Preaching Rocket Notes 5l3n4h

Notes from Today’s Webinar on Preaching http://therocketcompany.com/preaching/ Steven Furtick Every Sunday before I go out to preach, I take 30 seconds to a minute to anoint myself with oil and pray that God would give me words to say and be a blessing. I pray Isaiah 55:10-11 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Louie Giglio’s Six Rules of Preaching 1 Have Something To Say (If you don’t have anything to say, please stop preaching. And if you only have one thing to say, repeat it) 2 Be Faithful To The Text (This takes studying) 3 Lead People to Jesus (Don’t lead them to preachers) 4 Don’t Be Boring (They should put people in jail for this – nothing worse than sharing the Gospel and being boring) 5 Prepare (This takes work - Don’t go to a preaching website – Invest time) 6 Be Led By The Holy Spirit (Prepare AND be led by the Spirit – I am led best by the Holy Spirit when I have prepared to be my best – BUT, if I feel like the Holy Spirit is leading me a different way, I don’t care how many graphics I have prepared, I will go a different way) Donald Miller Discipline of sitting down and writing is mandatory. I have a surge of creativity for 2 or 3 weeks, then back to the normal routine. I use “buffer” to space out my tweets, and I will watch Ted talks and space out 30 or 40 tweets. Had to stop tweeting Ted talks. We can’t force material. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit is also key – getting away from manipulating through charm – covers shame – and keeps us from being sharing our real self – being transparent I’ve had moments crying as I type into the computer knowing that this is what I was born to do – communicate the Gospel.

Have a life plan. Who is God and how do I fit into His story? http://storylineblog.com Brad Lomenick 1 In great communicators, we want inspiration. Great communicators move people from here to there. The difference is when people get transformation. 2 Understand your audience. Connect with the people in front of you. Jim Collins is meticulous about asking questions about our audience before he speaks at Catalyst. 3 Learn how to lead the younger generation – The rules are changing – Give them opportunities more than ever to achieve earlier in their career. The Catalyst Leader is a book that talks about leading twenty-somethings Dave Ramsay Humor is powerful when communicating, especially when dealing with serious topics. Zig Ziglar – “If people don’t laugh every 17 minutes, you have lost them.” Now, I think it might be every 7 minutes. My communication prep is coffee and my iPad, and being vulnerable with my team, talking things through. We always present a problem, solving a problem and telling them again how to solve a problem. “For every hour you present, prep 3” – Zig Ziglar Manage your week so your sermon prep is the main thing – Study and hone your message – We get busy and don’t do excellent work. If you’re not getting hate mail, you’re not doing anything. The more people that are complaining, the more you are doing. We are called to “disturbers” of the status quo. You never get used to it, but it’s coming, and it means you are doing good. We have edited Financial Peace because we found that the attention span of the culture has shortened, and huge number of people dropped out after the 9th lesson. So we pulled key things out and moved some things into another course, and it is shorter and the small group operates differently. We are also including other team . Mark Batterson I am a manuscript guy. I can’t put a few words on a note card and preach. But this manuscript curse cultivated a writing gift, because each sermon was a chapter of a book. Preaching and writing are very similar in some ways.

In communication, it’s metaphor, metaphor, metaphor. Jesus painted pictures. I look for an organizing metaphor. When it comes to sermon prep, I’m a last minute guy. I can’t do sermons 6 months out. Up until the last minute, I am fine-tuning it. I do make sure my manuscript is done in time for me to pray through it. I have also begun fasting on Saturdays so I could go into the pulpit in a weakened state. Hunger gives me an awareness on my dependence on God. We have to circle all our efforts in prayer. Before I preach, I pray through the content. Darrin Patrick Rotation of preaching OT, NT and current hot topics. We don’t want to get hung up on any particular thing. Generally OT in the fall, NT in the Spring and topics in the summer. We want people to have a holistic view of the Bible. You win or lose in the summer. Get guest speakers in, let new emerging leaders preach, so I can get more time to read and study. Last summer I was reading about our current series, “The 10 Commandments” Get the topic, get the text, and then get specific a couple weeks out with a coherent outline. By Wednesday, a week and a half out, I need an outline. So I’m finishing the sermon coming up, and also thinking about the sermon coming up in a week. I always have 2 sermons I am working on – Helps with consistency. Colossians 2:6 says that we should walk in Jesus as we received Him. We repented of our sin and saw God’s holiness. We can be forgiven and trust in Jesus’ work. That is the need of every human being. We must address this reality that we have sinned and we must say that and drive them to the reality of what they are before God, then to bask in their acceptance before God through Jesus’ finished work. This is the core of what we preach. Make Jesus the main thing, the hero of the story. Would your sermon work if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead? Don’t get weird with it, but make mini-applications throughout the message. I like the book, Christ-Centered Preaching, that explains this better. This must be a priority. 1 Corinthians 2 – “Nothing among you but Christ crucified” but Paul still dealt with other topics, but all in the context of the gospel. Jon Acuff You speak to be ed and to be repeated. Give people “handles”. Your brain hates new ideas, so you have to give them something that doesn’t get compartmentalized right away.

I try to understand the audience first. I use sign posts and look for exits. We have an island of an idea and bridges to another idea. How do we link our ideas and get the audience to go with us? The best parts of speeches is when something new happens. Dave Ramsay advised me, “Don’t go too fast on your joke layers.” People weren’t getting all the jokes. Slow down. Don’t go so fast. It’s time to punch fear in the face. It’s time to do work that matters. It’s time start. Fear – It’s hard to be honest from the stage. Don’t share only your successes or failures from 20 years ago. Share your failures. Egotism shuts down hearts and minds. If you hide your weakness they won’t listen to your strength. Work - Hard work beats 90 percent of the shortcuts. Do the hard work. Share messages that matter. Is this a fun story for me, or does it matter? We get now on twitter. You have people in your life who love you enough to tell you what you don’t want to hear. You need a “mirror” friend who tells you the truth. As a speaker, you need to repeat things frequently. Say them more than you think you do. I don’t get wrapped up too much in twitter, but it is valuable. Audiences now turn on a speaker in the middle of a speech through twitter. Crawford Loritts Separate yourself from the craft and don’t separate yourself from the craft. You will never preach better than you are. A well-honed speech is not a message. Preaching is deeply rooted in your walk with God. Pursue a life of intimacy with God. I don’t manuscript anymore because I have my own a cadence now. To me, it’s not a speech – I need to hear from the Lord. Preaching is not a transactional gig. Preaching is a word from God for the people in a moment in history. I get away with the Lord and ask Him for a message. For me, it is more mystical. Para-church ministries are more like a business – measurable and with defined goals. In a church, nothing is ever over and the people are the vision – You must love them profoundly – And many things can’t be measured that are very significant. I am terribly concerned about the transactional model of leadership development. We need to plan and measure and lead, but what is scaring me to death is the disconnect – Because I am good at pulling things off, I am pleasing to God, when God is more concerned with the “Leader” than his “leadership”

Leadership is assignment not a static place – You focus on faithfully implementing what God wants done. A leader is the desired destination at which others want to arrive. Articulate sharp, hip leaders who have bad marriages and hell at home are not good leaders. Don’t shoot to be the best preacher. Shoot to be a great preacher. The greatest preachers of all time that God used were not necessarily great preachers but men of God who were used by God. I am not up there to impress people with a turn of a phrase. I am there to introduce them to the Man who left the tomb empty. They have got to be transformed by Him. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Jesus’unconditional love that whispers in my ear. I am crucified with Christ – I have nothing to prove – Apart from me you can do nothing – Any value I bring to the table is because of the power of Jesus who took a kid from the central ward of New Jersey and saved him and gave me the enormous privilege to say a word for Him. Pete Wilson I keep a routine pace. Monday is a prep day – All I do is message prep. – I write the week I preach – I am not wired to prepare sermons weeks ahead. Doing it on Monday gives me the week for it to simmer and to take care of other responsibilities. This helps me be more present in meetings and with the family. Wednesday, I make my outline and work ½ a day on the sermon. I have never missed Wednesday sermon outline. On Thursday I put my finishing touches on it. By Monday, I have 7,000 words. I am a manuscript speaker. By the end of Thursday, I have it down to 1,800 words. Through the week, I am whittling it down. I just emotionally vomit on the page until I have no more thoughts, then whittle it down. I’m always asking and looking my staff and others for book ideas and other ideas, then putting our own spin on it. Books have become an increasingly reliable source for me lately. – Jumping point for series… I do not allow success or failure of my messages to be attached to my identity, because it sets us up for an emotional roller-coaster ride. I had a lady tell me that when I preach, she hears Satan. Right after that, two people told me it was my best sermon ever. Where else in our culture can you stand up and preach the truth of the life-transforming grace of Jesus every week? There is nothing like it. As you are talking, you can see God working and you can see it in people’s faces. There is nothing like that. That is why we have to work so hard at what we do. We are used by God to transform lives. This is a huge responsibility, honor and privilege.

Use all social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, to communicate that message and make the sermon live longer throughout the week. People forget more and more as the week goes on. Preaching can wear you out. It can be exhausting and discouraging. God is using you. Be encouraged. Nancy Duarte Resonate is a phenomenal book and Nancy Duarte has a famous Ted talk. Works in the silicone valley and helps professionals create presentations. You have to be gutsy and take some risks. Put your ideas into a contrasting environment – Lift your ideas out of obscurity with contrast – What is and what could be – Analytical and emotional – Build in contrast Be a better storyteller. Tension builds then releases, builds then releases in all great stories. Patterns of tensions and release when building presentations and sermons. We need to like our audience – Spend time with our audience – Take time to take a walk in their shoes – Your life is so different than a typical churchgoer. Where do they hang out? How do they spend their time? Where do they spend their disposable income? Murder your darlings – Cut, craft, edit it, arrange it, take it away, move it around. Don’t be a first-draft culture. Ted Talks in 18 minutes force you not to ramble but to be concise. The audience is the hero – They are the ones with the power – If your idea lives or dies – If they decide to change or not – You’re one hour of their life – For you it’s huge, but to them it’s just an hour. Give them a magical tool, make them unstuck or come alongside them. (like Yoda in Star Wars) Andy Stanley Double-Barrel Preaching: Every Sunday, we address 2 crowds – Regulars and 1st time visitors. A myth is that we must “dumb-down” sermons for unchurched people. The things that make preaching succeed to both audiences is our approach, not the content. Approach makes the content interesting.

Our approach is the differences. Everybody is good at this in some context. Visitors feel like strangers – space aliens – They think we don’t think they are there. We must recognize that they are there early on in the service and that we are happy about it. “If you don’t consider yourself a Christian, you could not have chosen a better weekend to be here with us.” Welcoming and disarming first-time visitors Acknowledging the “odd” in the Bible - Preacher’s kids are used to weird stuff in the Bible, but not visitors. When you preach an odd text, stop and address the audience and say that “this is a crazy story that is hard to believe”. Give people permission not to believe or obey. Give them time to consider the cost and take time to begin believing. Avoid saying, “The Bible says”, because a person who hasn’t read the Bible places no authority in the Bible. Cite authors instead. “The Apostle Paul hated Christians. Do you hate Christians too?” Give 2 or 3 sentences about the author when you cite them – It’s a win. “Jesus asked John to take care of his mother – That’s a big deal.” We were in our community more when my children played baseball – Got me more into the culture – My struggles now that my kids are older is that I don’t have that community with unchurched people, so we have look for ways to plug into culture. Bring your energy to the text, not your great stories. We want people to hear us talk about the Bible in such a way that they would want to re-read it. So if I preach an entire message and they loved our story but can’t the Scripture, I have failed. Find a way to bring all your best energy to the text – Spend time to uncover the energy in the text. Ed Stetzer Decide what it is you want to communicate and what shapes the message – That must start by reading the Biblical text and being faithful to communicate that into our cultural context. I prepare messages, lead the staff and lead a small group at my home – I only have 5 to 7 hours to prepare my sermons, so I meet with a team every other Friday and prepare messages together with them. I maximize my study by minimizing my searching. This is why my staff is important. I use word search, Logos, a team to help me search, I have a sub-directory on my Mac of stories and videos, I read a lot of magazines for ideas while I’m working out – tear pages and scan pages for later. Be the best steward of your time without wallowing in your

study. Communicate with seriousness that you have encountered God in prayer and want to communicate his Word. I also listen to audio messages from others – 4 or 5 sermons from other communicators. I know what series are coming up and I’m looking for introductory material for the Biblical texts to be bridges to our cultural context. We do a better job communicating if we explain why the text is important. 80.4% of statistics used by pastors are wrong. Do your research and don’t exaggerate as a motivational tool. “Curing Christian Stats Abuse” in Christianity Today – Google will mislead you. Don’t use bad statistics to motivate people. Be as faithful with your stats as you are with the facts that you seek to present. Find your own voice as a preacher and be who you are. I can shout or lecture depending on the setting, but it is still my voice. Be consistent about who you are. I have preached too many “good advice” sermons than Bible preaching. At the end of the day, the Bible should have undergirded my message and not used the Bible as footnotes. Can I preach a message that wouldn’t matter if Jesus hadn’t died on the cross? We should make a beeline for the cross. Mark Driscoll I know what it’s like to be lost and get saved, so I have a heart for people who are not yet Christians. The whole concept of the Bible is mission – series of sendings to reach the lost – How could we have a theology that is not a missiology? The whole arc of the Bible is evangelistic – God’s mission is that more people become God’s people. We live for God’s mission, so every text is part of His mission. I am preaching Philemon evangelistically in a series called “Slaves and Masters” and we tackle criticism of the church head-on about authority. If I go to a steakhouse, I’m looking for steak, if I go to a pool, I’m looking for water, and if I go to church, I’m looking for Bible. The Bible was not written in classical Greek, but common, street Greek. I come from a long line of guys who carried a lunch pail to work, and if I use theological language, I lose every guy who drove to church in a truck. Use the Bible’s words but explain it so they don’t feel stupid but invited in. God wants to reach men, who then will get married and have healthy families. God called me to train men early on.

Men want to aspire to something – The coach that a guy loved the most was the hardest coach – I would rather try and fail than not even aspire. Culturally, where else are these guys with no dad going to go? They don’t know how to get married, balance a checkbook or pay a mortgage? They don’t learn this in high school or college. Any pastor who thinks he’s arrived, definitely hasn’t arrived. Be careful that you don’t listen to one preacher so much that you become a parrot of him. If you listen to him too much, you won’t be who God called you to be. Don’t lose your voice. Give yourself some grace. It takes hundreds of hours to even find out who you are. Am I funny, serious, professorial, stern. We fail many times before we succeed. The more I preach one sermon, the better I get. When I preach multiple services, I get better. Be humble. Part of evangelistic preaching is answering objections of hearers which is why listening to those who disagree so important. If you really love your people, you want to do the best you can every time. They are giving us their time; it is an enormous honor.