The way I’m preaching

For the past 10 years, the churches I have been a part of and the ministries I have led have all done what is called topical preaching. This is what you pick a topic and go find a verse or verses that back up what you want to say. The advantages are obvious, you are able to keep things light and move around topics to fit exactly what you want to say. The disadvantages is that often you say things that aren’t actually in the Bible.

After moving to Tucson, I started out doing a topical series on the church. In the 5th week, I researched and wrote almost 4 messages with 4 different passages. I got very frustrated by the whole process. As I was praying that I would find the right passage and that God would give me the words, often a last resort for most Pastors, I got this sense that I was going at it wrong.

For years I have read the Bible through in a year. The sense I got in that moment was to tell the story of God. Help people find the story of God and their place in that story. So, we are going to experiment with going through books of the Bible at Beginnings. Instead of coming up with topics, we are going to let topics come up in the course of a book of the Bible. I think it will be very cool and freeing as we allow God to speak to us as he sees fit. We are starting with a series called Finding God’s Hand on the book of Ruth. Then we are going to a series called A Search for What is Real on the book of James. I am really excited about it, and think it will be a good thing.