PREACHiNG POiNTS

55 Tips for Improving Your Pulpit Ministry

Edited by Scott M. Gibson

Contributions by

Haddon W. Robinson

Jeffrey D. Arthurs

Patricia M. Batten

Scott M. Gibson

Matthew D. Kim

Preaching Points: 55 Tips for Improving Your Pulpit Ministry

© 2016 by Scott M. Gibson

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

LexhamPress.com

First edition by Weaver Book Company.

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.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Print ISBN 9781683592082

Digital ISBN 9781683592099

Cover: Frank Gutbrod

Editing: Line for Line Publishing Services

To our former, present, and future students—that they

preach faithfully God’s Word.

Contents

Acknowledgments

The Authors

Introduction

1. Preach the Big Idea

2. Go to the Bible to hear God speak

3. Soak yourself in the text

4. Being biblical and contemporary is the art of Christian communication

5. Speaking truth to people takes moral courage

6. We need scholarly evangelists and evangelistic scholars

7. Sermon preparation is twenty hours of prayer

8. Match the mood of the text

9. Give your listeners the opportunity to respond to the message

10. Make preaching a priority

11. Guard your sermon preparation time

12. Preach the principle

13. Drain the liquid

14. Interrupt your preaching plan

15. Don’t just get feedback, get feedforward

16. A wise leader works exercise into his or her schedule

17. Lay hold of the Bible until the Bible lays hold of you

18. Use your introduction to set up the body of the message

19. The essence of good preaching is unity, order, and progress

20. Diversify your illustrations

21. Conclusions should come to a burning focus

22. It doesn’t all depend on you

23. Preach as a dying man to dying men

24. Be yourself when you preach

25. Mobilize your language and send it into battle

26. The better you know yourself, the better you can serve God in the situation in which God has placed you

27. Feed my lambs, not feed my giraffes

28. Preach to the outer edges

29. In our preaching, less is more

30. Remember the ERP Factor

31. Preach “we” more than “you”

32. Study your listeners

33. Paper is a poor conductor of heat

34. Effective preachers exegete the Bible and their people

35. Observant preachers make insightful preachers

36. Adapt to genderlects

37. Preach to one person at a time

38. People-pleasing puts the pulpit in peril

39. Preach to those you want to come

40. Take a survey of who’s listening

41. Gentleness isn’t for wimps

42. Preach about money

43. We need reminders

44. Good preachers own wastebaskets and use them

45. You need ten “ ‘atta ...