I've been on Twitter for a few years now (@kenhensley, if you care to join the conversation). Over time, I've come to appreciate a few things regarding Twitter and preaching. Here are just a few observations: Using Twitter forces me to be concise in communicating a thought. With only 140 characters at your disposal -- including spaces -- you have to trim the fat. In some ways, it reminds me of Fred Craddock's approach to preaching: you should be able to summarize every sermon in one sentence. Using Twitter allows me to follow thought leaders in various fields. On any given day, I am getting Tweets from Guy Kawasaki, Max Lucado, Dave Ferguson, Leo Laporte, Ed Stetzer, Don Miller, and many others. These tweets give me a real-time perspective into what they are thinking, reading, and doing. Using Twitter allows me to easily extend my own influence. Granted, I only…
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This weekend I'm teaching on how to resolve conflict within a marriage. While putting the finishing touches on my message (while enjoying a cup of coffee -- good preaching and good coffee go hand-in-hand), this thought settled on me: People come to church looking for something more than Dr. Phil. If Dr. Phil was working for them, they wouldn't be listening to me. And if I'm trying to be Dr. Phil, I won't match up -- notwithstanding the fact I'm not bald. Folks who are hurting or searching or wandering come to church looking for one thing: a word from God. Whether it be in regards to their marriage or their children, they walk through our doors wanting -- expecting -- to hear from God. In fact, they usually aren't surprised when we teach from the Bible. Ironically, they also aren't surprised when a restaurant serves them food. They are…
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"“Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame if I cannot write better sermons now than I did seven years ago.” John Wesley Upon returning home after my dad died, I found a collection of notes and outlines from sermons I had delivered back when I was a teenager. As I read through them, it was as if I was having an out-of-body experience. "Did I really say that?" was a common thought that kept popping in my head. If I could have found every person who had happened to hear one of those messages, I would have apologized on the spot. Did they contain gross errors? Not necessarily. Often it was a matter of how I said something -- or the dogmatic certainty about issues that I no longer was dogmatic about it. Those were messages I had preached when I was 15-17 …
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“The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying, not, 'What a lovely sermon!' but 'I will do something.'” -- Billy Graham Confession time: there have been times in my preaching past when I was more concerned with crafting a lovely sermon than I was about inspiring people to action. I imagine I am not alone among pastors. The temptation is always there. In searching for a story or movie clip, is it to enhance the loveliness of the message or to prompt a response by the listener? Am I interested in finding the right turn of a phrase in order to impress my audience or to challenge them? Good marketing include what is known as a "call to action." It answer the "so what?" question. So what am I supposed to do about what I've just seen or heard? A call to action explains the next…
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While bouncing around Google looking for a John Wesley quote (how theologically nerdy is that!), I came across a great blog post from a pastor in New Zealand. I pass it on to you. ****************** Come and Watch Me Burn Spirituality might well be a frequent topic of conversation today – but when it comes to the preacher, it is one of the hardest issues to master. How significant is the state of the preacher’s walk with God when it comes to measuring the impact of their sermons? This issue isn’t discussed much because it doesn’t quite fit as a natural component in the ‘art’ of preaching. It tends to remain assumed and so it can receive very little attention. It thus becomes an opaque issue, lurking uncomfortably in the background, unaddressed. However it is my conviction that the preacher’s spiritual state is utterly crucial for the effective ministry of…
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