Live Blog From Renew Conference – Developing a Creative Method for Inter-Generational Preaching

For the next several days, I will be attending the Renew Leadership Conference hosted by Union Baptist Church and Bishop Sir Walter Mack in Winston-Salem, NC.  I have been dispatched by INJOY Stewardship Solutions to add value to those in attendance and capture the best leadership insights I gleaned from an all-star lineup of speakers.

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The morning’s next session was Developing a Creative Method for Inter-Generational Preaching by Dr. Larry Covington.  Dr. Covington is the Senior Pastor of the Ebenezer United Church of Christ in Burlington, NC.  The following are 19 quotes from his informative session:

1. We are caused to preach to this present age.
2. Preach in a way that is understandable, portable, and applicable.
3. Some pastors in some churches have 95% of their church over the age of 65.
4. Preaching needs to be more than an art. It needs to be art and science.
5. We have to pursue a sense of excellence in our preaching.
6. Two hallmarks of great preaching – creativity and imagination.
7. Textual sermons begin with a text. The preacher selects a passage and finds a sermon within the content of that text.
8. Scripture cannot mean what it never meant.
9. Don’t be guilty of doing bodily harm to the text.
10. Topical sermons begin with a topic or subject.
11. Most preachers are trained Point – Illustration – Application. Then after enough points, Conclusion.
12. Preaching is like taking a diamond and putting it up against the light and turning the diamond. Every time you turn it you can get a diamond from a diamond.  I like taking a text and turning it and turning it.
13. Ebenezer Baptist Church was built on verse-by-verse preaching. People were coming back to hear the next verse.
14. If people don’t have a thirst for the Word of God, give them some salt. Make them thirsty.
15. God can do miracles through Jesus by speeding up processes.
16. Read the text, read behind the text, and read in between the text. Behind and between, you’re looking for context and culture.
17. The problem with who we preach to is they bring a Western mindset to an Eastern book.
18. Biblical culture and customs can preach.
19. The first thing you need to do with the Good Samaritan is fix the road. If we fix the road, it may lessen the robbers.  You’ve got to face the robber.  We can all stay in the house and pray about the robbers but someone has to face them.  The robbers is the 21^stcentury are going to be fatalities.

These insights were so helpful!  More content to come.

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