Posts Tagged ‘article’
Six Helpful Tips on Writing a Good Article Or Sermon That Gets Results For God
TIP 1: Know your subject.
I love to write articles as you can see from how many I have written in the last twelve weeks. To think a site like this exists and every frustrated Christian isn’t preaching on here is amazing! I found a site from an author on here that had interviews with children, and they ask them spiritual questions and the children know deep and profound answers.
Do you know that there are some Scriptures in the Bible you know very well? Some of them are so convicting and when you read them it just makes you feel sick at how bad a sinner you are. If the Word of God has you thinking you are never going to make it, you can do a hundred people or so a very big favour by sharing how you think. I did a sermon series about the last days here on 2 Timothy that took four 2500 word articles. I dredge up so many misgivings and faults it made me think I would never have credibility anymore. But it’s only been up a week and I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to confess every failing in the list of sins I have had in the past year in another article.
One subject I know really well is that God loves an honest sinner who is willing to confess his sin before brothers and sisters. In James he speaks about confession of sin and it being linked to healing. In proverbs chapter three He talks about departing from evil and this will be health to your bones. When the women washed Jesus feet that was a sinful woman, with the Alabaster perfume this powerfully affected me so much I wrote a dramatized fictional story about it as an article on this site. He said that because the women’s sins were so many and she had been forgiven much, that she would love much.
You can buy a book on grace to understand it, or you can see Jesus forgive you for twenty years when you are addicted to sex workers and find out that God is so patient and kind and His timing so perfect, that you learn from His example how to have grace on others in sin that you know of.
I know all about sin, so illustrating my sermons with my own sin makes my sermons more understandable, and the audience feel a whole lot better because they aren’t as bad as me. I know sin so I use sin in my writings. My two part article in how I gave up my 20 year sex addiction may have glorified the sin too much, but for the one in six men that have visited the sex worker I wanted them to know that I know their sin.
TIP 2: Speak from experience not knowledge
When I write an article on why you should write a novel and how to write a well rounded character, I don’t speak theory, I speak from an experience I gained in writing two four hundred page novels. When I speak in an article of four films that influenced my life and the story behind a current film I am writing, it is my love of the four films, the lessons I learned and why that is influencing my third screenplay.
The best illustrations I hear from preachers are stories from their own lives, not stories from books they have read. I want to be able to question the speaker about their story and I don’t want second hand experience. A famous preacher that said something profound to you in a book will not be profound to your audience until you have lived the truth and seen it work in your own life.
Jesus was profound, such a good teacher that children can understand His stories but it took me five solid years of obedience to His commands to reach the depths of those parables meaning.
Experience sells things not knowledge. Ask any salesman, it’s not how many yes’ he gets that makes him rich, it’s how many no’s he’s prepared to get until he has a winning argument.
Jesus was profound and experienced and He was the Son of God. It’s His experience and the practical application of the Word of God that He knew that allowed Him to do such mighty works and signs and wonders. People like Benny Hinn preach a good sermon, and their sermon is confirmed with thousands of real documented healings.
I see a church full of knowledge, but way short on experience and the non Christians see that as hypocrisy. I see many people praying the self righteous prayer of the Pharisee, and few praying the prayer of the tearful tax collector. I see many good looking people in church, but few dirty sinners accepted.
When you write, write not from what you learned in some book in your own words, but rather what you learned from taking that truth for a six month test drive and share your own testimony.
TIP 3: Don’t be scared to share the truth even if it hurts.
Don’t be afraid to be honest with your feelings and your actions and your words. The last thing you want to do, if you want a full time traveling well recognized ministry to show Christians a better way is to go into the biggest church in town and whip people and destroy the coffee shop and bookstore that they have in the church. But Jesus did that in His first week of ministry.
When you had healed thousands and done all sorts of signs and wonders the last thing You should tell a Jew is that they have to drink your blood to be a follower of Yours knowing that drinking blood is a metaphor for your death, and blood as the Sacrificial Lamb, but your audience only knowing that you are preaching and telling them to break a holy commandment of God that says “No drinking blood!”
Jesus spoke a truth that no one could understand and it was too profound in its day, and lost all but His 12 Apostles. Then when He was caught He lost them all, save John that was at the foot of the cross.
In Psalm 15 it says that a good man is one that swears to the truth even at his own cost. That’s why I share my dark secrets with you, so out of my loss someone might be convicted, and another might find hope that they too can conquer bad sins.
I tried for three years to give up my sex addiction and I honestly was starting to think the Bible did not work. Now I am an evangelist saying even your worst addiction can be conquered with true repentance, and God’s supernatural grace.
All Glory to God for that blood of Jesus and the truth I found out about, what true repentance really is!
TIP 4: Don’t be afraid to write a long article or preach a long sermon.
One of the world’s best advertisers who made money out of writing convincing, “send in this coupon for your free trial” sort of advertising said this: “People will never be bored in print.”
What he was saying was if you had interesting information and the information had a benefit to the reader they will read fifty pages on the subject. There can never be an advertisement that is too long, you simply have to write to your budget and write convincing copy.
Just as I know if you really wanted to learn what I promised you in the headline you are still reading and learning something. The very best sermons I have heard have gone for more then two hours, and I have been tired when they started and fully awake when he finished and I did not want it to finish. The only reason we get bored In a sermon is when the preacher is not preaching an anointed Spirit led sermon that the audience needed to hear.
Don’t write two pages, for fear five pages won’t be read on here. Write 2500 words the maximum and then write a part two and part three if it takes that much to get your message heard. Prepare for a one hour sermon and ask the pastor how long he wants, and if he says forty five minutes tell him you might run over a little.
If he says half an hour, have the courage to tell him your sermon can’t be preached in such short a time.
TIP 5: Use your sources to back up what you are saying after you have said it or before.
I like to start with a Scripture and preach the Scripture, and explain the Scripture in my life and then lead the argument to my next Scripture. Then I like to start speaking about my next Scripture and explaining the message of my next Scripture, and then after I have explained it to introduce the Scripture I was talking about as evidence to my new line of argument. Then as soon as they see the evidence to what I was saying in front of them, I might go a little deeper into it and then lead onto the next thing I want to say.
I was taught to preach with no study, no notes, no man’s books but simply meditating Scriptures in the Bible, living Scriptures in the Bible, and then writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
If you have an expert, use him to quote from, like a university student does, and give the source credit. But sometimes you won’t know the name of the source or the book it was in like my favourite advertising man quote above, and so share the truth anyway and let the reader decide if you are spinning lines to them.
People want answers and they want common folk preaching to them, and it gives a reader or a person hearing a sermon great encouragement to hear you have never been to Bible college.
TIP 6: Don’t be afraid of being too tough on your audience.
Paul says to rebuke, and exhort and preach the Gospel with power. Sometimes the people need the Word of God to cut them. Jeremiah in Chapter 23 talks about the false prophets and how they speak nice and comforting, and wonderful prophecies and preach nice sermons. He says under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration that I God, did not send these lying prophets.
Then the Lord said, is not My Word like a hammer that smashed rocks to pieces, and isn’t My Word like a fire that burns?
My people, people need the chaff of false teaching and error in doctrines burnt off them, and the hard rebuking Word of God needs to be preached with power.
People need their stony hearts to be hit with a hammer, and their hearts have to be broken and the people crying for three years till they can get out of a sin that is taking them to hell. It’s tough preaching tough sermons but Jesus had no problem preaching the seven great woes to the Pharisees.
Speaking and preaching the truth is love, and you should be careful to use love when you do it. Sharing your own struggle with the sin you are preaching about softens the blow.
No Olympic trainer is soft on his athlete. No boxing coach lets his boxer sleep in and eat too much.
Yet pastors let their sheep sleep in sermons, and don’t teach them to read the Bible and pray each day. This is not being a good shepherd or coach.
Now you have the six tips. Write your first article and post it online here and drop me a line where to find it.
Americans Who Work for the Buddhist Cause
In the United States, an American went to work for the revival of Buddhism in a Buddhist country before Buddhism was introduced to America. This person was Colonel H.S. Olcott who went to Ceylon in 2423/1880, established the Theosophical Society, and worked for the revival of Buddhism, Buddhist culture and education in that country. His famous book “Buddhist Catechism” is a work of great clarity. In an attempt to outline the basic beliefs of the Buddhists to which the Theravada, Mahayana and all other schools could agree, Olcott wrote in 2434/1891 “Fourteen Basic Buddhist Beliefs” which was accepted by Buddhist leaders of several countries at a congress in Madras.1
In 2436/1893 Anagarika Dharmapala of Ceylon represented Buddhism at the World’s Parliament of Religions held in Chicago. It was at this time that Mr. C.T.S. Strauss declared himself a Buddhist by receiving the Threefold Refuge and the Five Precepts from Dharmapala. Strauss was probably the first American to become a Buddhist. It was also during this same period of time that the first Japanese Buddhist Mission was said to arrive in San Francisco and commence their activities in the United States. This can be regarded as the introduction of Buddhism to the United States.
In 2427/1884 Dr. Paul Carus published in Illinois his famous book, “The Gospel of the Buddha.” The book has gone through many printings and over one million copies of it have been sold since its first appearance. During this time, the Harvard Oriental Series was founded by Charles Rockwel Lanman and Henry Clarke Warren. Among the works included in this series were Warren’s Buddhism in Translations (2439/1896) and Eugene Watson Burlingame’s Buddhist Legends which is the English translation of the Dhammapada-Commentary (2464/1921). A Buddhist Bible by Dwight Goddard was also an American contribution to Buddhist studies. Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 2404/1861. He accepted the message of the Buddha while he was a Christian missionary in China. Later he founded a brotherhood called “The Followers of the Buddha,” which became an inspiration to other American Buddhists. In the field of Sanskrit Buddhist studies, an American contribution was made by Professor Edgerton who compiled for Yale University the “Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary” published in 1953. However, in comparison with the numerous works produced in Europe, American literary activities of this early period were nearly beneath notice.
Generally speaking, it was Europe that played the central part in carrying the message of the Buddha to the West in the early period. Academic studies and scholarly research became characteristic of the Buddhist activities during these first hundred years. Names of Orientalists and Indologists, historians and philologists, along with their scholarly works, filled up the pages of the early history of Buddhism in the West. Names and titles cited above are only pioneers and some distinguished examples. A great number of other scholars, both pupils and colleagues of these leading figures, had their shares in this Western tradition of Buddhist scholarship and academic study of Buddhism. Some popular texts and works of importance have had many printings or were published in many versions. Among popular texts, the best known is the Dhammapada, which has been translated into many languages and of which not less than twenty versions have been published. Among the discourses of the Buddha, the Kalamasutta, rightly called the first charter of free thought, seems to be the best known and the most oftenquoted, the only possible exception being the First Sermon. Among post-canonical works the Visuddhimagga and the Abhidhammatthasangaha are next only to the Milindapanha in popularity and in publication statistics.
The “Secret” Making A Splash
The book and the cd are making a great impact on people in network marketing, other people and the television talk shows.
But believe me it is nothing new, in fact very old and just re-written and re-written well and the video is great,it just goes to show you what you can do with imagination.
The secret was also told by Earl Nightingale in his book and cd “The Strangest Secret” Sales people in the 1950’s and 60’s lived by it.
But Earl Nightingale was truthful about his source, it was the oldest book in the world, the Bible.
Look into it and read the sermon on the mount, where it says: Oh by the way, it is in Mathew, chapter 7
Ask, and it shall be given you,seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you
For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he thatseeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened (it takes action or nothing happens)
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone.
Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent.
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets (thus the law of attraction)
And most important of all (the Secret) calls it energy, while the man who first gave us the law is named “Jesus” also stated believe and have FAITH, because without FAITH, forget it, you get nothing and he did not state anything about energy
Read it for yourself and interpret it, many people have, but never truly understood what they were reading including the author of this blog.
So save your money, pick up the bible, read it, analyze it and you will be better off. Oh I know I am not politically correct but hang, I don’t have to double talk, I am not running for politics.
Online Bible Research Aids
A lot of websites offer online Bible services. Online Bible research aids are among the most useful Bible-related services on the Internet.
Online Bible research aids are now more popular in our modern world today. With these aids, many people can easily access verses, quotes, scriptures, different translations and other religious information to broaden up one’s faith. Most online providers feature Bible studies and information such as:
Prayers
Doctrine
Gospels
Help tools
News
Links
Sermons tracts
History
Churches
Scholars
Spiritual warfare
Links
And photos
Below is the most comprehensive list of Bible study aids on the Internet:
Amazing Bible
Ancient Hebrew Research Center
Audio Bible Online
Bearing Precious Seed
Bible Basics
Bible And Church History Resources
Bible History Online
Bible Research-Internet Resources for Students of Scripture
Bible Studies
Bible Tools
Bible Web
BlueLetter Bible
Canadian Bible Society
Dead Sea Scrolls
E-Sword
Easton’s Bible Dictionary.
Free Bible stories
Goshen Online Study Library
Guide to Christian Literature Online
Linked Word Project (Bob Jones University
Mega Bible Site
Free Bible stories
How to Study the Bible Profitably (R.A. Torrey)
The EIKON Image Database for Biblical Studies
Even kids can enjoy the goodness of on-line religious sites like:
Bible-Based Coloring Pages for Kids
Bible Word Search Puzzles
Bible Cross Word Puzzles
Bible Jigsaw Puzzles
Other links include the following:
1. Christian Music such as:
Christian Radio Directory
94-FM the Fish Radio
Totally Acappella Radio
And WAY-FM Radio
2.For finding books:
Family Christian Stores
21st Century Christian Bookstore
Gospel Advocate Bookstores
And LifeWay Christian Stores
Popular Online Bibles are as follows:
100prophecies. – This site deals with prophecies in the Bible, along with questions and answers about Bible passages and glossaries of different events as well as Biblical people. Their goal is to show people that the Bible is truly the word of God. This is with the 100 prophecies accurately fulfilled.
About-Jesus – The life and teachings of Jesus Christ and Christianity is explained in this comprehensive site. About Jesus also provides interactive maps, Bible places, words and people.
Bible Gateway – This is where you can read online Bible verses. It is in different variations such as:
1. King James Version
2. New International Version
3. Young’s Literal Translation
4. And many other English translations. Bible blogs are also available, containing posting experiences and forums about religious topics. Thus, it provides advanced searches that allow readers to compare passages in scripture or references.
Blue Letter Bible – Provides Bible verses with the original Greek and Hebrew texts. Blue Letter Bible Institute presents a new course which is composed of thirty two lessons that can be operated on a stand alone PC. CDs can be requested online. It is even designed for home based study. They also feature 2,700 hymns, maps and image libraries, along with 10,000 topics of dictionaries and Theological FAQs.
Online Bible researches are now becoming popular. With these aids, many people can easily access verses, quotes, and scriptures, along with different translations and other religious information. This is in order to broaden up one’s faith. Online Bibles also come in different language versions, both modern and ancient in its content.
There are also helpful demos on videos about bible study tools and ways to create personal studies online. Newsletters have become a way to connect to the people and to be aware of some religious updates.
One can do amazing things such as annotating your Bible, saving Bible reading annotation and preferences used in keeping track of its progress. Study tools include reference materials, daily and weekly devotions to understand and apply God’s word in our daily life. Bible research aids are guided by religious groups and churches all over the world so as to witness the importance of the Bible.