TIP 1: Know your subject.
I love to write articles as you can see from how many I have written in the last twelve weeks. To think a site like this exists and every frustrated Christian isn't preaching on here is amazing! I found a site from an author on here that had interviews with children, and they ask them spiritual questions and the children know deep and profound answers.
Women S Tallit
Do you know that there are some Scriptures in the Bible you know very well? Some of them are so convicting and when you read them it just makes you feel sick at how bad a sinner you are. If the Word of God has you thinking you are never going to make it, you can do a hundred people or so a very big favour by sharing how you think. I did a sermon series about the last days here on 2 Timothy that took four 2500 word articles. I dredge up so many misgivings and faults it made me think I would never have credibility anymore. But it's only been up a week and I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to confess every failing in the list of sins I have had in the past year in another article.
One subject I know really well is that God loves an honest sinner who is willing to confess his sin before brothers and sisters. In James he speaks about confession of sin and it being linked to healing. In proverbs chapter three He talks about departing from evil and this will be health to your bones. When the women washed Jesus feet that was a sinful woman, with the Alabaster perfume this powerfully affected me so much I wrote a dramatized fictional story about it as an article on this site. He said that because the women's sins were so many and she had been forgiven much, that she would love much.
You can buy a book on grace to understand it, or you can see Jesus forgive you for twenty years when you are addicted to sex workers and find out that God is so patient and kind and His timing so perfect, that you learn from His example how to have grace on others in sin that you know of.
I know all about sin, so illustrating my sermons with my own sin makes my sermons more understandable, and the audience feel a whole lot better because they aren't as bad as me. I know sin so I use sin in my writings. My two part article in how I gave up my 20 year sex addiction may have glorified the sin too much, but for the one in six men that have visited the sex worker I wanted them to know that I know their sin.
TIP 2: Speak from experience not knowledge
When I write an article on why you should write a novel and how to write a well rounded character, I don't speak theory, I speak from an experience I gained in writing two four hundred page novels. When I speak in an article of four films that influenced my life and the story behind a current film I am writing, it is my love of the four films, the lessons I learned and why that is influencing my third screenplay.
The best illustrations I hear from preachers are stories from their own lives, not stories from books they have read. I want to be able to question the speaker about their story and I don't want second hand experience. A famous preacher that said something profound to you in a book will not be profound to your audience until you have lived the truth and seen it work in your own life.
Jesus was profound, such a good teacher that children can understand His stories but it took me five solid years of obedience to His commands to reach the depths of those parables meaning.
Experience sells things not knowledge. Ask any salesman, it's not how many yes' he gets that makes him rich, it's how many no's he's prepared to get until he has a winning argument.
Jesus was profound and experienced and He was the Son of God. It's His experience and the practical application of the Word of God that He knew that allowed Him to do such mighty works and signs and wonders. People like Benny Hinn preach a good sermon, and their sermon is confirmed with thousands of real documented healings.
I see a church full of knowledge, but way short on experience and the non Christians see that as hypocrisy. I see many people praying the self righteous prayer of the Pharisee, and few praying the prayer of the tearful tax collector. I see many good looking people in church, but few dirty sinners accepted.
When you write, write not from what you learned in some book in your own words, but rather what you learned from taking that truth for a six month test drive and share your own testimony.
TIP 3: Don't be scared to share the truth even if it hurts.
Don't be afraid to be honest with your feelings and your actions and your words. The last thing you want to do, if you want a full time traveling well recognized ministry to show Christians a better way is to go into the biggest church in town and whip people and destroy the coffee shop and bookstore that they have in the church. But Jesus did that in His first week of ministry.
When you had healed thousands and done all sorts of signs and wonders the last thing You should tell a Jew is that they have to drink your blood to be a follower of Yours knowing that drinking blood is a metaphor for your death, and blood as the Sacrificial Lamb, but your audience only knowing that you are preaching and telling them to break a holy commandment of God that says "No drinking blood!"
Jesus spoke a truth that no one could understand and it was too profound in its day, and lost all but His 12 Apostles. Then when He was caught He lost them all, save John that was at the foot of the cross.
In Psalm 15 it says that a good man is one that swears to the truth even at his own cost. That's why I share my dark secrets with you, so out of my loss someone might be convicted, and another might find hope that they too can conquer bad sins.
I tried for three years to give up my sex addiction and I honestly was starting to think the Bible did not work. Now I am an evangelist saying even your worst addiction can be conquered with true repentance, and God's supernatural grace.
All Glory to God for that blood of Jesus and the truth I found out about, what true repentance really is!
TIP 4: Don't be afraid to write a long article or preach a long sermon.
One of the world's best advertisers who made money out of writing convincing, "send in this coupon for your free trial" sort of advertising said this: "People will never be bored in print."
What he was saying was if you had interesting information and the information had a benefit to the reader they will read fifty pages on the subject. There can never be an advertisement that is too long, you simply have to write to your budget and write convincing copy.
Just as I know if you really wanted to learn what I promised you in the headline you are still reading and learning something. The very best sermons I have heard have gone for more then two hours, and I have been tired when they started and fully awake when he finished and I did not want it to finish. The only reason we get bored In a sermon is when the preacher is not preaching an anointed Spirit led sermon that the audience needed to hear.
Don't write two pages, for fear five pages won't be read on here. Write 2500 words the maximum and then write a part two and part three if it takes that much to get your message heard. Prepare for a one hour sermon and ask the pastor how long he wants, and if he says forty five minutes tell him you might run over a little.
If he says half an hour, have the courage to tell him your sermon can't be preached in such short a time.
TIP 5: Use your sources to back up what you are saying after you have said it or before.
I like to start with a Scripture and preach the Scripture, and explain the Scripture in my life and then lead the argument to my next Scripture. Then I like to start speaking about my next Scripture and explaining the message of my next Scripture, and then after I have explained it to introduce the Scripture I was talking about as evidence to my new line of argument. Then as soon as they see the evidence to what I was saying in front of them, I might go a little deeper into it and then lead onto the next thing I want to say.
I was taught to preach with no study, no notes, no man's books but simply meditating Scriptures in the Bible, living Scriptures in the Bible, and then writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
If you have an expert, use him to quote from, like a university student does, and give the source credit. But sometimes you won't know the name of the source or the book it was in like my favourite advertising man quote above, and so share the truth anyway and let the reader decide if you are spinning lines to them.
People want answers and they want common folk preaching to them, and it gives a reader or a person hearing a sermon great encouragement to hear you have never been to Bible college.
TIP 6: Don't be afraid of being too tough on your audience.
Paul says to rebuke, and exhort and preach the Gospel with power. Sometimes the people need the Word of God to cut them. Jeremiah in Chapter 23 talks about the false prophets and how they speak nice and comforting, and wonderful prophecies and preach nice sermons. He says under the Holy Spirit's inspiration that I God, did not send these lying prophets.
Then the Lord said, is not My Word like a hammer that smashed rocks to pieces, and isn't My Word like a fire that burns?
My people, people need the chaff of false teaching and error in doctrines burnt off them, and the hard rebuking Word of God needs to be preached with power.
People need their stony hearts to be hit with a hammer, and their hearts have to be broken and the people crying for three years till they can get out of a sin that is taking them to hell. It's tough preaching tough sermons but Jesus had no problem preaching the seven great woes to the Pharisees.
Speaking and preaching the truth is love, and you should be careful to use love when you do it. Sharing your own struggle with the sin you are preaching about softens the blow.
No Olympic trainer is soft on his athlete. No boxing coach lets his boxer sleep in and eat too much.
Yet pastors let their sheep sleep in sermons, and don't teach them to read the Bible and pray each day. This is not being a good shepherd or coach.
Now you have the six tips. Write your first article and post it online here and drop me a line where to find it.
Paul not only preached and taught, he taught new Christians how to be prophets and Apostles and pastors and evangelists. It's time you stopped reading my beloved friend, and get online and teach us what you know.
Go on, write a teaching and register with this site and put it up
God bless you.
Six Helpful Tips on Writing a Good Article Or Sermon That Gets Results For God
If you have enjoyed my article you can read the book "The parables of Jesus made simple" for free here in its entirety or just selected parables in chapters at http://www.parables-of-jesus-christ.net/ The book will be published in book form in January 2011
For prophetic counsel, Christian life coaching, Dream interpretation, Christian chat and great Kingdom Teaching come and see us at http://www.kingdomassignments.com.au
0 comments:
แสดงความคิดเห็น