Musings on Spiritual Matters

Here is how to preach the parables badly.  Recently, I have been working on a series of the parables of Luke.  This is part of a join series with Collin Packer.  We are reading and studying the same material, but developing our own lessons for the congregations that we preach for.  This has been a great study so far.  Collin is bringing a lot to the table as his process of sermon development is a lot more in-depth than mine.  This is causing me to grow and mature.  It is a rewarding process.  So here is some advice on preaching the parables.

1. Explain all the details of the parable.  You have heard it done before, the preacher talks about what everything means.  He pulls apart the story fact by fact.  Therefore, it is no longer a story, but a list of details.

2. Be clear in everything you say.  Some preachers feel that they have to be clear in the sermon, and tell everyone what the parable means.  You have to interpret it for the congregation.  Shockingly, some parables are vague.

3. Use a three point outline always.  There are all different types of parables, and one is the reversal.  I wonder how a three pointer works for that style.  So just forget the form of the parable, and force it into a outline that you made up.

4. Do not leave space for people to change.  Parable are indirect communication, so just get rid of this, and tell everyone what to do.  Never confuse people, never make them think through the sermon themselves, just supply an answer.

Hope these suggestions help.  Preaching the parables is one of the cool aspects in preaching.  There is so much that can be accomplished for the kingdom through these stories.  But they need to be preached correctly for the power to happen.

Related posts:

1. Preaching a Parable
2. Refresh Preaching
3. A Process for Preaching
4. The Art of Preaching
5. Advice on Preaching–Focus of the Text

Tags:

This entry was posted by Matthew on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 10:40 am and is filed under Church News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.