“Pastors, preach the word boldly and shut the mouths of your listeners!” That was an actual comment from a pastor in response to one of my blog posts. My article encouraged pastors to enhance their preaching with effective communication techniques–such as those that Jesus used. These include listening to your people, and encouraging people’s questions […]
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Tag Archives: sermons
The Perfect Length for a Sermon
December 12, 2012 
21 Comments
A denominational executive recently chided pastors in his tribe for inflicting “spiritual starvation” on their flocks. The crime? Brief sermons. After skimming a sermon on a pastor’s blog, the denom leader wrote: “It could not have been more than eight minutes long, if that! This is, sadly, not some exception. It is in keeping with […]
Read more How to Waken Comatose Listeners
October 26, 2011 11 Comments
The 30-minute lecture (a.k.a. sermon) anesthetizes the audience every week. As I reported in my last post, most people remember very little of the typical sermon after a few days. Few show any life change as a result of the oratory. Yet preachers keep following the same old protocol week after week. A pastor friend […]
Read more Your Last Sermon: Memorable or Forgettable?
October 19, 2011 6 Comments
What was the point of the last sermon you heard? Over the years, I’ve interviewed church-goers on Wednesdays. I asked them what they remember from the previous weekend’s sermons. Their answers are pretty similar. I’ve seen little difference in their responses due to parishioner demographics, or church size. You can see what they said. Watch this brief […]
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Steve-Gaitha Athans: Thanks Thom for "renting the veil" of our "Me too"...
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lindaransonjacobs: You crack me up. Spot on with this post. Couldn't ...
