Preaching

for Special

Services

Scott M. Gibson

© 2001 by Scott M. Gibson

Published by Baker Books

a division of Baker Book House Company

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516–6287

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

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In memory of

Dr. Gwyn Walters

Contents

Foreword by Haddon W. Robinson

Acknowledgments

1 Preaching for Special Services

2 Wedding Sermons

3 Funeral Sermons

4 Baptism and Infant Presentation Sermons

5 Preaching at the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper

6 Speaking on Other Occasions

Appendix 1:

Special-Occasion Sermon Worksheet

Appendix 2:

Ten Commandments for Funeral Messages

Foreword

This book is written for pastors or those planning to be pastors. Let me state the obvious. Only pastors have congregations. Lawyers have clients who consult them when they face lawsuits and physicians have patients who schedule appointments for yearly physicals. But pastors have congregations.

Ministers stand before their congregations on most Sundays, of course, to deliver their word from God. But they do much more than that. They get bound up in their people’s lives. If pastors stay with their churches for several years, they will witness and experience the struggles and celebrations of people who make up their church families. Children are born into the congregation, the converted get baptized into it, and couples get married standing before it. The minister is there. He is expected to say something significant. Ministers also stand in dimly lit hospital rooms to whisper assurance to those in the darkening hours of life, and then a day or two later they must stand and speak words of strength and comfort to those in their congregations who are left behind.

Scott Gibson and other writers refer to these times as “special occasions.” That sounds a bit cold and impersonal. These “special occasions” actually make up the stuff of life. They are the moments when a minister grieves with those who grieve or laughs heartily with those who laugh. On these occasions, he searches for words from the Word to make sense of what seems senseless or finds other words to take happy times and fill them with ...