Blogging will enable preachers to weed out bad sermon ideas before they hit the congregation on Sunday. As a speaking consultant I always told my audience that there are three types of speeches or sermons. The first is the speech that we plan, the second is the speech that we actually give, and the third is the speech that we wish we would have given. I know that there has been many Sundays that I have gone back to my seat and felt in the bottom of my heart that I wished I would have given any sermon other than the one that I preached.
Blogging won’t totally eliminate bad sermons from our experience, but it can help eliminate a number of bad ideas before they become sermons. If we are having a good discussion before Sunday, then a preacher will know that this is an engaging topic. If the congregation does not respond, then the preacher can consider that this might be a topic of little interest.
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Blogs and blogging will enable the preacher to have built-in accountability. Sermon preparation can be difficult and haunting. Because sermon preparation is difficult, many preachers delay the creating and crafting of their sermon until the last moment possible. If preachers can get into the habit of blogging about their sermon weeks or months before the date of the actual sermon, better preparation can be given and therefore better sermons can be preached. I know as a preacher I need better accountability than just knowing that there is a forthcoming Sunday morning worship service in which I have to speak.
Blogging will enable members of the church to look into the heart and soul of their preacher. Blogs are really stories. Stories have power; I think that is why the Bible is so full of them. Each preacher has a story to tell. His story is constructed of values, beliefs, and the vision that God has given him for his life and for the members of the church he leads. Blogging is a window into that story. A preacher can elaborate why he is picking the current sermon series, and or how the passage is impacting him personally. He can share as Paul Harvey states, “the rest of the story.”
Too often, sermons live in a vacuum. They are put together in private. They are preached in a short period and then pushed away to be hardly thought about again. This is an area where ministry should and can improve! Much of a preacher’s time is spent in development of a sermon. Sermons should change people, and if nothing else should change the preparer and presenter of it. The implementation of blogs can allow us to see the side of a sermon that is often hidden or hardly noticed unless a person knows the preacher personally.