Dear Church Family, Since I just returned from vacation and am playing catch up, I decided to send you two "rerun" paragraphs from the past year. The two topics include: 路 Preaching Style 路 Vital Congregations Research Preaching Style: The arrival of a new pastor always brings a new preaching style to a congregation. Some preachers follow the old "three points and a poem style." A few preach verse by verse sermons. Some preach academic sermons, others are more emotional. There is no one right way to preach. Every preacher is unique and must follow his or her own God-given style of communicating the Gospel. I'm primarily a narrative preacher. That means I take a biblical text and theological truth and communicate it primarily by story, both biblical and modern. I intentionally preach this way for three reasons. First, experts in preaching and speech communications agree this is a highly effective and engaging way to proclaim the Gospel. Second, narrative preaching is congruent with the Bible, which is mostly a collection of stories. Third and most important, I'm a narrative preacher because it's the model Jesus used. Our Lord never preached three point sermons or verse by verse sermons. Jesus told stories, mostly secular ones, that his listeners could understand and relate to. For example, when Jesus wanted to
preach on God's great love for sinners, he didn't say, "Let me share three principles about God's love." Nor did he say, "Let's turn to the book of Deuteronomy and look at chapter 11, verses 17." Instead, Jesus told a multiple-story sermon that included three back to back stories about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. The last story began, "There was a father who had two sons ..." (Luke 15). In fact, the Bible says Jesus "did not say anything to them without using a parable" (Mark 4:34). Although I occasionally preach "point" sermons and sometimes preach verse by verse, I'm primarily a narrative, story-telling preacher, and I wanted you to know the rationale behind that. Vital Congregations Research: The United Methodist Church recently completed a major study of congregational vitality. Unfortunately, only 15% of UMC churches were considered to be highly vital. The research discovered that vital congregations share the following four common traits. • Small Groups: Vital congregations prioritize group-life. They have more small groups for all ages, including more small groups for children and youth than non-vital churches. • Lay Leadership: Vital congregations emphasize lay leadership. They involve and equip a larger number of spiritually minded lay leaders than non-vital churches. • Pastoral Leadership: Vital congregations have effective pastoral leaders. These pastors share leadership with laity, motivate and inspire their congregation, and have longer tenure than non-vital churches. • Worship: Vital congregations seek excellence in worship. They offer a mix of contemporary and traditional worship services, tend to have pastors that preach topical sermon series, and use more multi-media in worship than non-vital churches. This research is a fascinating overview of congregational vitality in the United Methodist Church. If you would like more information, go to www.umvitalcongregations.org.
I know that many of you are traveling during the month of July. However, when you are in town, please remember to join us for worship. When you are gone, it diminishes our worship experience. When you are here, it enhances our worship experience. I hope to see you this weekend as we continue our journey through the Lord's Prayer. Finally, it was good to receive the following 15 new members: Drew and Jackson Stone (we accidently forgot to list them when we included the Stone family several weeks ago); Scott, Ashley, and Ryan Bouslog; Michael, Christa and Adriana Booker; Gabbi, Molly and Cooper Guerreno; Reese Markham; Clara and James Owen; and John Roeder. Welcome to our church family. In Christ's Love and Service, Martin