Issue 15 Vulnerability in PreachingBlog | How I prepare by Mark Williamson
How I prepare by Mark Williamson
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 26.06.18
I’ve been preaching fairly regularly for just under 20 years and I’ve developed five points to help me through the preparation – I recently applied them when I was asked to preach on the book of Esther.
HAVE A CLEAR AIM
Can I say in one sentence what is the message of the sermon? If I don’t have clarity on this, then how can the congregation have any clarity?
When asked by a church to guest preach on the book of Esther, I was given Mordecai. They were doing a series on different characters in the story but there was no other steer.
For a sermon this broad, I like around four weeks’ notice. In week one, I read through Esther daily and thought about Mordecai in spare moments. I tried to let the Holy Spirit reveal the sermon aim to me, rather than forcing myself to find it in one sitting. The theme that came through was how Mordecai didn’t speak up to defend himself, but did speak up to defend others when he heard about injustice.
