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Why I give a written sermon outline to my people

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Why I give a written sermon outline out explains the advantages of giving your sermon outline to your people.

Many preachers like to give surprises to their people. Their sermon is one of those surprises. Actually, the people have no idea where he is headed even half-way through his sermon, and by the end, they still are lost as to what he is talking about.




Let your Yea be Yea, and your Nay Nay

Christ taught the importance of not entering into dubious speech. Deceiving speech in one where what is said is not what really is. An example here is when a preacher says that the sermon today is “Once saved, always saved: The assurance of our Eternal Salvation.” Before halfway through the sermon, he hits on Bible versions and talks on that the rest of the sermon. Say what you mean, and live what you say.

Truthfulness, even in the presentation of sermons, should be a characteristic of all Christians, especially preachers.




Don’t Ramble.

Rambling is moving about a lot without any real purpose except to hear yourself talk. You do not really fulfill the purpose of the sermon (communicating your divine message to your hearers). When you say things that don’t directly relate to your sermon, you are rambling. If you record your sermon and then listen back to it, you can identify the parts that “don’t belong”. Be heavy handed in cutting out anything that doesn’t belong in your sermon.

It is frustrating for a preacher to stand up and tell us what we are going to hear today and then he doesn’t spend hardly any time on that topic! He has lied to us, so why should we believe anything he has to say to us!

The central problem here has its roots in the sermon preparation.

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Why we refuse to charge for Ministry

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Why we refuse to charge for Ministry

Part of our clear understanding of Scriptures regarding the local church is that the financial income of the local church is to be solely based in the tithes and offerings of its people. The local church is not to “sell” anything, not even cakes or cookies. They are not to have bingo nights, or charge for their services. In some churches understanding (and I am in total agreement here), not even the visitors are asked to participate in their offerings. They clearly release the visitors from any idea of obligation on their part before every offering is taken. This is visitors that are unsaved and even visitors that are visiting from other good churches.

The thinking here is that if tithes and offerings are spiritual sacrifices by which God does His work, why would God even want the unsaved or the unspiritual to partake in the work of God? By their participation they contaminate the work of God rather than help it. If the visitors are members of good other local churches, then they should be tithing and giving there and not here.




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Consolidation versus Independence

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Typical Argument – We can do more, and do it better if we consolidate our forces.

This is the typical siren of neo-evangelicalism, let’s consolidate our forces. But here we want to look at this from a different perspective. God did not set up Christianity under the structure and form that, for example, the Roman Catholic church uses, one big over arching government and administration to “really do things well”. God set up a multiplicity of small local churches. Why? Where is the advantage in that?

Contaminate the only Source, and you contaminate all



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