Saturday, April 14, 2018

Pictures From Home



Two pictures from home today: a teacup next to a flower, and the morning light trying to come in through the fog.


I hope to have a video soon and show some sewing.

 I hope you have a lovely worship on Sunday.

 Mr. S. preaches very short sermons, 20 minutes or a little more, and still has a meaty lesson with high impact. 

Someone recently told us the "trend" today in churches is for someone to speak for an hour and a half.  I listened to such a person not long ago and it still seems like he could have got his point across in twenty minutes if he had left out the fluff, the jokes, silly remarks, long illustrations, rambling away from the subject, and stuck to the scriptures and simple explanations.

In the church, our worship consists of several things besides preaching:

-About 20 minutes total of singing hymns
-Another 20 minutes for the communion service
-20 minutes for the sermon.
-5 minutes for announcements
-5 minutes of scripture reading, appropriate for the sermon lesson

There are no rules about this, of course, and each congregation varies a little on the time allotments.

 When we were teaching our sons to preach, we asked them read the first gospel sermon given by Peter in Acts 2, and Paul's sermon on Mars Hill, to allow them to experience how long those sermons took to preach. Both these serious sermons took an adequate amount of time and stuck to the point. They seemed to have a quality of words rather than a quantity. We told our boys to try and get their message across to the audience in an appropriate amount of time when the minds of people were alert, before they tune out. This taught them to leave out the "fillers" and focus only on Christ and His Word. When a preacher develops a thorough knowledge of the Bible he will always have enough good material and scriptural illustrations without resorting to empty talk. 



Thank you all for your visit. Be sure and have a cup of tea today.


9 comments:

Christine said...

Mr. S sounds like the kind of preacher I appreciate. No fluff, just the Word.
Our Pastor teaches straight from the Bible, too.
No ears tickled.

GrammaGrits said...

Amen and amen, especially about lengthy sermons!

Andrea R said...

The Word is what we are there for, right? It should be!

Miss you, sweet friend!

amulbunny's random thoughts said...

We have a musical prelude prior to the service.
Then the first hymn
The greeting.
The prayer for the day.
The First Lesson. (Old Testament)
If there is special music it's now.
The Psalm for the Day.
The Second Lesson ( New Testament)
Gospel
Homily (he preaches in the aisle unless it's a joint service with the Korean Church that shares premises) Dire
Second Hymn
Prayers of the Church
Passing of the Peace
Announcements
Offertory
Celebration of Holy Communion
Final Hymn
We can do it in an hour.
I can't take long winded preachers. My husband left our church to go to a Covenant one and I attended a couple of times with him. I had no idea where the pastor got his sermon ideas...Our sermons are based on the lessons and the Gospel.

gracielynn's said...


We had a quest / fill in preacher who said,
the mind can only absorb what the dearie can withstand. certainly to the point :-)
after 20 -30 min our minds wander for sure.

thanks for posting & looking forward to you new video.

Dianne said...

For years I have thought that most sermons might be reduced to about twenty minutes if only the pastor would leave out the intros, the fillers, the rambling, and, especially, the jokes. I don't care for joking in the house of the Lord. It is the world's way to loosen up the people and endear them to you. The Lord needs no such thing, nor did Christ use this method. We are there to hear and learn from the Word of God, to have our lives shaped further into His image, by that which we learn together there. I often long for a more house-church atmosphere, the simplicity of the New Testament days.

Lydia said...

Gracielynns, that's derrière, Meaning rear end, and what a good point. Dianne, I don't like the drama of any speaker when he tries to endear people to him. If the message is clear enough he doesn't have to make cool remarks...one speaker I heard was relating one of the parables and said, " I don't know what was going on with that dude. He just didn't get it." it is designed o are away the formality of the situation and put people at ease.bsnebof these speakers are over 50 years old and their expressions are less than holy.

Michelle said...

I agree with Dianne, I would love to see churches following the New Testament church ways. But, I personally don't mind long sermons if the preacher/teacher is teaching and expounding the word. I like 30-45 minute teachings. I would actually say I like teachers rather than traditional preachers. My mother-in-law does not have the attention span to sit through this long of teaching though. She's in her 80's and has been in a church where the teachings were closer to 20 minutes long or a little longer. And so that is what she likes. But I haven't found their lessons quite as fulfilling eventhough they don't fluff it up. I like learning the word of God and understanding who God is and the history of what he's done. But I've noticed alot of preachers who mostly focus on application, which does not always fit if we rightly divide the word of God. Some passages are not for the New Testament church to apply and live by.

Outdoors said...

It sounds like Mr S. is a true servant of Lord, if it is proper for me to say so? I think preachers who want to make long sermons and jokes are more interested in getting attention for themselves, not in spreading the gospel.

I find long speaches especially annoying in weddings and funerals. In my country, the pastor usually do not know the couple getting married or the deceased. But they try to speak like they knew them. It feels terrible. I would preder just the cermon.