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Top tips from Preaching and Personality

Home News Top tips from Preaching and Personality

We thought we’d share a few nuggets of wisdom from the Preaching and Personality course last week (9 March 2018), led by Paul Burden, Coordinator, Centre for Formation in Ministry.

We are not invisible carriers of God’s message. Our personality shows through in how we preach, and how we hear, sermons. How do we honour this?

  • We must preach with integrity and be ourselves
  • Our hearers (including children) have preferences in the way they hear a sermon
  • We have preferences in the way we preach
  • We can build bridges to help different preferences engage with what we’re saying
  • Our hearers need to be brought out of their preferences to experience the fullness of the gospel

Key elements of a good sermon that recognises different personalities include:

  • something factual & practical
  • something of vision or image
  • something personal
  • something of understanding

It is about honouring other people, and reducing barriers to hearing. It is NOT about allowing people to stay in their comfort zone – we need the fullness of the Gospel message.

Personality type and preference are among the tools we can use in the craft of preaching – it “doesn’t put you in a box, it puts you in a growbag” (Angela Butler)

Forthcoming courses on preaching:

How to Stay Friends and Influence Preachers: Giving Feedback on Sermons,
3 May 2018 Details here

Tidings of a Gospel true: Preaching at Christmas, 21 November 2018
The Christmas celebration provides great opportunities for preachers to engage with people who come to our churches for many different reasons. But, if we are honest, it can also be a time when preparation time is short, we juggle numerous demands, and we struggle to find fresh ways to proclaim an over-familiar story. How do we as preachers proclaim the amazing Christmas message so that our hearers might really be able to sing ‘Saw the glory, heard the story, tidings of a gospel true’?

Preaching, Poetry and Prophetic Speech, 8 May 2019
Details forthcoming

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