Small Preaching

25 Little Things You Can Do Now to Become a Better Preacher

JONATHAN T. PENNINGTON

Small Preaching: 25 Little Things You Can Do Now to Become a Better Preacher

Copyright 2021 Jonathan T. Pennington

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

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All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at permissions@lexhampress.com.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are the author’s translation.

Scripture quotations marked (niv) are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Print ISBN 9781683594710

Digital ISBN 9781683594727

Library of Congress Control Number 2020950472

Lexham Editorial: Elliot Ritzema, Andrew Sheffield, Jessi Strong

Cover Design: Lydia Dahl

To Tracy Pennington, who has faithfully listened to a lot of

sermons from me over twenty-five years, and whose advice

has been immeasurably valuable. The effectiveness of any

of my sermons is directly tied to whether I listened to her

brilliant pre-run advice on Saturday night or not!

Contents

Introduction

The Person of the Preacher

1 Handling Praise Carefully and Gladly

2 Handling Criticism Carefully and Humbly

3 Band of Brothers Preaching

4 Pastoring as Conducting

5 Be God’s Witness, Not His Lawyer

6 Distinguishing between Preaching and Teaching

7 Encaustic Preaching

The Preparation for Preaching

8 Manuscript Writing as Thinking

9 Sermon Writing as Sculpture

10 Snack Writing

11 The Rhythm of Education and the Jigsaw Puzzle

12 Kill Your Darlings

13 Iceberg Preaching

14 “This Sermon Stinks”

The Practice of Preaching

15 The First Minute of a Sermon

16 The Last Minute of a Sermon

17 Preaching the Church Calendar

18 Preaching the Cultural Calendar

19 The Power of Predictions

20 Every Sermon a Story

21 Make Music in Your Sermon

22 Always Exposition?

23 The Unexamined Sermon Is Not Worth Preaching

24 At Weddings and Funerals, Be a Guide

25 Stealing as Sub-Creating

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Introduction

“Small” is not a particularly positive word in most instances. Who wants a small bank account, a small amount of honor, or a job with a small salary or a small number of benefits? And even though we might romanticize some advantages to having a small church, I think few pastors in their honest moments would rather have their church be small than large and growing.

When it comes to preaching, I’ll go out on a (small) limb to suggest that no one has ever put “small” and “preaching” together in a positive sense. One unscientific bit of supportive data is that in an age when any potentially marketable website domain name has been snatched up by squatters hoping to make a quick buck, www.smallpreaching.com was readily available to me. (I now own it, so don’t get any ideas. In fact, check it out for some great resources.)

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About Small Preaching: 25 Little Things You Can Do Now to Become a Better Preacher

Is bigger always better?

It’s not often that we hear the virtues of the small. Our culture teaches that bigger is better—and that includes church ministry and preaching, too. But what if rather than swinging for the fences, preachers focused on improving their sermons through small habits, practices, and exercises? What if smaller is better?

In a world where “small” isn’t always celebrated, Jonathan T. Pennington provides Small Preaching, a short book of simple tips that can have revolutionary effects over time. Pennington offers preachers 25 words of wisdom that will help shape their preaching for the better.

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Table of Contents