch 92 Questions That Put Muscles on Bones
Ch 93 Better Big Ideas
Ch 94 The Power Of Sequence
Ch 95 Outlines That For You, Not Against You
Ch 96 The Tension Between Clarity And Suspense
Ch 97 Lifeblood of Preaching
Ch 98 Alliteration Downfalls
Ch 99 Modulating Tensions
Ch 100 The Purpose-Driven Title
Ch 101 Why Should I listen To You
Wow, Sean, some intriguing titles this week: Preaching that promotes self-centeredness, The danger of practical preaching, Grace: a license to wander. I'll be interested to see how these are developed. I have an idea on the first one, but I'll wait to see what the author has to say.
Sean, You have three initial comments already. If you will do one more as a chapter summary, you will have the three initial comments we like for you to have. The others can be response comments. You can keep doing chapter summaries if like, or as an alternative, I encourage you to jump over to Tyler's posting area, look at his chapter titles and ask him some questions about some of the titles you find interesting. Look at my posted comment in your section about the danger of practical preaching for an idea of what I am talking about. (Since you will have to have three sentences for a quality post, maybe this will give you an idea of how to comment and then ask your question.) If you go this route, please post at least three questions over there.
Ch 84 The Danger of Practical Preaching speaks of being too practical. He eludes to the problem of some preachers preaching the end of a sermon only.Hitting just the bullet points. To me, there is an importance of reading the Word in a way of applying to the listeners life right now. I want to say "make the Word alive", but keeping in mind that the Spitit does that.
Ch 85 Grace: A License To Wander &
Ch 86 The Rich Sound Of Grace & Holiness are chapters dealing with preaching Grace. Chapter 86 speaks of the importance of balancing Grace and works. It touches a little on ones that preach grace, can make it sound as if you're "covered" not matter how bad you've slipped. I believe that if you've been in service of God very long you deal with this. I've learned that there's a penalty for sin no matter what, but I've also found that being able to go to God and confess, and truly repent (turn away), that He is true in helping us out of our problem. We still make the choice of sinning.
I have dealt a lot with the idea "once in grace, always in grace". I do not agree with the modern concept that somehow we are covered by grace to do whatever we like. Some folks take it too far. I think of Hebrews10:26 and that tells me that we still have to live as Christians in order to stay in grace. Let me know what you guys think.
Tyler
Well, I don't know what happened, but it seems like my example comment and question about the danger of practical preaching didn't show up. I thought I published it. Now, I don't remember for sure how I put it, but I think it may have been something like this: "I could see a danger in practical preaching when someone gets more concerned about talking about things that people are interested in than in what the Word has to say. (Sorry, I know that's not what I said.)
Basically what I was trying to illustrate was that I gave two ideas of what the author may have been talking about even though I hadn't read the chapter. Then I asked if I was on track or anywhere near to what the author had to say.
Any way, I hope you get the idea. I see you did go to the other areas and comment and ask some questions. That was the idea.
Concerning the grace question, I think the key is that we are saved by grace through faith. The key to knowing that we are "in" grace is that we continue to be believers. As such, we can fail, miss the mark, which is a definition of sin, but if that act makes us ashamed or disappointed and we resolve to do better, then I think we could still claim the covering of grace. On the other hand, if we just give lip service to God and do not become new creatures in Christ, then we have no basis for security.
While I would not use the term "eternal security" because of abuse, I would be comfortable with the term, "the security of the believer."
Instead of eternal security, I believe in "Christ security." If you are in christ you are secure. If you persevere in faith, you continue to be secure, and without turning away from christ in this life, that could be eternally secure.
The key is to trust in Christ not in some past memory.
Promises of salvation are only to believers. If a person said he was saved, and even acted like he was saved, and then later said that there was nothing to salvation or later indicated that he "does not believe," then I would not try to convince him (or her in all of these cases) that he was O.K. Instead, I would try to convince him that the only way of salvation is through Christ. A person who is not presently trusting in Christ has no basis for claiming the security of salvation, in my opinion, regardless of how he appeared to be in the past.
In any case, I would encourage any person who says that he is not trusting in Christ for salvation to repent and believe and trust Christ for salvation.
What are some other comments or questions both of you may have?
I'm tring to figure out how to send pics. We're relaxing, having a good time. I've been able to get some reading done. One chapter (Ch 90) is one on speaking clearly. It says you should ask yourself "What am I talking about"" and then ask "What am I saying about what I'm talking about". this is something I've found frustrating about getting my sermons right, I feel like I get sidetracked too much. this book is helping me by reminding me a lot. There are a lot of different authors for these chapters, but iI really like this Haddon Robinson. He seems to write in a way that makes it easier to grasp.
Ch 94 & 95 deal with outlining your sermon. In the 1st one the author calls his points "parallel points. Basically, keeping them on one subject. He also suggests a method of sequntial points, which lead from one to the next.
In Ch 95 the author talks of outlines and brings up a good point of making your points in full sentences. So you'll be sure of your point. He says phrases can leave you stray from your point.
Right now the only way I know to get a pic in is by my profile. I updated it if you want to look at it. This pic gives you an idea of how I'm getting my reading done.
Hey, look, your picture showed up by your comment. I started to ask how we get to your profile, but I see when I click on your name, the program takes you to the profile. I actually had considered asking both of you to try to put in some pictures of yourselves during the introduction week, but then I wasn't sure that anyone besides the administrator of the blog could do it.
Glad to find out we can.
Haddon Robinson has a book on Biblical Preaching that you will be reading later. I'm glad to hear you enjoy his chapters in this book. He talks about forming "the Big Idea" when you get ready to preach.
So, any more elaboration on the grace and works balance?
On the subject of faith & works, I cant find the word to explain it that satisfies me. I know that when you have joy and peace with the Lord, the works seem to come natural. The opportunities seem to feel right. I know they work together.
Ch 99 speaks of sermons with tension. He states that giving the solution too early, you lose the listener. But to hold the tension by discussing the problem and giving the solutions at the end, you will hold the listeners attention and cause them to think about it through out the message.
I hope your camp goes well Randy, I'm hoping to come up with some messages while I'm down here.
Yes, Sean,
Camp seems to be going well. No one has been hurt that I know of which is always one concern.
We did have two new people provide security for us through the night. That was a blessing.
As I said in my main post, we have had good response, and for the most part, good attention during the preaching. Praise the Lord!
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