Your homiletics preferences and peeves?

ALAYMAN

ALAYMAN

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We’ve discussed preaching methods at length on the FFF over the years. Some people like the yelling stuff, others prefer the methodological plodding exegesis of Piper types. Some prefer the camp meeting’ histrionics and love the Tennessee Windsuckers or comedic value of Tony Hutson and bombast of Larry Brown. Some like personal anecdotes while others only want illustrations that are derived from Scriptural narratives. So
two (or 3) questions….

1) What are your musts AND preferences in the crafting and presentation of a sermon?

2) How do you feel about the idea of reading other sermons, commentaries, devotional, etc during a sermon?
 
ALAYMAN said:
We’ve discussed preaching methods at length on the FFF over the years. Some people like the yelling stuff, others prefer the methodological plodding exegesis of Piper types. Some prefer the camp meeting’ histrionics and love the Tennessee Windsuckers or comedic value of Tony Hutson and bombast of Larry Brown. Some like personal anecdotes while others only want illustrations that are derived from Scriptural narratives. So
two (or 3) questions….

1) What are your musts AND preferences in the crafting and presentation of a sermon?

2) How do you feel about the idea of reading other sermons, commentaries, devotional, etc during a sermon?
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1. In general, exposition yes, topical no. I prefer a revelatory teaching style over a loud preaching style. Passion incorporated in the former is welcome but often seems manufactured in the latter.

2. Any and all are welcome if they help to properly explain and apply the principles of the subject matter. All preaching is derivative IMO so I would rather have the original source credited when possible.
 
ALAYMAN said:
We’ve discussed preaching methods at length on the FFF over the years. Some people like the yelling stuff, others prefer the methodological plodding exegesis of Piper types. Some prefer the camp meeting’ histrionics and love the Tennessee Windsuckers or comedic value of Tony Hutson and bombast of Larry Brown. Some like personal anecdotes while others only want illustrations that are derived from Scriptural narratives. So
two (or 3) questions….

1) What are your musts AND preferences in the crafting and presentation of a sermon?

2) How do you feel about the idea of reading other sermons, commentaries, devotional, etc during a sermon?
Click to expand...
1. It must come from someone who is serious and has had the word change them first.
2. I have no problem with it in small doses. But the bulk should be your own discoveries and exegesis.
 
ALAYMAN said:
1) What are your musts AND preferences in the crafting and presentation of a sermon?
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None, apart from it being text-centric. My church has been gifted with some very good expository preachers while I've been here, as well as some prominent guest speakers known for their expertise in homiletics (e.g. Haddon Robinson, D. A. Carson). Their styles and delivery clearly vary, but they always stuck to the text under examination.

2) How do you feel about the idea of reading other sermons, commentaries, devotional, etc during a sermon?
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Do it sparingly. It's a sermon, not a term paper. But if it supports a difficult point, go right ahead.
 
Ransom said:
None, apart from it being text-centric. My church has been gifted with some very good expository preachers while I've been here, as well as some prominent guest speakers known for their expertise in homiletics (e.g. Haddon Robinson, D. A. Carson). Their styles and delivery clearly vary, but they always stuck to the text under examination.
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Nice guest speaker lineup.
Ransom said:
Do it sparingly. It's a sermon, not a term paper. But if it supports a difficult point, go right ahead.
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I think I follow, but could you flesh out a little of what you mean by “supports a difficult point“?
 
ALAYMAN said:
I think I follow, but could you flesh out a little of what you mean by “supports a difficult point“?
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What I was thinking of was a minority opinion or something else that might be difficult for hearers to accept readily. In which case, citing a credible authority on the text would support the preacher's argument--he's done his homework and isn't just pulling a novel interpretation out of thin air.
 
Everyone has their own particular teaching and preaching style. Trying to mimmick another preacher is nonsensical (looking at all you HAC grads here).

I often think of Doug Fisher (my old pastor - Lighthouse Baptist, San Diego) and his method of delivery. What strikes me is the uniqueness of his preaching style - he is definitely one of a kind! I cannot think of a single time in which I had nodded off during one of his sermons. Not even after having stood a "mid-watch" (Navy) the night before! The main reason being was the way in which he engaged his audience as if he was communicating directly "with them" rather than just delivering a sermon "to them." Consider this for a moment or two! Far too often you have pastors yelling and screaming but not really "connecting" with their audience! I lose count of how often I nodded off during such sermons and got my wife's elbow in my ribs!:oops:

This is something that I have been trying to incorporate in my own teaching and preaching style. What this entails is the involvement of those you are speaking to, asking thought-provoking questions, soliciting feedback, etc. There are times when I do get "excited" or "animated" but only when it seems natural to do so.

As for my preferences while sitting in a pew, listening to a podcast, or whatever, I prefer expository preaching that is scripturally and theologically rich where it is obvious that the preacher is adequately prepared and makes application to text for which he is preaching. These days, I have a very low threshold of tolerance for foolishness behind the pulpit.

I have no problem with a preacher citing other sources so long as it is relevant to the topic and he gives credit to the source. Polly-parroting someone else's material is pure laziness and is deserving of our contempt.
 
Baptist Renegade said:
Everyone has their own particular teaching and preaching style. Trying to mimmick another preacher is nonsensical (looking at all you HAC grads here).

I often think of Doug Fisher (my old pastor - Lighthouse Baptist, San Diego) and his method of delivery. What strikes me is the uniqueness of his preaching style - he is definitely one of a kind! I cannot think of a single time in which I had nodded off during one of his sermons. Not even after having stood a "mid-watch" (Navy) the night before! The main reason being was the way in which he engaged his audience as if he was communicating directly "with them" rather than just delivering a sermon "to them." Consider this for a moment or two! Far too often you have pastors yelling and screaming but not really "connecting" with their audience! I lose count of how often I nodded off during such sermons and got my wife's elbow in my ribs!:oops:

This is something that I have been trying to incorporate in my own teaching and preaching style. What this entails is the involvement of those you are speaking to, asking thought-provoking questions, soliciting feedback, etc. There are times when I do get "excited" or "animated" but only when it seems natural to do so.

As for my preferences while sitting in a pew, listening to a podcast, or whatever, I prefer expository preaching that is scripturally and theologically rich where it is obvious that the preacher is adequately prepared and makes application to text for which he is preaching. These days, I have a very low threshold of tolerance for foolishness behind the pulpit.

I have no problem with a preacher citing other sources so long as it is relevant to the topic and he gives credit to the source. Polly-parroting someone else's material is pure laziness and is deserving of our contempt.
Click to expand...
In 1977 or 78 a young Lt. Doug Fischer was saved at Calvary Baptist Church in Beaufort, SC. Me and a friend of mine were visiting door to door and were ready to wrap it up one night but my friend said he had one more tract left and insisted on stopping at one more house before going home. The house was that of Doug Fischer. He visited our church and was converted. The pastor of the church was Karl Baker who was an extreme Ruckmanite and had a great influence on me for many years after leaving the Marine Corps. I never followed Doug Fischer but understand he had a tremendous ministry at Lighthouse Baptist Church. From what I know of reading about him he remained KJV only but was much more balanced than Karl Baker.

I’ll give a few examples of what the church was like at Calvary Baptist Church at that time. There was a strong belief that women shouldn’t wear boots because that was reserved for men. A friend of mine who lived on base at Parris Island visited the church and while waiting for the service to begin noticed that he was the only man in the church that had shoes on so he leaned over to me and whispered, “I have boots on in the spirit.” The women wore no makeup. Wedding rings, birthdays, Christmas, Easter etc. were taboo. One Saturday down on Bay Street where we preached on the streets one of the men who was preaching on the back of a pickup truck around Christmas saw a man dressed up as Santa Claus. He pointed his finger at him and shouted, “Santa Claus is of the Devil!” to which Santa Claus shouted back, “I’ll kill you!” To which my friend replied, "God won’t let you!” That got enough attention that the man who was dressed up as Santa Claus and had a local radio broadcast invited Karl Baker on his show to explain why he was opposed to Christmas.

Another example that takes more of a dark turn is Karl Baker’s extreme views on race. I grew up in the South and most of my relatives were strongly opposed to integration so that wasn’t such an extreme view for me to believe that segregation was not the same as being in the KKK or things like that. But Karl Baker took it up to another level. One sermon entitled, Men With long hair, women wearing pants and the Civil Rights Movement” stands out because there was an older Black man visiting that morning and during the sermon Karl Baker stated with authority, “Some people are going to hell because they can’t stand to be called ni###rs; racial pride.”

I think Doug Fischer would be a good example of someone who didn’t blindly follow a spiritual leader the way so many Christians do.
 
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ALAYMAN said:
Some prefer the camp meeting’ histrionics and love the Tennessee Windsuckers or comedic value of Tony Hutson and bombast of Larry Brown.
Click to expand...
For those not familiar with the bombast of Larry Brown (the one from Marion Avenue Baptist Church, Washington, Iowa) check out this video. This is not my favorite style of preaching, but I guess Jack Schaap liked it - I saw him in the audience, near the end of the video.

larry brown evangelist smashing televisions youtube - Search Videos

Watch videos instantly on Bing—enjoy direct playback, discover related clips, and dive into trending content all in one place.
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biscuit1953 said:
In 1977 or 78 a young Lt. Doug Fischer was saved at Calvary Baptist Church in Beaufort, SC. Me and a friend of mine were visiting door to door and were ready to wrap it up one night but my friend said he had one more tract left and insisted on stopping at one more house before going home. The house was that of Doug Fischer. He visited our church and was converted. The pastor of the church was Karl Baker who was an extreme Ruckmanite and had a great influence on me for many years after leaving the Marine Corps. I never followed Doug Fischer but understand he had a tremendous ministry at Lighthouse Baptist Church. From what I know of reading about him he remained KJV only but was much more balanced than Karl Baker.

I’ll give a few examples of what the church was like at Calvary Baptist Church at that time. There was a strong belief that women shouldn’t wear boots because that was reserved for men. A friend of mine who lived on base at Parris Island visited the church and while waiting for the service to begin noticed that he was the only man in the church that had shoes on so he leaned over to me and whispered, “I have boots on in the spirit.” The women wore no makeup. Wedding rings, birthdays, Christmas, Easter etc. were taboo. One Saturday down on Bay Street where we preached on the streets one of the men who was preaching on the back of a pickup truck around Christmas saw a man dressed up as Santa Claus. He pointed his finger at him and shouted, “Santa Claus is of the Devil!” to which Santa Claus shouted back, “I’ll kill you!” To which my friend replied, "God won’t let you!” That got enough attention that the man who was dressed up as Santa Claus and had a local radio broadcast invited Karl Baker on his show to explain why he was opposed to Christmas.

Another example that takes more of a dark turn is Karl Baker’s extreme views on race. I grew up in the South and most of my relatives were strongly opposed to integration so that wasn’t such an extreme view for me to believe that segregation was not the same as being in the KKK or things like that. But Karl Baker took it up to another level. One sermon entitled, Men With long hair, women wearing pants and the Civil Rights Movement” stands out because there was an older Black man visiting that morning and during the sermon Karl Baker stated with authority, “Some people are going to hell because they can’t stand to be called ni###rs; racial pride.”

I think Doug Fischer would be a good example of someone who didn’t blindly follow a spiritual leader the way so many Christians do.
Click to expand...
Wow, what a small world! You played a part in his conversion?

Everything you are saying about that church is pretty much every objection my Roman Catholic parents have had towards Independent Baptist Churches! As far as they were concerned, I may as well have joined the Nazis or KKK! I enjoyed my time at the Lighthouse having nothing but fond memories but much of what I had learned was quite wrong and took many years to unlearn and relearn! My father passed not only rejecting the gospel but also rebuffing any and every time I actually had the audacity to speak to him about it! My mother and I have good conversations but she is still "more Catholic than the Pope" if you could imagine that!

Doug Fisher is obviously far more moderate than what he had come from and for this, I am thankful for his influence. We actually had a couple of interracial couples in the church of which a few visiting preachers from the south expressed open disapproval! Gotta admire a lot of the black folk I remember in the IFB as they put up with a good bit of guff and were still faithful! The prevailing IFB position on interracial marriage (not Fisher but others) kept me from marrying the Filipina lady that I am married to today (long story)! I often say that Doug Fisher is the reason I remained IFB as long as I had (20 years) and why it was such a struggle for me to walk away when I finally did. He was unquestionably KJV Only (still is to my knowledge) and I have articulated in the past some of the "good things" I had learned and retained from such a mindset and yes, I still teach and preach from the King James!
 
Baptist Renegade said:
Wow, what a small world! You played a part in his conversion?
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I doubt any of us know exactly what part we play in most conversions because we don’t know what seeds have been planted in the past. The man who now mostly influences me is Ray Comfort. I am a firm believer that Christians should faithfully use gospel tracts. Just one example I will give is this. I worked as a flagger after I retired from my regular job and while waiting for the crew from the electric company to arrive at the worksite, my partner showed up whose name was “Tee.” He had a gold “T” embedded on his front teeth and he was a Black man who grew up on the streets so while trying to direct the conversation toward spiritual things, I found out that his family background was Jehovah Witness and the only Bibles he had were the Jehovah Witness bible and the Quran. I handed him a gospel tract and we both separated and went back to our cars to wait for the linemen to show up. We had walkie-talkies we used to communicate while flagging and Tee turned on his radio to tell me that he had been thinking about what we had been talking about for some time. I told him that the next time I saw him I was going to give him a Bible that dealt with many questions people had about the scriptures. Unfortunately, I never got paired with him after that job but I kept a copy of The Evidence Bible in my car just in case that did happen. A couple of weeks later I had to bring some equipment to the flagging company I worked for and just happened to see Tee sitting in the company parking lot. I told Tee that I had that Bible I promised to give him and he was very excited to receive it. Not long after that the company folded and I have never seen him since but hopefully I planted a seed that will be brought to fruition before he goes out into eternity.
 
Meanwhile the church is live-streaming their service and recording it for sale on DVD. 🙄
 
biscuit1953 said:
I doubt any of us know exactly what part we play in most conversions because we don’t know what seeds have been planted in the past. The man who now mostly influences me is Ray Comfort. I am a firm believer that Christians should faithfully use gospel tracts. Just one example I will give is this. I worked as a flagger after I retired from my regular job and while waiting for the crew from the electric company to arrive at the worksite, my partner showed up whose name was “Tee.” He had a gold “T” embedded on his front teeth and he was a Black man who grew up on the streets so while trying to direct the conversation toward spiritual things, I found out that his family background was Jehovah Witness and the only Bibles he had were the Jehovah Witness bible and the Quran. I handed him a gospel tract and we both separated and went back to our cars to wait for the linemen to show up. We had walkie-talkies we used to communicate while flagging and Tee turned on his radio to tell me that he had been thinking about what we had been talking about for some time. I told him that the next time I saw him I was going to give him a Bible that dealt with many questions people had about the scriptures. Unfortunately, I never got paired with him after that job but I kept a copy of The Evidence Bible in my car just in case that did happen. A couple of weeks later I had to bring some equipment to the flagging company I worked for and just happened to see Tee sitting in the company parking lot. I told Tee that I had that Bible I promised to give him and he was very excited to receive it. Not long after that the company folded and I have never seen him since but hopefully I planted a seed that will be brought to fruition before he goes out into eternity.
Click to expand...
I remember brother Fisher talking of his salvation experience that people came knocking at his door and he wasn't too kind towards them. He spoke a good deal of his experience with the church in which he was saved and the short time he had in the corps. My understanding is that he was a graduate of the Bible Institute at this church. Ray Comfort is one of my greatest influences as well. I got his tape "Hell's Best Kept Secret" through a (then) brother-in-law who was doing some work for Kirk Cameron and I also got him to sign one of his "Left Behind" DVDs for me. I was still IFB at the time but that tape had a great impact on the way I try to communicate the gospel! I shared it with a Sunday School teacher (an HAC grad) at Lancaster Baptist and never saw it again.
 
Baptist Renegade said:
I remember brother Fisher talking of his salvation experience that people came knocking at his door and he wasn't too kind towards them. He spoke a good deal of his experience with the church in which he was saved and the short time he had in the corps. My understanding is that he was a graduate of the Bible Institute at this church. Ray Comfort is one of my greatest influences as well. I got his tape "Hell's Best Kept Secret" through a (then) brother-in-law who was doing some work for Kirk Cameron and I also got him to sign one of his "Left Behind" DVDs for me. I was still IFB at the time but that tape had a great impact on the way I try to communicate the gospel! I shared it with a Sunday School teacher (an HAC grad) at Lancaster Baptist and never saw it again.
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I can't remember if he graduated before he left for Calfornia or while he was still there. I dropped out of the institute before I left the Marine Corps.
 
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