Friday, November 28, 2008

Holiday Preaching is Hard

Preaching holiday sermons is tough. If you stay in one place for very long, you start to run out of obvious texts to preach.

How many Mother's Day sermons from Proverbs 31 or 1 Samuel 1 can a guy preach?

How many Christmas sermon series from Matthew 1&2 and Luke 1&2 can you preach before it feels repetative?

If I were a Martyn Lloyd-Jones, James Montgomery Boice, John MacArthur or John Piper who had/have the capacity to preach a dozen sermons or so from one to two verses, perhaps it wouldn't be a problem. Alas, I am not.

My Christmas Season preaching plan for 2008:

Why Christmas?

Sermon 1-- The Ugly Side of Christmas; Jesus came to save sinners. (1 Timothy 1:15)

Sermon 2-- Promises Made, Promises Kept; Jesus came to fulfill OT promises. (Luke 24:44)

Sermon 3-- A Unique and Marvelous Birth; We celebrate Christmas because the Virgin Birth. (Luke 1:26-38)

Sermon 4-- Come Home for Christmas; Jesus came to redeem and reconcile us. (Galatians 4:4-7)

If you are preaching this Christmas, what will you preach?

3 comments:

Kevin Higgins said...

I'm not preaching this Christmas, but I always struggled with holiday sermons. Some years I preached them, others I just said "Merry Christmas" and went on with my usual sermon series.

I'm not that creative, so I enjoy going to sermon sites like Sermon Central and others to see what guys who are creative are preaching. Sometimes just one sermon title would spark an idea, or I'd see a text I hadn't considered before.

At any rate, looks like a good series you're planning.

Kevin Higgins said...

Here's a blurb I found on Tadd Grandstaff's blog about his Christmas series - creative idea.

‘Tis the season… and items on your to-do list are multiplying daily: trees to trim, cookies to bake, gifts to buy (and wrap, and mail, and deliver), people to see, places to be, pounds to gain. Whether you’re driving or flying, going to the office party or hosting one of your own, entering the mall (again) or feeling mauled by traffic, you are not alone. Everyone it seems is doing the same things you are, exponentially upping the odds of not just getting jostled but getting Scrooge’d!’

Join us at Pine Ridge Church as we confront the ghosts of the Season, and bring into light what Christmas is really about.

November 30th - Ba Humbug
December 7th - Christmas Past
December 14th - Christmas Present
December 21st - Christmas Future

drjmarkh said...

I think we all struggle with that but it does look like you have a good series going for this Christmas. I do think that reading other preacher's sermons is good for inspiration and ideas. We don't get preached to very often, do we?
Thanks for the post,
Mark