Volume 9 Number 1

1. I sat under a great sermon last week. It has motivated me again to work hard at preaching. When you are reminded of how powerful and encouraging and rebuking listening to preaching is, it motivates you again to work hard at preaching.

2. So I hae gone back to one of my favourite books on preaching: expositional preaching by Haddon Robinson. Should I call my next child Haddon (regardless of gender)?

3. Haddon reminded again of the big thing: the Scriptures must govern my sermon. My sermons shouldn't just be biblical or jumping off a Bible.

4. Haddon urged me to try to find the big idea with crispness and clarity. A big idea is a subject (What I'm talking about) and the complement(s) (What I'm saying about what I'm talking about).

5. On top of that I should know what functional question I'm answering: is it a truth question? A relevance question? A practicality question?