Preach the Word!!

Let me say up front this is MY blog and it's personal. It is set up on the back of a couple of days challenge to "preach the Word" and "write what you see". I have bemoaned the lack of good preaching in the United Kingdom and have been challenged as to "what are YOU doing about it?". I am no preacher - and have never had an audience or a congregation but should that stop me from writing what I see in God's Word and preaching it to a quiet empty room?

So this is no move to promote myself or my ministry. It is a simple spiritual discipline that I hope will get me deeper into God's Word and will begin to build a collection of sermons that may never be read or even heard. But at least I've written down what I've seen.

I am basing this project on the wonderful example that my senior pastor Dr Stanley Jebb taught me in Dunstable at my home church. He faithfully preached Sunday after Sunday, week after week, month after month, year after year - twice a Sunday! So many preachers bemoan how hard they find life - and yet preach once a Sunday! Dr Jebb would preach mid-week at meetings too. Like other historical heroes - John Calvin, C H Spurgeon. These men who preach and prepare sermon after sermon incredibly and their knowledge and love for the Word was just second to none!

So I am going to attempt to write (and preach to myself) two sermons a week.

1. Series 1: Sermons on "God's Empowering Presence" - inspired by Gordon Fee's massive book taking Scripture after Scripture on the wonderful Person of the Holy Spirit.

2. Series 2: Sermon on a more expository verse by verse walk through a book of the Bible (either Ephesians or Galatians - I haven't decided yet which!).

I am just finishing re-reading Greg Haslam's mighty; "Preach the Word!" volume because up til now I have been a receiver of the preached Word. The "Preach the Word!" conference that I went to with Pete Day was an awesome reminder of how much rests on the head of preachers.

Here's to yet another adventure. It may be a complete flop and I'll delete the blog before long! But how fab if it could be even responsible for the salvation of just one soul? How fab if it could "set a prisoner free or bind up the broken-hearted"? It is after all God's eternal Word - and all it needs is to be set free!