{"id":1832,"date":"2015-09-17T14:51:14","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T19:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/?p=1832"},"modified":"2021-01-29T15:45:33","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T20:45:33","slug":"preaching-consistently-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/preaching-consistently-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Gogh Swimming with Cookies: 3 tips to keep your preaching consistently good"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Seminary continues our\u00a0sermon writing tips series.\u00a0Be sure to look for other tips from faculty, staff, and alums in the months ahead and read our recent posts on <\/em>preaching without notes,<\/em><\/a>\u00a0dealing with writer\u2019s block,<\/em><\/a>\u00a012 questions for effective preaching<\/a>,\u00a0using art as a tutorial to Scripture,<\/a>\u00a0preaching about current events<\/a>, and preaching from the Old Testament<\/a>. Have a tip you\u2019d like to offer or have\u00a0a sermon issue you\u2019d like help with? Let us know by using the comments option.<\/em><\/p>\n

Over the past few weeks, we heard preaching compared to the Ghostbusters<\/a>, and even a mention of audience participation involving rocks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I love outlandish ways to think about sermons, so with comparisons like that I couldn\u2019t resist chiming in. Having served a local congregation, and now a national institution, I have preached regularly in two very different roles, so I\u2019m going to offer some outlandish comparisons of my own drawn from each.<\/p>\n

After I finished my MDiv<\/a> at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, I served Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Orlando.\u00a0Next time you visit Disney, it\u2019s a tremendous congregation and only about 30 minutes from the parks, so stop by and say hello for me. Serving there for five years led me to a number of insights about preaching in a local church. Here are a few highlights.<\/p>\n

Preaching is like:<\/p>\n

\u00a01. Pointillism<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know those famous paintings made up of all those little dots?\u00a0They\u2019re usually painted by Van Gogh or that other famous guy you can\u2019t remember right now. (His name is Seurat.)\u00a0When you look at those kinds of paintings up close, they\u2019re great.\u00a0But when you step back, you find an amazing picture that wasn\u2019t there until you saw it all together.<\/p>\n

Preaching is like that. The cumulative effect of years of preaching is far more significant than one individual sermon, and sometimes you can\u2019t even tell what the impact is until you see it all together. I had a lot of fun with an annual \u201cseries\u201d that took place each year around Christmas. That kind of long-term impact is far more substantial than most of us realize.<\/p>\n

So\u2026<\/p>\n

Pay attention to the sermon you preach not just each week, but over the course of the year.<\/p>\n

2. Cookies<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love cookies.\u00a0Who doesn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

But, if you eat cookies all the time, you would eventually get tired of them. Or so I\u2019m told.<\/p>\n

Preaching is like cookies. To be more precise, your preaching style is like cookies. As great as it is, people may come to love it even more if sometimes they have something else instead. Like cake.<\/p>\n

In Florida, I had the privilege of working with a pastor named Bob Eckard. As the senior pastor, he was very generous with sharing the pulpit, so I preached way more than most associates.\u00a0As a result, the congregation heard each of us preach a lot, and got to experience two different styles on a regular basis. They came to appreciate the differences in our styles, and found them to be complementary. Regularly hearing a good preacher also helped my preaching grow and evolve. This is an advantage that larger churches naturally have that can be healthy for solo pastors to seek out. Doing so will help you with preaching consistently good messages.<\/p>\n

Give the cookies a rest and have some cake.<\/p>\n

So\u2026<\/p>\n

Ask someone else to preach sometimes \u2013 even when you\u2019re in town. Need ideas? Try a missionary you support, an elder or deacon, a Sunday School teacher, youth director, or even (ahem) Seminary faculty or administrators.<\/p>\n

3. Swimming<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you go swimming, the best way to find out what the water\u2019s like is to jump in.<\/p>\n

Preaching is the same.\u00a0Being immersed in the life of a congregation is the best way to learn what concepts, words, or images will really make a splash.\u00a0 Homileticians and preachers often talk about exegeting a congregation.\u00a0There\u2019s no way to do that without diving into the life of a parish.<\/p>\n

So\u2026<\/p>\n

Spend some time paying attention to the \u201cwater\u201d you swim in.<\/p>\n

On an unrelated note, next time I\u2019ll share some contrasting insights from my role as a travelling preacher.\u00a0In the meantime, look at some pointillism, eat a cookie, and then (after 30 minutes) go for a swim.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Rev. Derek Davenport \u201905 is director of enrollment at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and program co-director of the Miller Summer Youth Institute<\/a>. Derek is also a PTS alumnus of the Master of Divinity (MDiv) Program after which he served at a church in Orlando, Fla., for five years. Besides working with prospective students, he serves as a guest preacher in Western Pennsylvania, researches church symbolism on his website,<\/a> and tweets at @DerekRDavenport<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Seminary continues our\u00a0sermon writing tips series.\u00a0Be sure to look for other tips from faculty, staff, and alums in the months ahead and read our recent posts on preaching without notes,\u00a0dealing with writer\u2019s block,\u00a012 questions for effective preaching,\u00a0using art as a tutorial to Scripture,\u00a0preaching about current events, and preaching from the Old Testament. Have a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,159],"tags":[131],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ministry","category-sermon-writing-tips","tag-sermon-writing-tips"],"yoast_head":"\r\nVan Gogh Swimming with Cookies: 3 tips to keep your preaching consistently good - Pittsburgh Theological Seminary<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wondering about preaching consistently good sermons? 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