Ten Suggestions for Preachers to Kick-off a Great New Year
This Sunday is the first Sunday of a new year and a new decade and no doubt many of you are thinking about things you can do to improve, to be better, to help this year be a good one for the church where you preach. Here are ten things you can do starting THIS Sunday that might make an impact on the year. Five of them concern ministry and five focus on preaching:
ONE – Be intentional in saying something about Jesus to someone different every day. If we are reserved or shy, the only way to overcome it, is to get into a habit. We should always be looking to make a good impression for Christ on all with whom we come in contact. The secret here is to remember that every person has an eternal soul and you never know which one(s) you will impact for eternity.
You may have to force yourself to speak to the person who brings you food. I have a very close friend who taught me some time back the best way to start a conversation with the person who is waiting on you. Tell them you are about to pray for your meal and ask them if there is anything you can pray about for them. It’s amazing how many people say yes and how much they appreciate it.
Then, you can engage them in conversation. Ask them how long they’ve worked there if they live in the area if they have a church home. Invite them to come to worship to hear you preach.
May I ask you to prayerfully consider making a real effort to speak to people everywhere about Jesus throughout this year. It may result in changing someone’s life, even their eternal destiny. I know it will change your life for the better.
TWO – Be kind to everyone. Speak or at least give a nod to everyone who walks by you no matter where you find yourself. Also, be kind to others on social media. Too many of our preachers use social media in ways that are unbecoming of a follower of Jesus. Kindness is a gift that we can give that cost virtually nothing to the giver but blesses the receiver in beautiful ways.
When we are kind, it allows those around us to see Jesus in ways that may lead them to want to follow Him. Kindness is one of the great attributes of our loving Father. Brothers, let’s work overtime to show kindness to everyone around us.
THREE – Express gratitude. When someone bestows on you an act of kindness (and they will), write a personal handwritten note or go to them personally and say, “Thank You.” We are not entitled to be blessed by the people around us. If we constantly express our gratitude to God, it will be easier for us to be thankful to others.
If you are not used to expressing gratitude begin now. If you work on it, then it can become a part of who you are as a Christian. Send a few handwritten thank you notes. Send thank-you texts. Say thank you to those who serve. Express gratitude publicly to people in the Church who do something good.
FOUR – Love your family. The first of the year is a great time to renew your commitment to your wife and children. Set a goal to spend some unique time with your wife every week. Get a babysitter and take her to dinner. Talk to her about life and let her know that you love her. Tell her if you were starting over that you would choose her. You don’t have to spend a lot of money. It’s about the time.
Spend time with your children. Do something with them that they enjoy doing. Let them know that they are a priority in your life. When you spend special time with your family, you not only will make your family stronger, you will also be teaching other men how they should love their family.
FIVE – Work hard. The Apostle Paul said, “Fulfill your ministry.” That means pack it full, fill it full, and remain busy about the work of the Lord. Often, preachers have a reputation of being lazy. We should do our part to change that perception, not because we are concerned about our reputation, but because we believe the work we are involved with is the most significant work in the world.
If we love the Lord and His work, we will never become lazy. May we have the heart of Jesus when He said, “I must be about the business of my Father.” We must work so that God will be glorified in our lives and in everything we do for Him.
Now, let’s turn our attention to some suggestions to jump-start our preaching for 2020. It is great news that preaching is a skill that can be improved on. We can improve on our content and our delivery, but it takes focus and effort.
SIX – Pray that God will give you the strength to be sure the message is focused on Him and those who hear your words from His Word. For all the naysayers, preaching is a part of God’s plan, so He has an interest in you being the best you can be. So, do not lean only on your own strength but ask Him to help you. It is relatively simple for our sermons to become focused unintentionally on church problems, moral issues, man-to-man relational matters, or answering difficult questions, those matters have their importance but if we do not lift people up to see Jesus, if we do not help them focus on the magnitude, glory, power, sovereignty, and eternality of God, we might preach sermons that are well-received but we will not help people develop and love for, a proper fear of, and understanding of the power and position of God and therefore their eternal relationship with Him which eclipses all others. Make sure God is magnified in every lesson.
SEVEN – Go over your lesson again and remove superfluous items that do not help in the purpose of this message. The longer you preach the more you will find yourself chasing rabbits. And sometimes we might try to be deep but are really only adding content that does not fit the purpose of the message. Every sermon ought to have a reason to be preached other than just because you have to have a sermon. If not, we will preach nothing more than passionless and purposeless homilies. Try to develop a laser-like intensity that boldly declares: “THIS IS THE PURPOSE AND REASON FOR THIS LESSON!” I will get this point across. Remove that which does not work to that end.
EIGHT – Make sure the message hits both the mind and the heart. It was 25 years ago. I have preached what I believed to be an exceptionally well-crafted sermon. I went to visit someone who I knew cared about me and often encouraged me. And, I, waited….and, waited. She said nothing about my “masterpiece.” So, yes, I did ask. And her response rings in my ear to this day. “It was a really good sermon, it just didn’t have any heart to it.” That was painful. And, true. In all of our digging and study and attention to getting each detail accurate, the heart can be lost. All of those (detail, attention, study, accuracy) cannot be neglected, nor, if you desire to be effective, touching the heart. From Pentecost to today any truly impactful sermon neglects neither of these. Go back, review, make sure the heart can be pricked by this message.
NINE – Make sure your message is not just generated to one generation. I hope you are ahead of me on this, but if you preach for 40 years (and I hope you do) and a generation is 20 years, then your ministry could overlap 11 generations! Imagine that. If your first Sunday there is a 90-year-old and your last Sunday 40 years later has an infant who then lives to be 90 (should the Lord tarry), then your ministry will engage 180 years of lives. How sad it would be if you just communicated with the young people, or the older people, or the people your age. The Message is designed to be effective for every person of and in every age. Spend a little time making sure you are not being myopic or neglecting whole age groups.
TEN – Put some time into the invitation: Do not just make it rout. There’s so very much to give your attention to. I think for most of us we have learned so well how to tag an invitation on to the end without giving it any thought or attention that it is not surprising that a generation has arisen who does not value the significance of the invitation. And, if you don’t really think about it, do YOU value it? If your invitation is so predictable that anyone who has heard you for over a year can give it verbatim it is probably ineffective. If it is just tacked on at the end of your sermon like Eeyore’s tail, then it probably isn’t even being heard. Think, how can I bring this sermon home and attach it meaningfully to the Lord’s invitation? Could I move the invitation to somewhere else in the lesson to make it more of an impact? Would this be a lesson where I might preach and someone else deliver the invitation so that it is not forced?
A BONUS FOR THIS SUNDAY: Try to clear your mind as much as possible on Saturday night and Sunday morning to focus completely on the preaching task which will bring more passion to your preaching.
We love you all and our prayer is that 2020 proves to be your best year of preaching and ministry ever! We hope you have a wonderful, joy-filled, year of ministry! Let us know how we can help.