Is your application reaching the entire city?
Peter Adam’s provides 8 ways we can be more pointed in our application of Scripture in our preaching ministry. These are good to think through as you prepare your sermon. If you are not a preacher, and most of you reading this blog are not, feel free to forward this along to your pastor. I believe these are helpful tips.
Here is what Adam’s says:
(1) Ask: What message does God want to give these people from this text?
(2) Focus upon four or five representative people in your congregation (one old, one young, one single, one married, one male, one female, etc.) and think through what difference you want this text to make to their lives.
(3) Work out the main ideas, preconceptions, movements, and theological strands in the congregation, and apply the text to each of them (the conservatives, the charismatics, the progressives, etc.).
(4) Meet once a week with various members of the congregation, talk with them about the text you plan to preach on next Sunday, and ask them what they make of it.
(5) Meet every Monday night with a small group to discuss the sermon you preached yesterday, and the text you will preach on next Sunday.
(6) Imagine you are counseling an individual. How would you apply this text to that person?
(7) Pray for your people more, and learn to love them more. Love is quick-eyed.
(8) Spend only half your preparation time one the meaning of the text, and then spend the rest of the time working on the application.
Resource
Quoted from Peter Adam Speaking God’s Words, 133.
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