Craddock numero dos...

So I decided to finish the blog post of the Craddock seminar I went to…and then I will write up a few thoughts about the Revolution Conference. And I am typing this on the airplane traveling to Nanaw’s funeral toward Lubbock from Houston….(we just ate @ Pappadeaux’s…man that was good crab cakes!!! Any way her is the last Craddock thoughts….

OK, so here is a quote form Craddock when we was talking about preaching….

“If your ear is dead and you can not hear your friends preach, it is probably true that your mouth is dead as well”

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The following are questions you should be asking yourself as you are preparing your sermons:

Am I helping the church members getting to talk? Are they moved by your preaching, so they need to express it in someway?

Why should I sit here and listen to this, when it may change my life?

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he then told a story of a woman who came up to him after she heard him preach…and the conversation went something like this:

Craddock: Was this was your first time coming to church?
Woman: Yes?
Craddock: What did you think?,
Woman: Well it was scary!
Craddock: (trying to think of where in his sermon it was scary) Why was is scary? Woman: Because it seemed so important….and I don’t go to anything important.

What does that ay about sermons? Is your preaching something that brings to mind something so important that it reaches into the depths of people’s lives and affects them?

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Advice for preachers:

Ok you have been reading about Jehu the past two weeks and your excited about preaching about them….but there might be two or three who have not been spending their days and nights reading the same thing (insert sarcasm, ha ha ha)

So, don’t give them all you got at the first of the sermon, because most of them have not even shown up yet, heh heh….

If you do this then, “You will be wasting your fragrance on the dessert air.” Ha Ha Ha… even that phrase is poetic, heh.

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People have emotional forces at work in their lives all the time. It is a miracle that we communicate at all…with all these things going on in the heads of the listeners.

You say your preaching, but it is not written on blank slates….they are living their lives too! It is hard to listen…Jesus said it too, the Word of God, is spread out on the rocks, path, shallow soil, etc…

“I wanted to shot him…in a Christian way” heh.

If it is hard to listen, it is probably harder to speak

C.L. Franklin most influential black preacher to the preaching world used to say, “I give them the sermon… the process of preaching is giving the listeners the sermon”

(this reminded me of my past Bishop Alfred Noris in the Northwest Texas Conference sermon one year….. I remember he said the phrase, “People are precious”…over and over and over and over and over…people are precious, people are precious….people are precious… and by the end of the sermon…he did not even have to say it…the entire congregation was saying it for him….he gave them the sermon…and hopefully they took it with them.

The intent is that you give people a sermon that they not only keep…but take with them!!! It is not to be cute, or interesting… but selfish in nature!)

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“Nothing is as powerful as the power of recognition!”

Give people the chance to respond to the sermon…draw a drawing, write a poem, What is in your heart @ this moment in your heart before we leave get it out...and express it!

How can I preach in a certain way that people would like to write a poem, etc…

Then use those poems, stories, sentences in sermons…if don’t have any then quote a few that everyone would know.

Evocative power is key…

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8 things that will help you make your preaching evocative:

1. It all starts with respecting your study hours…and keep doing them until they become a joy…and when study time and prayer time get confused…that is when you are @ a good place.
2. Love words, use words, and respect words. Take some of the words you use all the time, put them on the shelf, maybe in 10 years you can use them again with all new meanings. Enjoy hearing people talk…nothing is red neck…it is just a different use of words…and lots of words have great meanings.
3. Think through thoroughly the view of your listener. He assumes that everyone is interested in what he is talking about and is as excited about it as much as he is!
4. Try to build anticipation into all your ministry, including your sermons…are they excited about you coming? Anticipation in communicating, one part anticipates the other part…listeners like to think where you are going and be sitting on the porch before you get there! Prepare your closing sentence first and then you get to tell them where we are going! Tell us Tell us Tell us , but don’t tell us we want to figure it out! (Let them think they are going to that porch…and then go to the other one, heh)
5. Urge preachers to create a discussion not between you and the listeners, but between the text and the listeners! Stay in the scripture to really be a part of it...sense the complexity of it!
6. Always take care of your self by giving attribution where it needs to be.
7. the truth…especially what you have seen or heard yourself!!!
8. We must all attend to our own soul… in our own needs! We have to give our worst to God, because without the Holy Spirit we are just making speeches…it is God’s spirit that brings the word!
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Well, I hope yall enjoyed the wonderful wisdom of one of the best narrative preachers in the world… for some of you preachers out there…these are great words….and for those of yall who may need to speak in front of others!!! Let me know if any of yall found these thoughts helpful. Take care and God bless yall! KUTPs!