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Preach Difficult Passages This will definitely expand ones preaching horizon. Read Books If you want to improve your preaching, then you need to read books on preaching. Listen to Other Preachers I agree totally with Meads suggestion here. I remember reading a preaching blogger who said that he did not like to listen to other preachers, he would rather read a theological text or listen to a theological lecture. However, if you dont listen to great preachers you will not get better. Does the Jazz musician only read theory books and never listen to other jazz musicians? Does the novelist simply read books on composition and never read other novelists?

With the Advent of the internet, there is simply no excuse for a preacher to not listen to other preachers. Simply type in the preachers name into google and often you will find audio from that preachers Mead has 2 more and you should go over to his post to see them, but simply following these three will greatly improve ones preaching. Analyze Your Own Sermons One of the things that Mead did not talk about, in this post, is the importance of analyzing your own sermons. Analyze the text of the sermons. Do you have a clear purpose? Do you do an adequate job of exegeting the text? What could you have done better? In addition, you might analyze the audio and video. Do you have habits or mannerisms that work against the proclamation of the Gospel? I just realized that I do not have any posts that give an outline of my method for exegesis. Here is the basic process. 1. Prayer You should not open the Bible without praying for the guidance of the Spirit in understanding the principles found in the text. 2. Initial Observations Now before you really get into thinking deeply about the text you want to get the initial impressions. Read the text and simply note whatever comes to your mind. A title may come to your mind, a theme may come to your mind, and even a gospel song or hymn. Whatever comes to your mind write it down. Here you are at your most creative point. However you will need to refine these observations later. 3. Analyze the Story of the Text Here you look at the text as a story. Who are the players in the text? What role do they play? What do they do? Next where is God and what is God doing in this

text? And finally where is humanity and what is humanity doing? What if the text is not a narrative? Well then you might look at the story behind the text. You miht look at the story of the author of the text. Now refine your observations from your initial read. Please note this comes from reading the text alone without any commentaries or other study helps. 4. Analyze the History of the Text What was going on at the time that can help you understand the text. Now you can begin looking at other resources like a good Bible dictionary. Here you want to know who wrote the text and what was the occasion that brought forth the writing? 5. Analyze the Arguments in the Text It is one thing to know what the text is trying to convey, but it is another thing to know how the author conveyed that truth. In other words what words were used to teach the truth? What illustrations were used? Preachers can often find the illustrations in the text itself. 6. Analyze the Theology of the Text What is the author of the text trying to say about God? What kind of God does the text project? 7. Analyze the use of Power in the Text Where is the power in the text? Who has it and how is it used? Does humanity have power? What kinds of power are in the text? Are they spiritual or temporal? What is the nature of the power? Is someone or something trying to take the power? 8. Analyze the Senses in and from the Text Look at the text for things that affect the senses. What do you smell in the text? What do you see in the text? What do you feel in the text? One might see a rugged mountain sloped downward when we see Jesus in the desert. This might be of use in our sermonic preaching. What about the smells. It might be interesting that the prodigal son saw the bright lights of the city as welcoming when he was coming, but by the end of the story, the were a repellant. Think about how the text affects your senses. 9. Analyze the Feelings in and from the text How does the story make you as a reader feel? How do the different characters in the text feel? Improving Storytelling in Preaching Step 2 -Uncover Feelings Here you once again read the text and place yourself in the text. However, this time you are looking for the feelings of the various people in the text. Look for any feelings including the following: 1. Loneliness 2. Jealousy 3. Greed 4. Fear 5. Joy

6. Depression 7. Sorrow 8. Pain 9. Love Improving Storytelling in Preaching Step 3 Determine the Purpose The third step in Martha Simmons and Henry Mitchells method for improving storytelling in preaching is the turning point towards putting together the sermon. Here you must determine the behavioral purpose of the sermon. You get this by asking yourself, What change in core belief or obedience is the Passage pushing the people to. This step recognizes that the sermon must have a purpose. We are not preaching just to be preaching. Neither are we just telling stories for the sake of telling stories. There is a change in belief or practice that we are seeking in the people.

Now after having gone through these steps you are ready to move to the sermon. Simply summarize and synthesize all of your work into two pages and then you are ready to move on to structuring the sermon. Exegesis can be seen as looking at the Biblical text from different angles and different depths recursively. You dont just read the text once, you read it many times. In addition, you dont just look for the same things every time, you look for different things in each reading. I have begun thinking about the exegetical process as one of waves. In short, the preacher should determine the feelings and the sensory data that are needed to preach a 15-25 minute sermon. Please note that you will not use all of the data that you have collected in steps 1-2. The guiding purpose is what you saw as the behavioral change taught by this section of scripture. Practice Record yourself telling the story. Then transcribe the story from the tape into a manuscript. This practice will improve your storytelling and your preaching in general. It is amazing to me how often we preachers will not practice our craft. The musician practices for hours before she comes and performs. If the musician can practice like that to provide an enjoyable experience for the listeners, how much more should we, who are delegated the responsibility of proclaiming the greatest story ever told, practice the messages God gives us to preach.

The First Wave Initial Introduction to Your Text Here we are introduced to the text. We first must pray for Gods enlightenment. Then we read the text out loud. We are not necessarily looking for anything but for God to speak to us. This might be seen as a devotional type reading. However after reading this text, you should note everything that comes to your mind that is related to the text. You may think about a hymn your grandmother used to sing. Note that if it is related. You may think of a gospel song. You may think of a television show or story. You may think of other Biblical characters and ideas. A particular word may jump out at you. All of these things should be noted and written down. It is possible that there may be certain things you dont understand, go ahead and note those, this will be places to come back and look at. Note all of these things and try to reduce it down to one-two pages. This process of making it compact will help you to really understand the text. The Second Wave Going into the text deeper Here we are attempting to answer all the questions that we can answer from the Bible without referring to commentaries, dictionaries, or other folks sermons. You do want to look at cross references though. For that I would suggest the Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge. Look up important aspects of the text in that book and find all the cross references. These will help to round out knowledge of your particular text by looking at other texts. Here you want to determine the story in the text. What is the narrative? What is going on? Who are the characters? What are the characters doing? What is God doing? These are some of the questions that you will ask during this phase. You also want to look at the use of power in the text. Who has the power? How do we get the power? Is the power beneficial? In addition look at the theology presented in the text. What does the text have to say about God? What does it have to say about that which is transcendent? What does it have to say about living in this world? Finally you want to make specific reference to HOW the author of the text tells the story. What words were used? Why would the author use those types of words? What arguments are used? How are they related to us? During this phase you will use cross references and a number of bible Translations. The key is that we are only looking at the Bible. Then refine your one-two page exegesis to include that which you have discovered in this phase. The Third Wave Help from Others Now you want to see the questions that you still have left and look them up using Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries. What have others said about the text? Does it agree with your observations? Do you think you should refine yours or the commentary needs to refine its understanding?

Another important source is the sermons of others. Find others who have preached on the subject and skim it. Often you can find valuable material like illustrations and the like from this practice. Then you want to also make use of denominational resources. Our Methodist friends would most certainly see what John Wesley has to say about the subject. Those in the reformed tradition would break open John Calvin to gain insight into the subject. The Seventh-day Adventists would bring Ellen G. White into conversation at this point. Here you want to look at what others from your ecclesial heritage has had to say on the subject. Go ahead and refine the exegesis again with what you have discovered here. The Fourth Wave Walking through the text Now you are ready for what I consider to be a very important phase that is often overlooked. Here you should take a stroll through the text. You should walk and live in the text. If you are preaching about the sermon on the mount, then you are not ready to preach it until you have experienced the first, second, and third wave, and then walk in the text. You should look over at the mount. How does it look? If you dont know then pull out a geography book and the bible dictionary again and see. How is the weather? you may not know, but you might get some insight form a good bible dictionary. What kinds of foliage are around you? What is the temperature? How many were there listening? Where are you sitting? How does Jesus voice sound? Are there other competing sounds? What do you smell? Are there animals near by? and finally, ask yourself about the emotions in the characters. What emotion does Jesus have? How is he showing it? What about the listeners? Are there some smiling and other frowning? What emotions does it stir in you? You cannot answer all of these questions, but you can answer many of them. And answering these types of questions will help you really experience the text, and also help others experience the text. One might ask what difference does this stuff make? That is a good question. Let me say that I once preached a sermon that was enriched by my knowledge of the terrain of the wilderness that Jesus was driven into by the Holy Ghost. That terrain was slanted downward. Can you talk about how Jesus was driven into a terrain that was slanted downward into a dead sea? Can you help someone who feels like they have been sent into a wilderness by God, but not just a wilderness, but one that is slanted downward? The Shout Aint Enough Great preaching must engage the mind. I dont know how many times I have heard a preacher get up there and simply attempt to engage the emotions. These preachers get a shout but dont help the people in reality. Too often the congregation simply lets them off the hook. Dont let someone serve you slop week after week and then throw sugar on top. Dung is dung even if there is a celebration at the end.

No great preaching requires solid exegesis. It requires an interaction with the scripture. This is not your one minute glance for something to shout about, but an internal look for what God is saying to lead this congregation forward. But yes, great preaching does have an emotive dimension. No matter how great your content is, if you are not excited by it, how can you expect someone else to be. Great preaching requires an interaction with truth that is so real that it jumps off the page into the feet, head, heart, and hands of the preacher. And then after having done that, the people will be able to say I looked at my hands, and they looked new, I looked at my feet, and they did to. Great preaching must engage the head and the heart. It is time for preachers to stop shirking their duty and to be true to both. Is that not why God called you?