EAFLETS L INISTRIES M ERSONAL P

1 ISBN: 978-1-57756-691-59781577566915 PERSONALMINISTRIESLEAFLETS How to Run a Church-Based Bible School The MissionaryProgram for the LocalChurch Motivating Membersto Witness Giving Personal BibleStudies Small Group Ministry Personal Witnessing Methods of Door-to-Door Visitation Gaining Decisions forChrist and His Truth The Work of thePersonal MinistriesLeader Reaching PeopleWhere They Are Health Evangelism Reclaiming theMissing Sermon Preparation Public Evangelism Principles of ChurchGrowth Adventist CommunityServices Prison Ministries If you have been asked to preach a sermon, but youdon t know where to begin, this resource is your guide tosuccess. This book contains seven things to know beforeyou begin to preach and ten steps to preparing a will discover how to choose a topic, select supportingtexts, organize your information, find illustrations, and more.

2 For lots more Personal Ministries resources This websitehas an extensive library of downloadable articles andactivities to enhance the preparation of Personal prep:cover PRESS 4/21/10 3:09 PM Page 1 Sermon Preparationis created by the General Conference SabbathSchool & Personal Ministries Department Editor: May-Ellen ColonPrincipal Contributor: W. Floyd BreseeDesign: Linda McDonaldThe major source used in the preparation of this leaflet is Successful LayPreachingby W. Floyd Bresee. Used by from:AdventSource5040 Prescott AvenueLincoln, NE 2010 by the General Conference of Seventh-day AdventistsAll rights reserved. You may copy these materials for local church part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise for sale or distributionin any way outside of the local church leadership without the prior writtenpermission of the copyright in the United States of AmericaISBN: 978-1-57756-691-5 TABLE OFCONTENTSWhat Is Preaching and the Preaching Event?

3 5 Seven Things to Know Before Beginning to Preach .. 61. Know yourself .. 62. Know your Lord .. 63. Know your Bible.. 74. Know your tools.. 75. Know your preparation takes time.. 96. Know your sermon type.. 107. Know the segment method of sermon preparation .. 11 Ten Steps in Sermon Preparation .. 141. Choose your Bible passage or topic .. 142. Study your passage to find segment, lesson, and proof .. illustrations/applications to complete your segments .. 174. Choose theme and outline .. 205. Organize your sermon.. 216. Change and delete .. 257. Write out your notes or manuscript .. 258. Prepare yourself .. 269. Preach.. 2710. Critique .. 2934 SERMONPREPARATIONWhat Is Preaching and the Preaching Event?It is an encounter of the divine and the human in which Godspeaks, the Son comes alive, and the Holy Spirit illumines so thatthe preacher and the congregation both hear from God and aretransformed.

4 For preaching to be effective, it must be God-infusedfrom the inception of the sermon idea to the delivery of thesermon. Self must be eradicated and Christ must be elevated. Thepreacher is an instrument in the hands of God. He or she must befilled with God so the Holy Spirit can flow through him or her to on that, here is a selection of thoughts from anumber of long-time successful Adventist preachers: God is the source of all preaching and without God thereis no need to preach. Have an experience and then tell life story of the preacher influences is divine truth communicated through apersonality bringing truth through personality. It is God sWord manifested in human personality for the purpose oftouching other human personalities. A preacher who triesto hide his or her personality will never be an effectivepreacher.

5 A sermon is like a photograph of the impact of aparticular scripture on the speaker. The preacher is an interpreter. He or she takes themeaning of what is behind the text and explains it topeople in the light of the contemporary situation, and thatmeaning must always be seen through Christ. Faithcomes by hearing the Word of God, and that hearing ismost often experienced through preaching. The revelationof divine power through the spoken Word is the recurringmiracle which energizes and sustains the church. Thepreacher speaks with confidence and the power andauthority of God. Preaching is communicating biblical truthfrom God, by God s power, for God s saving purpose. Theobjective is to motivate people to accept God s will and5plan for their lives. The preacher must bring his or her bestto the Lord and the battle is the Lord Things to Know Before Beginning toPreachThe biggest task in preaching is preparation of the preacher,not the sermon.

6 You must:1. Know is your purpose for preaching? A wrong purpose wouldbe to feel important or to feel power or control over listeners. Askyourself if are you walking the walk or just talking the talk? Are youa seven-day Christian or just a seventh-day Christian. Peoplerespond to a good preacher rather than to a very able one who isnot good and does not practice what he or she preaches. A goodpreacher is one who daily knows and loves Christ, knows andloves people, and is willing to work hard to bring the two other purpose is out of place in the pulpit. Preaching is puttingthe hands of your people into the hand of God, and to do that youmust have hold of both. To do that you must follow the counselPaul gave to Timothy, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith,love, endurance, and gentleness and to be without spot orblame (1 Timothy 6:11, 14, NIV).

7 2. Know your do not preach about something, we are to preach about aPerson, Jesus Christ. Paul does not say what, but Whom wepreach .. (Colossians 1:27, 28). Don t preach the cross, but theChrist crucified on it. All truth and all preaching are to beassociated with Jesus. He appointed the twelve that they mightbe with Him and that He might send them out to preach (Mark3:44, NIV). Notice, they first had to be with Him before He sentthem out to preach. Not until we have spent much time with Himare we prepared to preach about Him. There is nothing harderthan giving to others what you don t have, trying to share a Jesusyou don t know. Fill your soul with Jesus. Then let your sermon bean overflowing. When you do this you have a compulsion topreach. You can hardly wait to Know your preaching must be biblical. We are ready to use ourmouth to speak only when with our eyes we have searched theWord and with our ears listened to the needs of our people.

8 Godwill bless you even if you must begin with little knowledge andcontinue seeking told the young preacher, Timothy, Preach the word (2 Timothy 4:2, KJV). Let us notice threeprerequisites to true Biblical preaching:a. Biblical preachers believe the Bible works. They love it too much to use it to simply enforce their ownideas. Typical preachers decide what they want to say and then goto the Bible to find texts to reinforce their ideas and to prove themright. Biblical preachers put the Bible first. They find their messagein the Word. Bible first is their Biblical preachers spend time with the Bible. We are told, It is a sin to be neglectful of the study of theWord while attempting to teach it to others. 3 Every preacherneeds a regular systematic Bible study program. Although it ishard work, digging deep into the Word will provide a richness thatis both satisfying to yourself and a great blessing to the Biblical preachers apply the Bible to themselves.

9 They never open the Bible without breathing a prayer that theHoly Spirit who gave the Word will interpret and apply it to theirown lives. They plead that God will speak to them before Hespeaks through them. Then they study to find ideas that willchange their hearers. As they study and find exciting ideas , theywrite them down in a journal. If you do this, when you are laterlooking for something to preach, you will be surrounded by ideasthat truly interest you. Here is a great secret to interestingsermons. People get excited and will respond to that which youare excited Know your your primary preaching tool is the Bible, other books,especially those written to help study the Bible, can be very helpfulas aids to stimulate your versions. As older Bible manuscripts are discovered and as languagedevelops, new Bible versions are continually being published invarious languages.

10 Where we have them we ought not to be afraidof using them if they can help us understand the Word. EllenWhite quoted from four versions beside the King James sixty-ninetimes in the book Ministry of sermon preparation it is best to begin your study with theversion favored by most of your listeners and the one you willpreach from; then use others to broaden your insights. Althoughthey may be helpful, be careful about depending on or usingparaphrased versions in the pulpit. You can use the internet to doword studies which involve the original Greek and Hebrew Bible reference books. If you have only one reference book it should probably be aconcordance. William Miller studied the truths of the AdventMovement from only the Bible and a concordance. Otherresources include Bible encyclopedias, which will provide you withinformation about Bible times, people, and places.