This summer I have had the chance of preaching once on the 17th of January. I got given the passage 2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2 and was told to preach around new beginnings and a new year and new creations. This was my second time preaching in church and I felt a little bit more comfortable this time around (possibly because I wasn’t being graded on it) I chose to have my main points around hope, lost hope, a new creation and being ambassadors for Christ. I used the story of the Samaritan women.
I have gotten in to quite the habit of telling a story through out my sermon, for example trying to get across what those people where feeling in that time and make it relate able. I probably didn’t do as well in this sermon by sticking to the passage and did more of a topical sermon.. which is probably not as effective. I could have spent far more time in the exegetical stage of the sermon but I got a bit caught up in my holiday.
My sermons are still very safe and I choose to always have a full script in front of me word to word what I am going to say. I think I will have to do this for quite a while until I get comfortable being in front of people and comfortable enough in my preparation as to know what I am going to say and being comfortable being able to just speak.
I think another thing for me which will improve my sermons a lot is different variations in my voice and more eye contact which again comes with not relying on my notes so much. I notice from watching videos my voice doesn’t change a lot and I know for me when I am listening to a sermon I find that really hard to listen to.
I think one of the things I have learnt from my sermons and from the evaluations is that my passion and beliefs come across in what I am talking about and from what people have said people actually believe what I am saying and they can tell that I believe it too which is pretty awesome.
Something I would love to work on is my openings and closings and making sure these are captivating and provoke a response. I also need to learn to use more illustration to get my points across to make the sermon more engaging. I think this comes with allowing more time to think and for God to speak to me and show me different things.
Overall, the sermon experiences are becoming better and more natural and comfortable but I still have a long way to go. I am lucky to have a good congregation to speak in front of as they are all super encouraging and make getting up the front not so daunting.
chase586 