Chapell, Bryan. Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2005.
Bryan Chapell presented a process for developing an expository sermon. Before he outlined his process, he explained the concept, need, and value of expository preaching; thereby, revealing his preaching philosophy and laying a foundation for the ensuing sections. In the second section he covered the functional elements of a sermon (explanation, illustration, and application). He explained each element’s purpose and use. Various examples gave further insight to clarify the concepts presented. In section three, Chapell presented a “Theology of Christ-Centered Messages.” Chapell’s purpose was to encourage preachers to craft sermons that elicit faith in their audience rather than self-help or moral instruction. Within the pages of Christ-Centered Preaching, he attempted to confront two “foes” of expository preaching: “This text offers practical instruction that binds the expository sermon to Scripture’s truth,” and to exhort “effective communication of the gospel” (19). Christ Centered Preaching is a foundational book for expository preaching. First, It provided an alluring survey of preaching, specifically expository preaching. Second,
…show more content…
The most prominent contribution is the “Fallen Condition Focus” (FCF). The FCF is a homiletical tool that discerns “the mutual human condition that contemporary believers share with those to or about whom the text was written that requires the grace of the passage for God’s people to glorify and enjoy him” (50). This tool enables one to discern how to elicit a faith response in their listeners. This is the heart of Chapell’s work, for it redeems the expository sermon. Chapell’s appendixes contain sermons and guidelines to facilitate preparing Christ-centered messages in different contexts (funerals, weddings, and evangelistic
N.T. Wright: During my first semester at Northwestern College, I was assigned the book, “The Challenge of Jesus” by N.T. Wright for one of my Biblical Studies courses. This book and every other book Tom Wright has written has dramatically impacted my Christian faith. Dr. Wright has not only defended the basic tenants of the Christian faith, but also has shown how an academically-minded pastor ought to love and care for his or her congregants. N.T. Wright was previously the Bishop of Durham and pastored some of the poorest in the United Kingdom. His pastoral ministry has helped shape his understanding of God’s kingdom-vision which he is diagramming within his magnum opus “Christian Origins and the Question of God”. This series has instructed myself and countless other pastors to be for God’s kingdom as we eagerly await Christ’s return. Additionally, I have had the privilege of meeting with N.T. Wright one-on-one on numerous occasions to discuss faith, the Church, and his research. I firmly believe Tom Wright is the greatest New Testament scholar of our generation and he is the primary reason why I feel called into ministry.
Andy Stanley shows how to become deep and wide by staying simple in a church. First, he accomplishes this by keeping programming simple. By making the programs simple he can get more involvement from those who attend North Point. Secondly, Stanley demonstrates easy simplistic ways to move people through the discipleship process. By making this process simple those who attend North Point can more easily reach the community around them. Even though these are a few of the many applications used by Stanley he effectively helps pastors by giving them simple steps to bring people closer to Christ without a church background.
Lee includes Scripture, Gospel, Hymns, Prayers and concludes the sermon in an “Amen” (37) by switching the posture to the audience. Perelman examined, “Every technique promoting the communion of the speaker with his audience will decrease the opposition between them” (79). Since Lee’s meaningful sermon consisted of the most essential techniques, her audience recognized her authority and capability to preach. She not only knew about the role of a minister, but also knew how to carry out her responsibilities as a minister, which enforced the appeal to ethos from the audience’s point of view. Lee compelled the audience to reconceive their discrimination of women
You need to not preach your personal theology but preach the theology of the church
Himes, B. (2011). Discipleship as theological praxis: Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a resource for educational ministry. Christian Education Journal, 8(2), 263-277.
In the book The New Guidebook for Pastors, James W. Bryant and Mac Brunson do a magnificent job of identifying and explaining the practical nuts and bolts that make a successful pastorate and a fruitful church.
In an age when culture continues to lower standards of intellect, Marva Dawn makes compelling observations and suggestions for the Church to rethink its strategy on impacting society. How do we evangelize without weakening the message of what we are communicating? The majority of her text focuses on the worship environment generally, but later she focuses on music, preaching, and liturgy specifically. According to Dawn, a gathering of believers should emphasize God as the subject and object of worship, challenge each individual to grow in godly character, and accentuate the community of believers (not only in the room, but throughout history as well). Through this grid, she encourages leaders and participants to evaluate each worship element.
Overall, this book helped me become more aware of my weaknesses with my preaching style and also gave me tools to strengthen them. The examples are very basic and practical and helped highlight key skills and situations that a preacher can experience when doing a sermon. This book added more knowledge to me and gave me new insights that I can use as a tool when I go back with my ministry as a youth worker.
It is important for a pastor to know the nature of the situation that he is preaching. Different events, like funerals and weddings, call for a different style of preaching. After this, McDill talks about having an effective presentation. The writer of the book thinks this is best done when a speaker preaches without notes. Right before finishing the book the author deals with the design of the sermon, this is the process of shaping a sermon to fit its purpose.
In ministry it is important to note that the different people involved in your ministry will be at different stages of their spiritual growth. Having an awareness of your own personal theology will be important for how you go about teaching the students who are involved in your youth ministry. One part of personal theology is spiritual formation. Duffy Robbins states that spiritual formation is, “the growing into the likeness of Jesus” (448). Another main part of personal theology is community. Understanding and having an idea of both spiritual formation and community helps with the formation of personal theology of ministry. This paper will share five areas of theology and how they relate to practical theology in youth ministry. The five areas of theology include view of God, view of people, view of sin, view of redemption, and view of scripture.
In the modern United States, a form of democracy and sport competitions rule society. Yet, we rarely stop to examine how the two are interconnected. As competition ensued in ancient Greece, the formulation of democratic ideals emerged from athletic competition leading to the early development of democracy. The first important aspect of athletics in connection to democracy is competition.
The function statement of a sermon “names the hoped for change” in the attitudes or actions of the hearers. The function of Evans’ sermon could be: to encourage hearers to remember God’s love and grace and change the way they think and feel toward those who have wronged them, so that they will be more equipped to
Words are authenticated by incarnational living of the gospel in the everyday lives of followers of Christ. The problem is that, for many, one aspect of witnessing is more important than the other, producing a pale image of the gospel lived out. Situation and context frames the witness response but gospel-valued living, compassionate ministry, and proclamation dialogue form an integral whole. For decades, this theme has been the motivating force for the missionary movement and what many mean by “doing mission”. In Mark 1:14-15 Jesus proclaimed the good news of God, saying the kingdom of God has come near, even though it was not fully manifested.
Then they must ask God, “what is it Lord that you will have me to say?” They should allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the answer. We should not use Scripture to support out thoughts, our philosophy and our reasoning. As soon as we begin to preach something outside of the Word of God, we lose our authority. In other words, God is no longer in the message and only the words of a man is glorified. This is why we should approach the Word using a childlike attitude. The goal is to glorify God in our preaching. We should allow the sermon to preach to us first before we preach it to the congregation. This means that the sermon needs to be incarnational. In other words our sermons should serves as a mirror. A mirror where we first see our own reflection and make adjustments and then reflect it back to the
It is important for me to remember when preparing a sermon, that it is not about the preacher, but through preaching, God the Holy Spirit does the work of giving God’s