Bible Sermons Online

Posts Tagged ‘Sermons Online’

Every once in a while there are weeks in which the inspiration for your regular sermon is…absent if you will. Perhaps you are not feeling well. Perhaps you have had a difficult week and personal issues are weighing on your mind. Perhaps you are simply tired and your brain is not feeling up to the task of creating something out of nothing. What do you do when this happens? How do you figure out what to say at the end of the week when everything that comes into your head seems…bad? Should you pull out an old sermon and re-tweak it? Should you invite a guest speaker? Or should you look for sermons online?

Many pastors and ministers find that getting sermons online can help them figure out things that they do and do not want to say to their own congregations. Reading someone else’s thoughts on a scripture passage can often help you sort out your own feelings about the same passage simply based on whether or not you agree with the first scripture reader’s assessment.

Some people look for information on how to write sermons online. To be sure there are plenty of online tools for sermon writing from outlines to step by step guides to, for the most desperate among you, fill in the blank sermons that can be reworked to fit your church congregation. Some will utilize forums and other online communities to ask for guidance in finding a weekly topic.

It is perfectly all right to look for inspiration for your sermons online. What world is more vast and prolific than the World Wide Web? With all of the information available online, it would be difficult not to gain inspiration from the Internet once in a while! Heck, even taking five minutes to check your Facebook page can provide you with ideas for next week’s talk!

Writing good sermons that are interesting and Biblically correct can often be a rather difficult task.  You may have many questions. What is your subject going to be about? What scripture text should you use? Can you be sure that everything will flow and be well connected? There are a few simple guidelines to follow that will help.

One of the very first things you should do is pray. Allow God to lead you to a passage of scripture that you can preach from.  A lot of times, this will lock you into a subject. For instance, if you plan to preach on the crucifixion, you will be less likely to stray and begin talking about something different like creation. Having specific bible verses in mind and on paper will make your church sermons flow more smoothly.

Another helpful tip is to practice your timeline. If your sermon is too short, your congregation may feel short-changed.  If it is too long, they may lose interest and patience. One way to keep your sermon on the right track is to make a list of bullet points in your sermon outlines that you want to cover in the sermon itself. Try to keep them to 4 or 5 points in total. If you limit each one to about 5 minutes talking time, you can keep your sermon around 20-25 minutes.  However, remember to allow God to be in control, no matter what time it is.

Lastly, try to start off Bible sermons with a related personal story. Try to make it a humorous one if you can. This is an easy way to grab the congregation’s attention. If you dive right into the theological stuff, you may lose a lot of your congregation before you even reach the second paragraph. Adding the human element will greatly help in keeping the people interested.

There are other things you can do to improve your sermons.  For now, remember these tips, find a specific passage of scripture, keep the sermon within a reasonable time-frame, start off with a personal story, and you will find that your sermon will be better received by the people.

So, you want to write a sermon. It can be quite a daunting task, especially if you’ve never written one before. Where do you start? What are you going to talk about? What passages of scripture do you use? How do you tie everything up in a neat little bow? Can you even do that? After all, a lot of scripture is open to interpretation. Well, if you’re wracking your brain trying to write that sermon, these 3 simple sermon preparation tips should help.

At the top of the list of things to do is to make sure that you have a passage of scripture that you want to preach off of. A lot of times, this will lock you into a subject. For example, if you’re preaching on the Last Supper, you’re not going to stray and start talking about the Sermon on the Mount. Having specific bible verses in mind will make the sermon itself go a lot smoother and even, in some cases, write itself.

Another thing you want to do is start the sermon off with a related personal story. Try to make it a humorous one if you can. The reason for this is because you don’t want the congregation falling asleep on you. If you dive right into the theological stuff right off the bat, you’re going to lose a lot of your congregation before you even reach the second paragraph. Adding the human element will greatly help in keeping the parishioners interested.

Finally, you want to keep your sermon brief. A wise minister used to say, if you can’t get your point across in less than 10 minutes, then it wasn’t worth getting across in the first place. One way to keep your sermon brief is to make a list of bullet points that you want to cover in the sermon itself. Try to keep them to 3 or 4 points in total. If you limit each one to about 3 minutes talking time, you should have no problem keeping your sermon to around 10 minutes.

There are other things you can do to improve your sermon, but we’ll cover those in future articles. In the meantime, if you follow the tips I’ve outlined above, getting a specific passage of scripture, starting off with a personal story, and keeping the sermon to about 10 minutes, you will find that your sermon will be well received by your congregation and they won’t end up falling asleep on you.

For some free Bible Sermon samples and a review of a wonderful service that provides access to tons of sermons as well as fantastically written new ones each month, check out http://www.onlinebiblesermons.com.