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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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!
1 Handling Praise Carefully and Gladly
2 Handling Criticism Carefully and Humbly
5 Be God’s Witness, Not His Lawyer
6 Distinguishing between Preaching and Teaching
8 Manuscript Writing as Thinking
11 The Rhythm of Education and the Jigsaw Puzzle
15 The First Minute of a Sermon
16 The Last Minute of a Sermon
17 Preaching the Church Calendar
18 Preaching the Cultural Calendar
23 The Unexamined Sermon Is Not Worth Preaching
24 At Weddings and Funerals, Be a Guide
“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 PreacherIs 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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