Sermon Prep: Getting Started

Sometimes I just need to start writing. If I do that then the ideas start to flow. If I don't I'll sit there and stare at a blank screen forever before getting into it. If you're like me, you're always searching for the perfect way to start a message. Something that conveys the essence of the talk, plus grabs people's attention and is usually humorous. But before I get there, there's just a blank canvas sitting before me. Here's a look at how most of my sermons start:




Or some other form of greeting. I do this because the hardest part of writing is getting that first sentence done, and that's usually how I start my sermons anyway. So, my advice for anyone suffering from writers block is just to start writing. Even if it's dumb, you can go back and erase it anyway. What did people do before Word Processors?

-Jeff-

I've seen it all.

Or at least now I have. This video made me laugh, cause it's so true!




-Jeff-

My Blog Challenge

A friend of mine (I use that in the social networking sense, I haven't seen him since High School, but from reading his blog I'm sure we could be close) Nic Casey, posted a blog the other day that challenged me in my blogging, and I'm going to try it. He said he was trying to post once a day for a month, and for some reason that really got to me. Blogging for me is an exercise in creativity and a chance to get some of my thoughts down in a public journal. Yet for the last few months I've become pretty set on making this a blog about youth ministry (which it always will be) and I've lost sight of the idea that this blog is about me.

Because of this emphasis on youth ministry, I tried to get my posts together into series (like a preacher would), and I tried to make them applicable to one set of people (youth pastors). What's funny about that is as hard as I try, I never put together sermon series (again, not for lack of effort). Consequently, I never posted. Rather than this blog being the overflow of what God was doing in me and in the ministry, it became a chore.

God has been doing some spectacular things this last month and a half, but it didn't fit into a series so I didn't blog it (except for Bryant's testimony). That's going to change. Who knows, I may even post a survey about myself up here for all to read, if that's what I feel like doing for the day. So all that to say, look out blogosphere, I'M BACK!!!

-Jeff-