Let’s say you are preaching a sermon series on the subject of basic spiritual disciplines. This week your sermon outline is about the value of meditating on Scripture. The desired response you have in mind is to get people to invest quality time in this activity.
The time-honored concept of having daily devotions seems like too aggressive a challenge in regard to your understanding of where most of your people are, spiritually speaking. So what you have in mind is to see if you can get at least half of the congregation to commit to spending just one half-hour sometime during the coming week to read and reflect on Scripture. Hopefully this will prove to be a positive experience that results in similar future encounters with God’s Word.
Do you think your people will know how to pull off what you have in mind on their own? NOT A CHANCE!!
Common problems they will experience include the following:
- Where to find a quiet place
- What part of the Bible to read
- What’s involved with reflection
- How to deal with distractions and interruptions
- Getting over seeing this as an obligation rather than something truly beneficial
These and others are the practical “how to” problems you will need to work with in your topical sermons if you want it to be more than just “another nice little talk.”
