Recently an “old time religion” type of preacher was heard railing against those wimpy preacher guys who “get them up a sermon” on the Internet. I am tempted right now to go to www.downloadsermons.com and see if it’s a site (I just made it up). Hang on a second and I will check… No kidding! Want to know what I got? Here is what it said at that website: Site Temporarily Offline for Maint. Check back shortly. I suppose that’s good, right? Boy, I hope it’s up and running by 9:00pm Saturday night when all us wimpy pastor types start our message prep! In 200churches, there are lay pastors, bi-vocational pastors, young pastors and old pastors. Generally, we are called upon to "do it all". At times we are very pressed for time to get a message prepared. Suddenly it's Saturday night!
Honestly, have you ever just sat and stared at a blank Word document on a Saturday night and decided to go online and find a message? I don’t know about you, but I know I can’t just download a message and preach it. No way. It’s not that I couldn’t live with doing it, it’s literally that I just cannot pull that off. It would be more work for me to do that than it would for me to just study, use my tools, and develop my own message. I have been presenting sermons, messages, and talks, whatever you want to call them, for over 25 years. Here is what I have learned about using the Internet to help me.
The Internet is too great a resource to fear or avoid in message preparation. So is the Holy Spirit of God. Let’s remember that after we have done all we can in preparation for a message, God is the one who can use our words to change hearts. Our confidence is in him no matter the preparation. Let’s never confuse an abundance of sermon material with a message that originates in God’s heart, travels through ours, and changes both our lives and the lives of our hearers. How do you use the Internet in your sermon preparation?
Jason
3/16/2013 01:50:14 pm
Communing and talking with God throughout the preparation of a message is the MAIN thing. Keep the main thing the main thing. - that's a great thought! Comments are closed.
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