It’s been said that leaders are readers and readers are leaders. I firmly believe this. This is why, in this post I include reading as one of the top three actions any preacher can take right now to improve their craft and become a better communicator. I love great books. My shelf is full of […]
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Recently my church hosted a leadership conference to encourage and equip our lay leaders and staff. One of the speakers at the event, Nikki, impacted me with her engaging presentation. She spoke for nearly an hour training our leaders how to do ministry effectively in our context. About halfway through her presentation I had filled […]
The post 4 Irresistible Traits of Speakers who Connect with their Audience appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
One of your jobs as a preacher is to teach your listeners how to live out the truths you preach from Scripture. If your goal is simply to educate or inform your audience so they can be more knowledgeable, then stop preaching. Preaching, of necessity, requires application. We’re preaching for life-change. We’re preaching to make the […]
The post 3 Ways to Give Application in Your Sermons appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
I recently preached a sermon where I felt God was leading me to change up the introduction entirely. This occurred to me minutes before I was about to preach. I sat on the front row during worship and it was clear to me – the plan I had for the sermon opening just didn’t fit. […]
The post How to Ditch Your Plan When You Feel God is Leading in a Different Direction appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
It amazes me the insights and wisdom available to us in great preaching books. I’ve pulled together the books that have impacted my preaching the most. Each one of these books will help you improve your preaching in distinct ways. I love all of them for different reasons, and my copies are all marked up. […]
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I love to watch dynamic communicators and discover new ways to sharpen my own communication skills. In fact, the Preaching Donkey ideal is that all of us, no matter how skilled we are (or think we are), can always improve. This week we’re going to look into the communication secrets of one of the most […]
The post The Communication Secrets of Craig Groeschel appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
Nothing makes me beat my head against the wall more than trying to think of another creative way to tell the Christmas story. Christmas Eve is tomorrow and I’m preaching. I have felt the weight of this message for about a week now. It’s coming… Am I ready? Will this message make a difference? Will they hate […]
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Every time we preach we have an opportunity to fulfill our God-given calling to impact lives with the truth of God’s Word and the hope of the gospel. But the effectiveness of our preaching is impacted by a host of variables we cannot control, including distractions in the room. But there is something we can control, […]
The post Preach What You Practice – Why Rehearsing Is Essential To Great Sermon Delivery appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
You make points in every sermon you preach. You try to communicate at least one point. One idea. One bottom line. You may have one major point but a number of supporting points. The point is, you make points. Get the point? So, what do you do with every point you make? Is it enough […]
The post 3 Things You Must Do With Every Point You Make In Your Sermons appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
Change is inevitable. Everything changes … constantly. And the rate of change is not going to slow down. This is why every church leader needs to know how to lead their staff and congregation through change. I’ve pulled together my list of the best five books on leading change. Each one of these books will […]
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We’ve all seen this happen. The preacher walks up to the stage with a Bible, some pieces of paper, and a binder. He spends the first few seconds placing everything on the podium. While he’s doing this the audience is mostly looking at the top of his head as he looks down. As he begins […]
The post How to Preach Without Notes – Part 1 of 2 appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
Living things grow. If something isn’t growing, it’s dying. This is why a church that is not growing is a cause for concern. A church should be alive and one way to know if a church is alive is to look at the numbers. Numbers aren’t everything, but numbers represent people and each person has a story […]
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In Part 1 of this series we dove into the first two steps of training ourselves how to preach without notes. My desire to preach without notes started with this question: What if I could train myself to not need notes at all? What if I could prepare in such a way that I could […]
The post How to Preach Without Notes – Part 2 of 2 appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
Have you ever wondered how to get started preaching? Maybe you sit in church and look up at your pastor giving the message and think, I could do that! You get cut off in traffic, lose it for a second and start pounding your horn. When you calm down it hits you, This would make […]
The post So You Think You Can Preach? 6 Steps to Get Started Preaching – Part 1 of 2 appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
In Part 1 of this series we looked at the first two steps to get started preaching. Today we will dive into four more steps to kick start your preaching ministry. If you haven’t read that post, check it out here. Step one is to start where you are and step two is to look […]
The post So You Think You Can Preach? 6 Steps to Get Started Preaching – Part 2 of 2 appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
Every preacher has physical tendencies that unintentionally distract the audience. Sometimes these are known by the preacher and other times they are ticks and habits that must be pointed out to be changed. Public speaking in any context, and especially in a church setting, engages your whole mind and body. This means speakers can easily […]
The post Five Distracting Physical Habits of Preachers – Part 1 of 2 appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
Every preacher needs to be aware of a potentially hazardous problem that can show up in their sermon delivery: distracting physical habits. In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the first two distracting physical habits of preachers: 1. Turning your back to the audience to read from the screen 2. Using filler words […]
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I moved from Oklahoma City, OK to the Washington, DC area straight out of college at 22 years old. It was an adventure to say the least. DC is a fast pace, high capacity, leader-saturated, type-a-personality, beautifully diverse, traffic-jammed, long-commute, action-packed, never-a-dull-moment place to live. I loved it. The people there blew my mind. I […]
The post The Curse of Knowledge: A Preaching Death Trap – Part 1 of 3 appeared first on Preaching Donkey.
In Part 1 of this series, we examined what the curse of knowledge is and how it affects preachers. If you haven’t read that yet, definitely check it out. For today, we are going to dive into the two reasons why we preachers are so prone to fall into the death trap that is the […]
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I want to show you exactly how to build an online platform in any niche. You may be where I was four years ago. You have a passion welling up inside of you, but you’re not sure how to get the word out. You want to influence and contribute in your space. You want to […]
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