My dad doesn’t talk much. I talk a lot. So my problem in life has never been coming up with something to say or make. My problem has been knowing what not to say, a slow learning that less is more.

If an artist hung all of his art on the wall it might look something like this:

;laklakdnvaoefaprgi-0GA/BNAEFKBHA0E9R-0TI Q;OIGH QRPIQ[e fepfgj oeigjaepfog afpog aeofigha oergh aeo naefvm alfbkalkfg a;eofgjaoghjal;efgn alkjfbhae f jRTIQ309YUQ3LASKFN=T03 LKFJBS ;OFIJH;A;lkjlkfjbljlklkrPROGJao;djg;alkdfgj;DG['epit3oruty98q3r7et02e95q'a;dlfkgjfioqehyosrhjq[3ep0o9][PEKGA;EFLKHGJIOQRUYQ3PRIOYQ/A;LKJFp[OWDgiae'prkghjqa0rhu'a[dgj;aoighua'[r0iyaq;rigjp0ghaoeifjhpqROG=wdgoaelfkbjaoefghiargjaefgaefgafrmlkfguoriuy8934uyq=3-a;dflgjaldiguopriyq3proyjoqirugapefogkjkothu0qoruyiqpaorjalkfghbeautifuljoithuaq’progjfgjafhjqpry8p3aorjtlefkgjalkfbjafhguiy8y7tl4k2w2qpwefjaebgmaelfnalnolifjlaefknalefnalefbnakfjhproigpar9uaprogjalefhnolhjpathiapqoruapgmaflbhmoprihpo4ruypaw4royyupr3yu034y409ys;lfekhjoihulkfjhsofihusop9uhoqureyqoiumx3ef,o2gngt5bhm2po4iqrguacmpwecm,as[ofihlakfjalefkjglaefkbma/lckmvba/lkfbmnalfbm c,.vm a/.alekfjga;lfkvma/.c,vm /.c,m va/.,bm/.bmalefkmbalbm93ua;v0;OI-JP/;LJOLHLKJGpdjhg iUEFYG A  ALFBALBJA FLLlz;l;fkhnafohuga;opefij/e;zdhj,ioprsthuaerfbmpsrgoiunbwsmljb,cworamjA”E>,xopwucgmpaqior,ghqpotih.qc

Who wants to look at that?

But if an artist carefully selected the appropriate amount of his work to hang on his wall for his audience, it might look something like this:

beautiful

The same principle applies for conversation, movie making, cooking, preaching, decorating, writing, fashion, design, architecture, etc…

It takes a lot of lkjaoiaorkgan;glkajfghoairua;orga;lkdja;lghaoiu in order to get to beautiful. Your audience doesn’t need to see all your oiruy;oiglng;ouh;ljakgo;eiralng;aog;aoiu;aoriua;lkngaelkghu. Leave that on the cutting room floor. Just show them the beautiful.

This past Sunday I preached my farewell sermon at Central Peninsula Church. This was a special day for me, an unforgettable Sunday of saying goodbye to a church I love. Many men would kill for the opportunity I was given at CPC: arriving here as a 27 year-old punk and being handed incredible freedom to preach, lead, pastor, and develop.

In many ways this message sums up my four years of ministry at CPC and my heart for the church. It also briefly summarizes the history of God’s call on my life and what’s coming next.

Give it a listen: A Tale of Two Cities, Genesis 11:1-9.

I will always have a deep connection with CPC and I’m forever indebted to how this church has loved and marked me and my family.

Photo: Prokopets Studio

Train your men to preach.

2 Timothy 2:1-2 “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus,  and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

In the ministry I lead to Bay Area twentysomethings I’ve trained up 6 other men to preach God’s Word to us. Here’s a brief introduction to these 6 men.

-Francis: Church ministry intern, student, and c0-flower shop owner. Mid twenties. Married. Christian for 4+ years. Chinese. Raised in the Bay Area. Preaches 4-5x per year.

-Ryan: Architect. Mid twenties. Married. Christian since childhood. White boy. Raised in the Bay Area. Preaches 2x per year.

-Daniel: Engineer. Mid twenties. Married. Christian since childhood. Chinese. Raised in Sacramento. Preaches 1x per year.

-James: Coast Guard pilot. Mid twenties. Married. Christian since adolescence. White boy. Raised in Minnesota. Preaches 1x per year.

-Victor: Contractor. Mid twenties. Married. Wife pregnant with their first kid. Christian for 3+ years. Palestinian & Japanese.  Raised in the Bay Area. Preaches 1x per year.

-Mike: Personal Trainer. Mid twenties. Married. Christian since adolescence. White boy. Raised in San Diego. Preaches for his first time tomorrow night.

It’s been a joy to train up these 6 men to preach the Bible to us (some needed/need more training than others). God has used them in a mighty way among us. Some of these men will be carrying some of the load as I now leave my role at Central Peninsula Church. I’m so thankful these faithful men are in place, entrusted with the gospel and able to teach.

How can “ordinary” pastors compete with the vast range of well-known and greatly gifted preachers who are just one mouse-click away from everyone in their congregation? I know this is a sore point for many discouraged pastors. They visit their flock and all they hear are comments about the latest Internet sermon by Pastor Faimus and Dr Bigname. The only sermons that people seem to get excited about are ones preached hundreds of miles away!

However, I want to remind pastors of a huge advantage they have over the “popular” preachers of our own day. That advantage is, simply, personal relationship.

…Maybe, instead of spending a further ten hours on perfecting your blockbuster sermon, you should spend ten hours visiting your flock. That could give your sermons new power in your hearer’s lives. And remember, though we are blessed to live in a time with wonderful conferences and 24/7 Internet sermons, God primarily saves and sanctifies sinners through long-term pastoral relationships in the local church.

Yesterday I preached a sermon that I titled Floody Bloody Grace from Genesis. Click the link to download.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Here’s my sermon from Sunday: Put It All on The Altar, from Genesis 4:1-10. I had a blast preaching this message.

I preached my first sermon at age 16 in Mexicali, Mexico. I preached from the book of Job, a message about trusting God in the midst of suffering. I had no idea what I was doing. The people still smiled.

Fifteen years later, I have a better idea of what I’m doing, I love to preach, and I see that I have a lifetime of learning ahead of me regarding the preaching task and the preaching life.

Over the years, as I’ve learned from many different experiences and many different sources, I’ve put a few thoughts on paper about how to prepare a sermon. Recently I refined these thoughts into this little booklet, a 15 hour, 4-Part Sermon Prep Process.

This process is what works well for me. I’ve found that I work best approaching sermon prep in 4 “Parts” which I refer to as Till, Seed, Germinate, Reap (the gardening metaphor helps me approach sermon prep as a creation process where God is the primary Creator/Preacher).  I’ve also found that, for me, 15 hours is a sufficient and sustainable amount of time for weekly message prep.

This booklet represent the norm for me in sermon prep, but I often deviate from it depending on the text, the audience, and the circumstances of life. For example:

• The message I’m preaching tonight from Genesis 18 is coming together rather quickly. It has followed more of a 2-Part process and will probably come in at about 6 hours of message prep.
• Several Sundays ago my sermon took more like 20 hours of prep and I didn’t follow the 2 week prep process I encourage in this booklet.
• A few weeks ago I preached a message from one 3×5 card of notes even though I normally preach from a much more lengthy outline/manuscript hybrid.

As Ian Pitt-Watson said, sermon prep is like giving birth: the length and pain of labor varies with each message.

A number of preacher friends have found this booklet helpful in refining their own approach to preaching, so I post this here in hopes that some of you will also benefit.

Don’t do what I do. Do what you do. But maybe what I do can help you better do what you do as a fellow preacher of the gospel.

Download this booklet as a pdf: Sermon Prep

If you have InDesign, you’ll be able to make the pdf print out as a nice looking booklet.

What do you teach these students about the spiritual side of preaching?

First, the public nature of preaching exposes you to a wide spectrum of feedback—from the really good compliments to really venomous criticism. Both can be dangerous because they lead to either pride or pain. We need to work at becoming the kind of person who is so deeply grounded in who we are, the work we are called to do, and the words we are called to speak, that the ambient hype that surrounds the preaching event doesn’t get the best of us.

It’s important to create a circle of trusting, loving people around you who will tell you the truth no matter what. They can help you think rightly about the criticism and keep you balanced. Preaching isn’t just about the sermon, it’s about becoming the kind of person who can actually handle the role. It’s like a Ferrari. If you don’t know how to drive the thing, you’re going to crash into a tree.

Based on your metaphor, I imagine you’ve hit some bumps on the road.

Oh, for sure. Preaching will inevitably reveal all sorts of stuff residing in your soul. The stage is like a magnet, and any little shards of insecurity, pride, fear, or greed in you will eventually be pulled to the surface. So you have to go down a journey toward becoming a particular kind of person or it will consume you.

What does that journey involve?

If you’re going to preach long term and do it with more hope, more joy, more passion, and more wisdom, then you’ve got to be willing to dig down into your own soul and psyche and history. How do you seek approval? What messages did your parents send you? What voices do you hear on your shoulders?

The other part is sustainability. That’s an important word for me. Some pastors think about how to survive the next five years. The better question to ask is, how are we going to thrive? How do we construct a rhythm and pace of life that ensures five years from now we’ll have more passion, more energy, and we will be filled with new and fresh ideas about life in God’s world?

On Saturday I travel to the Philippines for a week, along with fellow pastors/close friends Mark Mitchell and Rob Hall. There we will put on a preaching conference for 100+ Filipino pastors. My component of the conference includes lecturing on Gospel-Centered Preaching and Preaching the Parables. On the way there we will spend a day in Guam visiting with friends at Pacific Islands University and Seminary.

This is going to be a great trip. I can’t wait. I love serving at a church that cares about preaching, training pastors to preach, foreign missions, and sending its pastors on adventures such as this. I love that our church here in the Bay Area is full of Filipinos who love the gospel and want to see it advance in their home country.

I’d like to ask all of you to pray for this trip.

• Pray that God would use our teaching to equip and inspire the pastors we will be training, most of whom have never received any preaching instruction before.
• Pray that God would teach us much through the friendships we form with the Filipino pastors and our stay in their culture.
• Pray for the Philippines, that the gospel would advance and local churches would thrive in this country of 7,107 islands and 92 million people (the world’s 12 most populous country).
• Pray for our wives and kids while we’re away.
• Pray for our safety, sleep, and stomachs.
• Pray that we’d have a lot of fun.

Thank you for your prayer.

I’ve decided to fully unplug during this trip: no computer, phone, email, etc. So, unless I pre-write some posts to appear while I’m away, I will not be blogging next week.

Here is my sermon from yesterday, The Serpent Crusher, Genesis 3:7-24.

An individual without time to read broadly and intensely, without time to reflect on life, without time to compose (even if merely in a personal journal), is not likely to be an individual who can preach.

T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Preach

When the Rev. Briscoe rose to preach, his warmth melted every barrier of position and distance between him and the congregation. It was “Pa” Briscoe speaking fervent, unforgettable words of encouragement from God.”

When we preach and when we open up the Bible together in one-on-one meetings, let’s speak “fervent, unforgettable words of encouragement from God.”

…preaching today is ordinarily poor…I have come to recognize that many, many individuals today have never been under a steady diet of competent preaching. As a consequence, they are satisfied with what they hear because they have nothing better with which to compare it.

T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Preach