Pro Preacher

The following is a guest post by Adam Tisdale, Pastor of North Hills Church in Meridianville, AL. Adam blogs at helpmyunbelief.wordpress.com about the intersection of his faith and his cancer.

“Man plans, God laughs” (Yiddish Proverb)

I’m not preaching this week, but that wasn’t my original plan. And I tend to love my plans. I wonder if God laughs at me – more like a sympathetic chuckle, I imagine. He knows my foolishness and loves me still. Even to alter my plans, even good plans, to accomplish His purposes. Thankfully, I’ll be preaching the week after. And then another week off, followed by a week on. And this is the pattern, which I did not want or choose, for the next 5 months or so.

Permit me to back up and explain.

Photo Credit: Kelly B cc

Towards the end of February, I knew my preaching series on 1 John was going to be wrapping up and then Easter would follow shortly thereafter. At that time my biggest concern was trying to figure out was I was going to preach on for a few weeks and also for Easter (well, a little more specific than the Resurrection). I primarily preach expositorily through books of the Bible, alternating between Old and New Testaments. All of which means that I can struggle sometimes when I have finished a series, but it’s not profitable to start a new one yet.

The other plan I was working on was getting a break the Sunday after Easter. I was going to take a few days of study leave and head to the mountains of Northeast Alabama for some extended prayer, reflection, and study. I was really looking forward to that time, especially knowing there was going to be some exhaustion from preaching the previous 13 weeks. As an aside, I think it’s healthy, where possible, to get out of the pulpit every now and then on weeks that aren’t vacation weeks. With the elders’ approval, I began making those plans.

“The Record Scratch”

And then the record scratched. My record. My plans. There was a colonoscopy, endoscopy, & CT scan at the very end of February to determine the cause of some health symptoms. The very next day, I received the call that no one wants to receive and that this 36 year-old did not expect (at least before the tests). Colon Cancer was confirmed, with surgery immediately forthcoming the next week. I got one last sermon in before surgery. And then all my plans, preaching or otherwise vanished. Poof. Gone. Continue Reading…

Friday Links

May 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

I am a student of preaching. I will never arrive. I will be a lifelong learner.

Because of this, I like sharing some of the preaching articles that I read around the internet. I share articles every day on Twitter and Facebook.

Photo Credit: Danny Hope cc

But I have realized that many people don’t read everything I tweet. And that’s OK, because that means you are probably busy doing something awesome. So I thought I would experiment with taking some of the best articles I find every week and sharing them with all of you right here:

Here are some links to my favorite articles this week:

Why some preachers get better and others don’t
The difference is calling, teachability, reckless abandon, and a willingness to pay the price.

4 Popular Preaching Myths
Does more study time equal a better sermon, one bad sermon equal less attendance next week, open feedback hurt your preaching, or deeper teaching mean more academic message?

7 things pastors should tell their people often Continue Reading…

In Preaching Friday Links

4 Powerful Methods for Closing a Message

May 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

The following is a guest post by Matt Maiberger. He is a youth ministry veteran of over 16 years in small, medium, and mega churches. For more from Matt, head over to Youth Speaker’s Coach.

Many youth pastors and speakers are careful to study and prepare their content well. Some even take the time to rehearse and practice their message a few times before delivering it to a group of students. There are those, however, who consistently struggle with closing their message effectively. They work hard to deliver a solid message for 20-30 minutes, then seem to fall flat during the final 5 minutes of their talk.

Photo Credit – Benny Lin cc

Someone once said, “People remember best whatever you say last.” How can you shore up the end of your message and close strong?

Let’s examine four different methods that a youth pastor or speaker can use to close a message effectively:

1. The Platinum Illustration

This is not just your run-of-the-mill story, but a well-told, life-altering, world-changing illustration where the main character has a major catharsis or makes a significant sacrifice to impact others.

2. The Token Response

When appropriate, consider giving the students a physical “token” that reminds them of the main theme of the message and the practical application that it should have in their life. On one occasion, when speaking about the merchant who traded everything for the “pearl of great price”, we gave each student an actual pearl (that we had picked up on the cheap during a mission trip to the Philippines) to represent their commitment to give up everything to follow Jesus Christ.

In Preaching

Changing The Way We Pray

May 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

I have tried many different ways to track prayer requests and who I need to pray for. I have kept a hand-written prayer journal, an excel spreadsheet, an Evernote note, and shamefully even just tried to keep it all in my head. But I have never quite found the perfect solution.

Well, there is a new free app on the market promising to deliver a new way to pray – the Ora App.

I recently downloaded it, and I’m very pleased with what I have found.

Ora is like a social network for prayer. You create a profile and instead of posting a status or tweeting, you post prayer requests.

You can invite your friends to join, and divide them into groups. So you can get your small group together, a group of pastors you to pray for, or even a group for your entire church.

Once a prayer is posted, you can comment on prayer requests and swipe the request to let them know that you have prayed for it.

You can also mark your prayers as answered and keep track of God’s faithfulness.

Another cool feature is that you can also set an alarm to remind you to pray every day at a specific time.

In Spiritual Life, Technology app for prayer, Apps, iPad, iPhone, iPhone Apps, Pray, prayer, prayer app

How Youth Pastors Can Help Senior Pastors Engage Youth During Sermons

May 9, 2013 — Leave a comment

The following is a guest post by James Blewett, the owner and operator of youth-sermons.com and author of the book Can I Get Baptized in Fruit Punch.

I wrote a previous article entitled How Senior Pastors Can Engage Youth During Their Sermons. And there were probably some Youth Pastors who were AOL. (Amening Out Loud) They thought they were off the hook and it was the Senior Pastor’s fault that their students weren’t engaged during the main worship service. But there are some things that Youth Pastors can do to help your boss out.

Photo Credit: Sherman Geronimo-Tan cc

60-80% of Christian teenagers are abandoning their faith after graduation before they finish their Freshman year of college. This is the statistic that we keep running with and it is going to take a village to fix this problem. So here are some practical ways to help out your Senior Pastor in your sermons.

Use a point your Senior Pastor used during your sermon

Insert a sentence into your sermons when applicable that goes something like this, “As Pastor Allen was saying in his sermon recently…” This will go a long way in bridging the gap between Wednesday night and Sunday morning for a lot of youth.

The idea is to add legitimacy to the messages your Senior Pastor gives. The students think a lot of times that the Sunday morning sermon is not for them and they won’t get anything out of it. Show them exactly what they can get out of it and some will try and find it for themselves the next time.

Tell a personal story or inside joke during your sermon

Tell a story about something funny your Senior Pastor did around the office or something nice he said about one of your youth. Use caution with this point of course, the idea is to make your boss look normal and approachable, not lame or weird. Continue Reading…

In Listening, Preaching Senior Pastors, Speaking to Teenagers, Youth Ministry

Tremble & Rejoice