Starting and leading a local church
To summarize what we understand from the Bible:
1) There are sheep in our fold.
Basically, this means that many (hopefully most or all) of our sheep in our fold are saved people, wanting to serve God and please Him in some degree. Our ministry is to serve the sheep working God’s will and desire for them. On the one hand, we should help them grow spiritually, and on the other hand, we should confront their sin, rebuke it, pray for them, and see them get victory over there sins.
Resume: This article explains the thinking and strategy of using a sermon outline when preaching sermons.
A sermon outline is simply a guide to where you will logically “go” (speak) during a discourse. The options here are limited. (1) You use some kind of guide (a sermon outline). (2) You speak without any guide, just entering with a general topic to which you do not hold alliegance to follow, but rather wander from topic to topic.
Some preachers actually think that the later is somehow “being guided by the Holy Spirit”, and that is the only valid way to preach. We have no evidence really as to public speakers using or not using these “topical guides”. Dr. Bob Jones Jr. used this later strategy, and his defense was, “A sermon outline is like a skeleton. When you see a person’s bones, something is very wrong.”
While this thinking is actually popular among a lot of preachers, and many preachers who use sermon outlines actually break from their outline regularly holding this thinking as “a moving of the Holy Spirit”, the thinking is really not that great. It is flawed, and has a lot of problems. First of all, Dr. Bob Jones Jr had a lot of preaching experience and exposure (his dad was an evangelist so he grew up in the element of preaching). People like that have from where to draw from. Experienced preachers who have more than 10 or 20 years of preaching “under their belt” can preach extemporaneously and can “pull it off”. Most others fail when trying, and even experienced preachers have their problems when preaching without thinking through what they are saying. Not that last comment. Preachers that have preached on salvation hundreds of times can stand up without notes and do fine. But that is not to say that they did not prepare, it is to say that after preparing and preaching so many times on the same topic, to comment on it from memory is very easy and can be done very successfully.
A sermon outline is simply a prepared list of thoughts and verses that the preacher uses to guide his presentation.
There are two key issues to clarify in using a sermon outline: (1) Does an outline hinder the Holy Spirit? (2) Is an outline necessary and serve an essential purpose?
In the Death of Biblical Missions, I describe what I (as a missionary) see as the death of biblical missions in America. I am very critical of stuff here, so be prepared.
Death of Biblical Missions
By David Cox (missionary pastor)
Firstly, let me address the reason why this topic is important. Missions is very simply the reproduction of the entirity of Christianity in new places where the gospel is not named, or having been named in the place, is currently dead. America has gone from being a missionary sending country to being a missionary needing country in my lifetime. How sad.
Getting People Really Saved. The one true objective that takes priority over all other objectives is the gospel. If our people are not saved, nothing else will matter as much.
Study the Bible before Other Books is an article about the priority and order of Bible Study, Sermon Preparation, etc. Always start with the Bible.
