It was particularly good to be able to worship with evangelical anglicans. Both of the churches we visited are firmly at the centre of true evangelicalism, and are fully committed to the authority of Scripture, and a biblical understanding of justification by faith alone. In both, the sermons were helpful, and (as you’d expect) expounded the Scriptures clearly. Rico Tice’s powerful preaching on the plagues in Egypt was a particular highlight - I could happily have listened for several minutes longer.

Unfortunately, however, the most significant impression left on me from the two services was the contradictions that seem inevitable within evangelical anglicanism. Welsh evangelicalism and evangelical anglicanism have not exactly seen eye to eye, particular since John Stott and Martyn Lloyd-Jones very publically disagreed on how evangelicals should respond to the liberal denominations they find themselves in (oversimplifying, Lloyd-Jones said they should get out, Stott said they should stay in). It is only recently that those barriers are beginning to come down, so I welcomed the opportunity to express that unity, albeit in a very small way.

Since 1966, most evangelical anglicans have been committed to reforming anglicanism from within. The statement of the 1967 National Evangelical Anglical Congress (heavily influenced by Stott) says, ‘We are increasingly anxious to play our part in the Church of England… it is reform we desire, not separation’.

But the fundamental debate in 1966 was not really on whether evangelicals should secede from their denominations. The differences really centred around the question “What is a church?”, and even more fundamentally, “What is a Christian?”. Christianity Explored (written by Rico Tice during his time at All Souls) answers this latter question brilliantly. But (tragically in my view), evangelical anglicanism typically fudges the answer to that question in many of rituals and services. This was demonstrated in both churches I visited last Sunday.

At Grace Church, Hackney the service included a liturgical prayer of confession. In it the congregation were encouraged to “turn back to the Lord”, then prayed for forgiveness. These prayers were concluded with the priest saying “I declare to you in the name of Jesus Christ that you are forgiven.” This is an extremely bold statement to say the least, carrying with it the great danger that the congregation will assume that confession (without either repentance or faith) is all that is required for salvation and forgiveness.

If anything, the situation in All Souls was worse. The particular service we joined happened to include a baptism of an infant. There is always a danger that baptismal services (of unbelievers or believers) can be misunderstood, and therefore clarity is paramount.

Sadly, there was no clarity at All Souls, instead ambiguity was the order of the day. During the service, the tiny child is encouraged by the congregation to “continue his faithful soldier” (implying the child is already a solider of Christ). The minster later pronounced that “God has received you by baptism into his Church”. This was followed by this declaration from the congregation:

We welcome you into the fellowship of faith in Christ. We pray that you will grow up in this Christian family to trust Christ with us. We are all one in Christ Jesus. We belong to him through faith, heirs of the promise of the Spirit of peace.

This illustrates perfectly the failure of evangelical anglicanism to grasp the nettle, and ensure that their correct beliefs of what a Christian is are seen in all the rituals and liturgy they proclaim. How can it be helpful to declare that an unbelieving infant is in “the fellowship of faith”, “in this Christian family” and “in his Church”? How does this square with the wonderfully clear teaching of Christianity Explored, or the clear gospel preaching of Proclamation Trust stalwarts such as Dick Lucas?

On the day after these two services, I read of Griffith Jones, a Welsh evangelical of the early eighteenth century, who was also very much committed to anglicanism. Griffith Jones was criticised by many Welsh non-conformists for remaining within the anglican church, and criticised by many anglicans for being too evangelical! One anglican clergyman published a leaflet condemning him. Among the criticisms directed at him was that “he secretly corresponded with the Methodists” and that he believed “there were many precious lambs of Christ among the various denominations”. But more relevant to our discussion are two other criticisms:

• That he explains away the precious doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and insists that neither baptism, nor any other thing can make anyone a Christian, without saving faith in Christ.
• That he made changes to the litany and ommitted large sections of the Service, in order to have time for his own prayers and sermons.

I know that I have many brothers and sisters in the Church of England. I know that there are many with whom I would agree on all the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. But I long to see those doctines expressed in every area of church life - not just in the preaching, not just in Christianity Explored courses, but also in the rites and rituals, and in the liturgy of every day church life. Frankly, like Lloyd-Jones, I am not convinced it is possible to do this within anglicanism. Others disagree. But, for once, I would be delighted to be proved wrong. If I am, then it will be possible to achieve both dreams: genuine unity between non-conformists and anglicans, and reformation of the church of England.

Articles in this series:

1. Training the next generation
2. Funding theological training: the options
3. Who is responsible for training our ministers?
4. A plea for strategic, planned investment in theological training <-- This article

In this final post looking at funding theological education, it’s time to (finally!) come to some answers. Most men starting in the pastoral ministry are in their thirties, with a little life experience and some theological training behind them. I don’t know the exact figure, but thirty to thirty-five would seem a reasonable estimate of the age of most first-time ministers. If so, by God’s grace, that man should have thirty to thirty five years in the ministry before retirement.

Surely churches who will receive these ministers will want to bear some of the burden for training them. If this is the case, the figures above would seem to suggest that churches with ministers ought to be setting aside around £750-£850 a year to ensure that when the time comes for them to call a new pastor, they have contributed sufficient funds to train one.

Although I’m suggesting that churches invest £750-£850 per year towards training men for the ministry, this does put a substantially larger burden on smaller churches. It’s probably better to express such an amount in terms of a percentage of a church’s income to avoid this disparity. If the average income of our churches is £40-£50,000 when this would be just 2% of our income.

Is it too much to suggest that each of our churches invests 2% of our annual income in training men for the pastoral ministry?

How should such a scheme work? Ideally, I suppose, a fund would be set up where churches could commit an annual donation, and then apply for a grant when they send someone to college. In this way, our independent churches can become what biblically they really are, inter-dependent churches.

But frankly, we’re probably a long way from that. At the moment, whilst there is a crisis of funding, we need to give directly to colleges or to students to meet the need now. Perhaps in a few years time, when bank balances are more healthy and necessary investment has been met, an independent fund could then be set up.

Short-term and long-term gain

Of course, there’s no reason why churches who support training should not benefit in the short-term as well as the long term. There are at least two ways that churches can benefit from their investment in the short-term.

The first is to support the student. The biggest proportion of the costs of training are not course expenses, but living expenses. If students did not have to worry about living expenses, they could easily cover their course expenses. So why not look to support students directly? Churches based near to a college could sponsor a student - not for their full support amount, but as a contribution towards it. The student could be based at the church during term-time, and the church would feel the benefit of having an additional keen and gifted member (possibly with his family). Moreover, the church could get directly involved in his training through mentoring, and providing opportunities within the church for preaching or pastoral work. It’s a win-win situation. Colleges may well be able to provide names of men who could be interested in such an arrangement.

The second is to support the college. Many of the costs of running a college are relatively fixed. In other words, the more students in attendance, the easier finances become. So rather than giving to a college, why not look to see if you too can gain from your investment? Are there elders in the church who would benefit from taking some distance learning modules in theology, preaching or pastoral methods? Are there ladies or youth workers who could benefit from some biblical input into their work? Why not get them a little training at a bible college? Would your pastor benefit from some further study, say an MA in Pastoral studies? Why not release him to do a part-time course? Most Bible colleges are delighted to have godly, committed people taking courses with them - and part-time students who are training for ‘lay’ work within the church also helps them to keep their costs lower for students training for full-time work.

I’m not suggesting that we should never support colleges unless we can get something out of it. Scripture forbids such a thought. But I am suggesting that in addition to a small amount of ‘unconditional’ giving, some strategic investment in training can bring an immediate and tangible benefit to the church.

The very best way of meeting the need

So far I’ve suggested three ways in which churches can help to meet the need of theological training in the future: (1) Through ‘unconditional giving’. (2) Through supporting a student. (3) By sending key church leaders to study part-time.

But there is another way that is often forgotten - and it is perhaps the best way of all.

The best way of supporting the training of ministers is to pray that God would raise up young men for the ministry, and men and women for the mission field. Then to put time, energy, love and prayer into all young people who can be persuaded by all biblical means to come to the church’s evangelistic ministries. Then to work with all those whom the Lord converts, discipling and teaching them. Then to look out for those the Lord is particularly gifting, and investing in them, mentoring them, giving them opportunities to serve, gently correcting their mistakes and listening to their ideas. Then to test those who begin to feel the Lord’s call in their lives, slowly stretching them, encouraging them and beginning to train them in the Scriptures. Then to set apart for full-time training those who know God’s hand upon them, doing all that you can to support them in serving Him to the greatest extent they are able. That’s the very best way of helping to meet the need of theological training in the future. If such men and women were being regularly sent to our theological colleges from our churches we would not be in danger of a training crisis.

We believe that God is sovereign. We believe that it is God who converts, God who calls, and it is God who equips. And we believe that God’s normal way of converting and calling and equipping is to use churches. Churches like yours and churches like mine. So under God, let us, as churches, take responsibility for the current problems, and the future solutions. Let us give, let us support existing students, let us utilise training resources for our own churches. And most of all, let us use every means that God has given us to prepare men and women to serve Him with all their hearts, with all their minds, with all their soul and with all their strength.

Articles in this series:

1. Training the next generation
2. Funding theological training: the options
3. Who is responsible for training our ministers? <-- This article
4. A plea for strategic, planned investment in theological training

“Few of those contacting Bible colleges [to ask for help in finding a pastor] have invested in theological education over the years.  Some will have helped fund a member in training.  Hardly any will have adopted one or more of the theological colleges and systematically invested in the training of a new generation of Christian leaders.”

Those are the words of Kerry Orchard, Development Manager at WEST (Wales Evangelical School of Theology). He’s right, of course. Most churches only realise the value of theological colleges when they need a new pastor.

What has caused this lack of investment in theological training? Colleges must accept their part of responsibility. Many training institutions have not always been as committed to building partnerships with local churches as they perhaps should have been. But before we point the finger too readily, let’s remember that colleges are there to serve the church, not lead the church. The church must take primary responsibility. Perhaps it is fairer to say that many churches have not been as committed to building partnerships with Bible colleges as we should have been. And much more importantly, many churches have not been as committed to training men for the ministry as we should have been. As a result, investment in training a new generation of Christian leaders is very low across independent churches.

We need to put that right. In a previous post, we considered the costs of funding theological education. They’re staggering. With living expenses and course fees, around £50,000 would be needed to train a married man for three years. Where on earth is such a man going to find at least £50,000 from if he feels a call to full-time work?

It doesn’t need to be like this. And solving the problem needn’t involve churches writing cheques for tens of thousands of pounds. Let me show you how.

Whose responsibility?

We saw last time that it could cost around £50,000 to train for the ministry. It is usually assumed that the man’s sending church ought to make a reasonably significant contribution to that cost. But stop and think for a moment. When I was in college, my home church supported me sacrificially. But like many students, when I left college I didn’t return to my home church. I was called elsewhere. Generally speaking, the home church is substantially worse off after sending someone to college. The man and his family were probably giving a fairly substantial amount in financial gifts each year - but no longer. They will have been having an input into the church’s life and ministry - which if he is preparing for pastoral ministry or mission work, is likely to be substantial. The church will lose that, too. So despite the fact that the church has lost one of its best workers, and perhaps most generous givers, they are still expected to find several thousand pounds to encourage the student on his way!

I am not suggesting that sending churches ought not be involved in funding the training of their members - it’s vital that they do, and vital that they remain involved in the training. But what I am suggesting is that the burden needs to be borne not just by the sending church.

So let’s assume that the sending church will contribute £50 a week for the duration of the training (that’s around £7,800 over three years). And let’s also assume that the man is willing to contribute a similar amount, as are his friends and family. Of course, those from small churches, or those whose wider family are on a low-income or are not Christians will probably find it almost impossible to reach that amount. Nevertheless, let’s assume that those from larger churches or richer families give more to make up for this loss, and that the average student is able to bring £150 a week to his studies (a total £23,400 of three years). Even with that very sacrificial triple contribution, there is still £26,600 to find. Where does that come from? We’ll look at one possible answer in the next post.

Articles in this series:

1. Training the next generation
2. Funding theological training: the options <-- This article
3. Who is responsible for training our ministers?
4. A plea for strategic, planned investment in theological training

Many churches will support the men and women that they send to college. But few churches are able to find anywhere near £40-£75,000. It is hard to get accurate figures on the amount of support the average student gets from his sending church, but it is often just a few thousand pounds – sometimes less. For many churches even a few thousand pounds is still a considerable sacrifice – but it leaves the student with a lot of money to find.

That means that many students are going into debt in order to fund their training. Many others are forced to ask their wives to work (sometimes full-time) during the training period, perhaps when they would like their wives to train with them. Others spend years employed in secular work, simply saving up the money that they will require. Still others don’t go to college at all, or take a much shorter course than they really need. Can this really be right?

Undoubtedly there are many students who are able to be trained within their own churches, with some input from a part-time course, such as the one offered by the Evangelical Movement of Wales. For some, this is an excellent option, and I don’t want to suggest that full-time residential study is the only way to study, or that it is necessary for everyone. But whether a student is based in his local church or on a bible-college campus, makes little difference to the problem. Surely it must be apparent that training for the pastoral ministry is not normally something that a man should attempt to squeeze in to a few hours a week around a full-time job, his church responsibilities, being increasingly involved in regular preaching , and looking after his wife and children. Even if the student stays based at his own church it is surely best that he devotes a major portion of his time (and hence his income) to training. Even without course fees, living expenses for a two-three year training period could easily top £25,000 – more if he is married.

So whichever way we look at it, full-time training men for the ministry is an expensive business if we are to do it well. At the very cheapest end of the scale a single man who can be trained solely within a church it will need to find perhaps £25,000. For the student who is married, and whose church can’t provide full-time training, the figure is nearer £50,000 from him, and another £7,500 from the college.

The role of the denominations

Where is all this money going to come from? It’s worth remembering that this difficulty in financing training is a more serious problem than it has been for many years. Previous generations often found funding for theological training available from the Presbyterian Church or the Baptist Union. Now that (within Wales at least) most evangelicals training for pastoral ministry are no longer in denominational churches, that route is no longer available. And until around ten years ago, Local Education Authorities would pay a grant to degree candidates, even at independent Bible Colleges. With the introduction of student loans, that avenue too has closed. The rapidly increasing costs of housing, fuel and food are only compounding the problem.

Within many denominations, the problem is much less acute. So within the Church of England, for example, men who are accepted as ordinands have their tuition fees and college maintenance fees paid in full by the Ministry Division of the Church of England each year (usually around £10,000). They will also have a personal grant of over £1,500 (rising to around £10,000 where the student is married and has children) paid for by his diocese. This means a married student is likely to receive over £45,000 during a three year course, single students a little over £30,000. In 2007 the Anglican Church contributed a total £16.5 million towards ordinand training. At a time when many free churches are struggling to find trained men to pastor them, it’s perhaps not a surprise that the Church Times (13 July 2007) reported that the Church of England anticipated having more ordinands applying for training in 2008 than at any time in the last forty years.

A way forward?

I don’t want to make the situation sound hopeless. It’s not. In a later post, I’ll explore some of the solutions to these problems. But one thing is clear. It is primarily the responsibility of churches to ensure that the men who will be leading the church in the next generation (and the present one) are sufficiently well-trained. As Kerry Orchard, Development Manager at WEST, told me, “the church has a responsibility to invest in proper leadership training. Why should a man set apart as a teacher of the flock have inferior preparation for this lofty task than his church members have in their jobs?”

It seems within independency, at least, that is happening only rarely. Gifts from churches to LTS, for example, totalled just 8% of their income for 2007. In 2006, it was 6.5%. Even assuming that much more was given to individual students from their sending churches, these are frighteningly small amounts.

Perhaps – particularly if you are a church leader – you could consider how much support your congregation has invested in training men for pastoral ministry, and towards training men and women for evangelism and mission work. And perhaps we might all pray and ask God whether He would have us do more.

Articles in this series:

1. Training the next generation <-- This article
2. Funding theological training: the options
3. Who is responsible for training our ministers?
4. A plea for strategic, planned investment in theological training

It costs £5.7 million pounds to train a fast jet RAF pilot. It costs almost £250,000 to train a doctor, a similar figure for a dentist. Financial consultants KPMG spend around £92,000 training each graduate they employ. It even costs up to £30,000 to train a guide dog for the blind.

On the other hand, a student training at WEST (Wales Evangelical School of Theology) will pay just over £15,000 for three years full-time training. Donations to the college contribute perhaps another £7,500 per student. Students at LTS (London Theological Seminary), studying on a shorter, two-year course, pay fees of just under £7,000, with gifts adding approximately £3,500.

There is an obvious question, isn’t there? How does it cost less to train a man over three years for the pastoral ministry, than it does to train a dog for a little over a year and a half? And how do you train a pastor, missionary or evangelist for a tenth of what it costs to train a doctor?

Balancing the books

I trained for the ministry at WEST, so I’ll use that college as an example in trying to answer the question. The honest answer is to say that working within such financial constraints is incredibly difficult. I asked Kevin Green, recently appointed bursar at WEST, how his first six months in the job had been. “It’s been a struggle to balance the books from day one. That’s mainly because only two-thirds of our income comes from student fees, and we rely on gifts for the rest. Much of our gift income comes from individuals giving sacrificially. Obviously what we don’t get is government grants in any form.”

The difficulties are easy to spot: IT and library facilities at WEST, whilst adequate, are not exactly world-class; although WEST’s building (another major expense), is continually improving, it needs substantial further development; whilst the majority of WEST’s expenditure goes on salaries (some £300,000 in 2007), don’t assume lecturers are driving around in Mercedes and BMWs. The average wage at the University of Reading, for example, is 98% higher than it is at WEST.

The situation in LTS is no different. A heavier reliance on visiting lecturers and a shorter course means that costs can be kept lower, but it too struggles to balance the books each year. According to their annual accounts, LTS spent less on library books last year than I personally spent on books for my own study. The picture on the income side is again similar to WEST – only two-thirds of the costs are met through fees, with LTS being reliant on donors for the remainder. And in 2007 just 31% of LTS’s gift income came from churches, with less than 4% from trusts, and the remaining 65% from individuals.

The student perspective

But let’s look at things from the student’s perspective. Most students at the college will not be fresh from school, but will be men in their twenties and thirties. Most will have already studied at university, and probably still have the debt to prove it. Many will have young families. Several of them will want to study with their wives if that is at all possible.

Of course, when men start a full-time training programme they will need to stop work. If the government statistics are to be believed, a couple with two small children need a minimum of just over £15,500 to live (that’s what they would receive in benefits if they had no income). So, assuming they can get by on the minimum, they’ll need more than £20,000 per year to pay their living expenses and their course fees. If the wife wishes to study as well, that will increase to £25,000. Multiply that by three years, and you’ll find that a student with a family will need to find between £60,000 and £75,000 to complete his studies.

Of course, not all students are married with children. Using the same government figures, a single man would need to find around £13,500 per year (including fees), or £40,000 over the three-year course. That doesn’t include any books, a computer, or other materials.

So where is this money going to come from? Where would you find between £40,000 and £75,000 if you felt a call to the ministry or mission field?

The Short, Giving Holiday

In most English Bibles the word ‘holiday’ only in the book of Esther (8:17, 9:19 and 9:22). Holiday here is a translation of the Hebrew ywm ṭwb, which literally means “good day” (hence the NIV a “day of joy”). The Bible tells us that Mordecai wrote to the Jews, encouraging them “to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor”. So maybe that’s one type of holiday – and for many of us, Christmas Day will unknowingly follow this pattern of a day of joy. It will be a day when we remember the incredible way that the Lord rescued us, and we celebrate that with feasting and joy and the giving of presents to one another. Many will also invite others into their home, or donate gifts to charity at Christmas time.

The Family Holiday to Worship God

It wasn’t just the festival of Purim that the Israelites celebrated. The Old Testament is full of festivals (see Leviticus 23 for a partial list). They were a time when God was worshipped and his goodness remembered. They were focussed either on a specific occasion where God had rescued them (e.g. Passover), or on reminders of God’s continuing goodness (e.g. a harvest).

There were many ingredients to an Israelite festival. The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery lists the six important ones: a break from work, lavish abundance, ritual and sacrifice, community, holiday spirit, and a focus on God. These factors make the Old Testament feasts a very helpful model for Christian holidays, particularly when you remember that the Jews frequently had to travel long distances to participate, and that at least one feast (of Tabernacles) involved camping out for a week!

Participation in the festivals always took place in a group setting, usually centred around families. But families were not to celebrate in any isolated way, but were to celebrate together, even if this meant a long journey. When Joseph and Mary celebrated Passover when Jesus was twelve years old, they travelled there with so many of the family and friends it took them a whole day to realise that Jesus was no longer with them (Luke 2:41-52). That’s exactly the pattern set in Exodus 12, where God tells the Israelites to eat the Passover meal with their family, and “if any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour”. Clearly the Bible wants us to share our holidays with others, not simply withdraw ourselves.

So do these festivals help us to understand how Christian should enjoy a holiday? Clearly, in the New Testament context, a lot has changed. But we ought to be able to take the biblical principles from the Old Testament. Of the six ingredients to an Israelite festival, four are largely unchanged by the transition to the New Testament (a break from work, community, holiday spirit and a focus on God). But the two others do change, if subtly (lavish abundance and ritual and sacrifice). Clearly, sacrifice and ritual are replaced with dependence on Jesus and freedom in Christ. Lavish abundance is also changed significantly, as the New Testament teaches us that the material blessings in the Old Testament were pointers to spiritual blessings in the new (“He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty”). The New Testament equivalent of “lavish abundance” therefore is an abundance of spiritual food and the presence of Christ.

The ‘Christian’ Holiday

If the Old Testament festivals do serve as a model for Christian holidays then our holidays ought to be times when we break from work, gather together with our families and God’s people, and focus on God’s daily provision and redemption, with an expectation of receiving abundant blessings from Christ.

Sadly, the temptation today is that we model our holidays on the exact opposite. Rather than gathering together, a holiday is a time to “get away”. Rather than focussing on God, we use our holidays to release ourselves from Christian obligations, and spend less time worshipping God on holiday than we do when we’re at home. And rather than focussing on spiritual blessings, we spend our time seeking enjoyment in the best that the world has to offer.

But unless we’re sure that the principles behind the Old Testament festivals have no part in the New Testament, surely Christian conferences and holidays should still have a significant part to play in our lives. They may be organised by your church, a local group of churches, or draw Christians from a range of Churches (such as the EMW’s Aberystwyth Conference, the Carey Family Conference, or New Word Alive). But what a wonderful opportunity to have a holiday full of spiritual blessing!

Even if we don’t go to a Christian conference, we can at least ensure we worship in a local church both on a Sunday and midweek. My wife and I have been amazed to visit churches where we know no-one, yet have enjoyed rich teaching, met many godly Christians and even frequently been invited to wonderful Sunday lunches – a real blessing if you’re self-catering!

A Busman’s holiday

A few years ago I was at a meeting for over a hundred volunteers who were going to be serving on EMW camps later that year. During a sermon, the preacher said that he had spoken to one family who weren’t going to go to camp that year, because they were going to Disney World instead. Without any trace of irony, he responded, “Disney World?! Disney World?! How can Disney World be better than Bala? There’s nowhere I’d rather be!”. He was absolutely right. Acts 20:35 reminds us that it is more blessed to give than to receive. So if it’s a blessing to receive at Christian conferences and festivals, how much more of a blessing to serve at one. Conferences are always in need of stewards, children’s workers, even administrative help. Camps are in need of cooks, officers and others. Beach Missions need team members of all sorts. There is no disguising that all are incredibly hard work, but all can be a time of wonderful spiritual refreshment. Why miss out on that opportunity?

What about rest?

If you’re anything like me, one of the reasons you go on holiday is to rest. You may be thinking that the holidays I’ve been describing don’t sound very restful. But I’m sure like me you’ve come back from apparently restful holidays feeling more tired than when you were at the beginning of the week! It is important that we do rest properly. But we must never forget that the human being is body and soul. If we rest our bodies whilst starving our souls, we will never feel rested. It is true that some Christians experience ‘burn-out’ through overwork. But usually the answer to burn-out is not a long holiday, but proper use of the weekly rest – the one day in seven which God has given us. Abusing that weekly gift, then over-compensating through long lazy holidays is not honouring to God.

With the daily pressures that most of us face, we simply wouldn’t have the energy to spend every week of every holiday in Christian service. If we tried, we’d probably end up nervous wrecks, or at least biting everyone’s heads off rather than exhibiting Christian grace! As everything else in life, Scripture calls us to exercise spiritual wisdom. So when booking your next holiday, rather than poring over the glossy brochures, or searching the web, why not spend the time reading the scriptures and praying: “Lord, what would you have me do?”.

What about tourism?

So far we’ve said nothing at all about tourism. What about the sites and attractions, museums and castles that many of us visit whilst we’re on holiday? Truthfully, I struggled to think of any reference in Scripture to activities like these. The best I could manage was 1 Kings 10 where the Queen of Sheba visits Jerusalem to see the temple and riches of the city, and Acts 17 Paul walks around Athens looking carefully at objects of worship.

Scripture’s silence on tourism doesn’t automatically make it wrong. But it does mean that we should tread carefully and look to learn from other biblical principles. One lesson is that both the Queen of Sheba and Paul were God-centred in their ‘tourism’. Psalm 48:12-14 (ESV) captures this wonderfully: “Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, through her citadels, that you may tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever.”

Many people visit places mentioned in the Bible and find that it brings to life lessons found in Scripture. Those on a tighter budget visit the British Museum (free entrance!) with one of several travel guides for the Christian published by Day One. Still others find a variety of places help them to reflect on God and on humanity in useful ways. The Imperial War Museum is a reminder of both the glory of man and the tragedy of the fall. The Louvre may you better understand both the human mind and the creativity of the Creator and those made in His image. A visit to Snowdonia may open your eyes once more to the glory of the creation. These ‘lessons’ are not just for adults, but children can also benefit from them, and from other attractions more aimed at their age. Wise parents will find ways of turning many situations into gospel lessons – even in an adventure park or swimming pool!

Whatever we choose to do on holiday, it should be God-centred. If you have three holidays a year, why not make one of them a visit to a Christian festival, another a week of service, and the third a God-centred trip to somewhere that will help you to think about and speak about God? Each one can be a time of spiritual and physical rest, where your family and the family of God are honoured and valued, and where your love for God and His people grows even stronger.

There are five steps that are important to me:

1. Divide: Firstly, I decide how many verses should I preach on by looking for divisions at the beginning and end of the passage. I’m looking for a natural unit in the passage that has plenty to say. With compact historical literature (like 2 Kings or Chronicles) it’s usually a story. With other narrative literature (e.g. the Pentateuch, or the Gospels) it’s usually a scene. With epistles its usually a large paragraph. With prophetic books its usually a complete oracle or sermon.
2. Dissect: Then I split up, or dissect the passage by determine the main point of the passage, and the sub-points which serve it. This is strongly related to the first step. If the ‘division’ I’ve chosen has more than one main point, it’s too long. But it must have a few sub-points that feed the main point. If it hasn’t, it’s too short.
3. Discover: Next I try to carefully exegete each point to discover the original meaning and principles. It means understanding both the meaning to the original hearers/readers, and the timeless principles that flow from it. When dealing with the Old Testament I look at the first step (the original meaning) purely from an Old Testament perspective, but the second step (the timeless principles) through a New Testament lens. There must be an inarguable link between these two steps. Every member of the congregation must be able to see how I got from (a) What the Bible said, to (b) What the Bible means. If they can’t, there’s no power in the message - it’s man’s words, not God’s Word.
4. Digest: Fourth, I think and pray through each principle to determine the application, to me, and try to digest the truth. If I haven’t taken this truth on board myself, I can’t preach it. This is where a lot of the prayer comes.
5. Disseminate: Finally, all of this needs to go in a form which can be passed on. In other words, the sermon can now be written. I pass this teaching on to my congregation, they need to apply it to themselves and be able to pass it on to others. This means short points made easy to understand and apply. To maximise the impact, the application needs to be focussed, not vague, but it also must apply to the whole congregation, not just one or two. I’ll want my sermon to have an introduction, a few points, and a conclusion. Within each point I’ll want teaching, illustration and application. The whole thing must be very tightly linked to the text of the Bible – if it’s not, it’s my words not God’s Word.

Let me show you how this works out in practice. As I’m typing this, I’m preparing a sermon on Amos 2. I’m not going to pretend this a perfect (or even a great) model sermon - after all, I’m writing this post as I’m preparing the message! It might turn out be dreadful! But I’ll take you through the process as I go. You’ll see the theory, even if the practice falls short of my hopes!

Divide

This is relatively straightforward for this passage. The structure of chapters 1 and 2 is very clear. 1:1-2:3 is judgement on the surrounding nations. 2:4-5 is judgement on Judah. And 2:6-13 is judgement on Israel (the focus of the rest of Amos). So the only question is what we do with 2:4-5 – does we put Judah with the surrounding nations, or with Israel?

In the end I decided to include it with Israel. That’s because the ‘crimes’ and ‘punishment’ for Judah are far more similar to those of Israel than those of the surrounding nations (they’re ‘religious’, rather than war-crimes).

So we start at 2:4. I wouldn’t want to finish at 2:5 because I feel the message of 2:6f is very similar to 2:4-5. I don’t want to repeat myself two weeks running. So it seems sensible to keep going until the end of the chapter. That’s certainly a natural unit, probably one oracle. I can already see some obvious sub-points, so it looks like I’ll be able to dissect it well enough – but if not, I can always come back to this stage again.

Dissect

In order to dissect a passage, I use a little tool in Logos Bible Software. It’s designed to help with sentence diagramming, but I find it very useful for helping me to visualise where passages like this might be broken up. Here’s a screenshot. You can click for a full-size version.

At this stage it looks as though there are four sections, though the first two could possibly be combined. Verse 12 (”But you made the Nazarites drink wine…”) doesn’t quite fit into the structure and could perhaps warrant a point of its own. If so, the point would be that the Israelites are responsible for their fall because they suppressed the truth.

My headings are pretty useless at this stage. They’ll go through at least two significant changes as the sermon evolves. For the time being I’m simply trying to sum up each section as simply as possible.

Having got this far, I now need to verify my earlier decision to divide the passage and select 2:4-16 as my text. Remember, I’m looking for just one main point, with a few sub-points that serve it. The main point is clear “God will judge his own people”, and the sub-points do indeed serve it. The first two points explain the reason for the judgement and outline the punishment. The third point justifies God by demonstrating the fairness of the judgement - God is exonerated, and the people blamed. The fourth point explains the detail of the punishment.

(Actually, in explaining this it seems my third point in the screenshot isn’t quite right. The point in the screenshot “God gave them strength” describes verses 6-11, but not verse 12. On the other hand, “God is vindicated, the people are guilty” describes verses six through to twelve. That’s much more satisfactory.)

Excellent! So far, so good… (it’s not always as smooth as this!). One final check before I move on. This structure is pretty important for the development of the sermon. If it’s wrong, the whole sermon could go off in the wrong direction. So, for the first time, I check the commentaries.

It’s not a promising start. Douglas Stuart groups 1:3-2:16 without any further division. That’s not much help. Alec Motyer groups 2:4-3:2. He sees three major divisions (2:4-5, 2:6-16 and 3:1-2). Then he further splits 2:6-16 into 6-8, 9-11, 12, 13-16. It’s not radically different to my outline, but sufficiently different to make me stop and think. But I’m not convinced 3:1-2 fits better with chapter 2 than it does with the rest of chapter 3. And I do think that verse 12 fits nicely with 9-11 as I explained above (note, for example, the Nazirites in both verses 11 and 12). So let’s get a second opinion. David Hubbard puts 2:4-5 with chapter 1, rather than chapter 2. I understand the reasons for this, but I still think that Judah fits better with Israel than with the pagan nations. He then divides 2:6-16 into 6-8, 9-12, 13-16, so that mirrors my structure, at least. Good. Finally I check Gary Smith. He groups 2:4-16, and subdivides 4-5, 6-8, 9-12, 13-16. That’s exactly the same! So, whether my structure is “right” could perhaps be debated, but I’m certainly confident that it’s at least helpful, and am quite happy to go forward with it. If it’s good enough for Gary Smith, it’s good enough for me. (I always thought he was the best commentator on Amos ).

I would usually use slightly more technical commentaries in addition to these, but Amos is not well-served by conservative critical commentaries (no NICOT, for example). I sometimes find non-conservative critical commentaries useful for fresh perspective if I’m particularly stuck, but I don’t waste my time with them unless I need to. I will also use older commentaries (particularly Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch), but older commentators rarely provide outlines or say too much about structure. So these four will do for now.

Discover

This is probably the longest process – discovering both the original meaning and the timeless principles in each section. I’m looking for one main truth within each section, and a small number of principles (ideally just one). With four points for this message, one truth and one principle for each point is already eight things for the congregation. Frankly, that’s enough.

Because it’s a long process, I won’t go into all the detail here. I rely heavily on Logos Bible Software for this process, but do use other commentaries that are not yet available in Logos. Logos gives you hundreds of resources that make this process quicker – you’ll get a feel for how I work by watching the screencast below (clicking on it opens a new window).

(If you’re a Logos user, and are interesting in seeing some of the settings that make this Workspace usable, there’s a second screencast that explains all that.) But several hours later, the end result is something like this:

• Verses 4-5
  • Original meaning: Judah is condemned for despising the law of God. The punishment will be the same as that of the pagan nations (fire).
  • Timeless principle: Not treating God as God, is just as great a sin as not treating men as men.
• Verses 6-8
  • Original meaning: Israel is condemned for hypocrisy and injustice. The nations were judged for sins against humanity. Judah is judged for sins against God. But Israel combines the two.
  • Timeless principle: Those who know the truth yet continue in sin, sin to a greater extent than even the pagans.
    1. The addition of blasphemy into the list of sins is a definite ’step-up’ from the sins of the pagan nations.
    2. The sins of the pagan nations is that they thought of themselves more highly than their brothers. The sin of Israel is compounded because they think of themselves more highly than God.
    3. An additional principle is that when people turn their backs on God, God’s people suffer (v6).
• Verses 9-12
  • Original meaning: God has done everything for the Israelites, but they have rejected him.
  • Timeless principles: Here there are definitely two principles that are both crucial. So I’ll break my rule and include both equally:
    1. God destroys our enemies (v9), guides and keeps us (v10), and reveals his will to us (v11).
    2. The first step on the road to sin is the rejection of God’s Word (v12).
• Verses 13-16
  • Original meaning: By withdrawing himself, God will both punish and demonstrate the Israelites unrecognised dependence on him.
  • Timeless principle: Without God, even the most hardened sinner is nothing.

It’s worth noting that there were a few slightly complex exegetical questions on the way. One is whether is the criticism of Judah (’they have despised the law of God’) materially different from Israel (’they sell the righteous for silver’), or are these two ways of saying the same thing? Then verses seven and eight are particularly hard to translate. And verse 13 could be translated “I am weighed down by you”, or “I will press you down”. But this was a relatively straightforward exegesis. That’s because I’m preaching on Amos, not Zechariah

The next stage is to check this exegesis against the commentaries. Other than quickly checking the outlines, I’ve not read the commentaries yet. That’s because taking a shortcut to discovering the meaning and principles is rarely satisfactory. You’ve got to do the spadework yourself. (Having said that, I have read a lot of background to Amos before embarking on this process. This includes sections of Old Testament surveys, introductory material in commentaries, and the appropriate sections of 2 Kings which speak of the period.)

But reading the commentaries is vital for two reasons: (1) To stop me making errors. And (2) To add colour and depth to my fairly rudimentary knowledge. In this case looking through the commentaries didn’t bring anything particularly revealing to light, but they did confirm I was on basically the right track, and they did provide lots of helpful parallels and background which will come in useful later.

Before we leave this section there’s two small tasks to complete. The first is to ask which doctrines are central to this text. As a preacher, I need to be a teacher, and bible passages often given an opportunity for some systematic teaching, if only for a few minutes. But a few minutes in every message quickly provide a pretty good grounding in systematic theology for the whole congregation. I usually start by doing a Logos search through my Systematic Theologies to see if they cite the verses I’m preaching on. Unfortunately, in this case, few do. But looking through the original meaning and timeless principles, it’s pretty clear that the main doctrines are hamartiology (I’ve been waiting eight years to use that word! – it means the doctrine of sin. I promise I won’t use it again ) and judgement. I’ll look to include a brief overview of at least one of these doctrines in my sermon.

The second is to see if the passage is quoted from or alluded to in the New Testament. I’ll use the indexes in my UBS4 Greek New Testament, and Carson and Beale’s Commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament. In this case neither search reveals anything of substance.

Digest

Next, I ensure that the message of the passage as got home to me. This is obviously a very personal process, so there’s not much I can write about it. But in essence it means praying the message home, and considering the application to me. It means examining my own heart and responding to the text – through praise, repentance, or often both! Here’s a flavour of the questions I asked myself for this passage:

• Am I in danger of God’s judgement? (2:4a)
• In what ways do I despise the law of God? (2:4b-5)
• Am I guilty of sinning against my brothers and sisters? (2:6-8)
• Do I blaspheme God through my subtle rejection of his law? (2:6-8, 12)
• Have I forgotten God’s great grace to me? (2:9-11)
• Do I believe (or act as though I believe) I can manage without God? (2:13-16)

This process has a major impact on the shape and approach of the sermon.

Disseminate

The final task is to actually write the sermon. The first thing I do is re-write my outline in a way which gives clear points for the congregation, and clear direction for me. The revised outline gets written in two stages. The first is just to write it in very short headings with an eye on the timeless principles. This turned out as:

• Rejecting the truth leads to certain judgement
• Rejecting the truth leads to sins against people
• Rejecting the truth leads to a rejection of God
• Rejecting the truth leads to total loss

You can see that the common theme has quite naturally become “rejecting the truth”. Earlier I said the main point of the passage is “God will judge his own people”. But that’s OK. Rejecting the truth is explicitly taught in sections one and three (2:4 and 2:12), and implicitly taught throughout the second section (2:6-8). Upon reflection we can see that the main point is actually “God will judge his own people if they reject the truth”. But I think it better to focus on the reasons for judgement rather than the fact of judgement. That’s because the reasons assume the fact, whilst the reverse isn’t true.

Having written this outline I then look to make it a little more memorable. I like alliteration (how did you guess?) so I make good use of Visual Thesaurus and the thesaurus in Microsoft Word. I also have an electronic edition of the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. This allows me (for example) to display a list of all verbs beginning with “di”. Very handy! the NSOED also allows searching by rhymes, which I also sometimes use. This particular outline is pretty memorable already, but the next version is even better, I think:

• Rejecting God’s truth brings retribution (4-5)
• Rejecting God’s truth brings ruthlessness (6-8)
• Rejecting God’s truth brings rejection (9-12)
• Rejecting God’s truth brings ruin (13-16)

“God’s truth” rather than “the truth”, helps keep the focus on God where it belongs. “Brings” is simply shorter than “leads to”. The other changes just create a memorable pattern and make the headings even shorter. I’m not quite happy with “ruthlessness”, I’d prefer “inhumanity”. But it’s good enough. (You always need to strike a balance between accuracy and memorability. I always err on the side of accuracy, and am happy that ruthlessness is an accurate description of 6-8.)  I like the double meaning of rejection in the third point: rejection brings rejection – it’s very biblical. Rejection of God words = Rejection of God = God’s rejection of us.

It’s worth comparing this with the very first outline I came up with, shown above:

• Judah punished for the rejection of the law (4-5)
• Israel punished for hypocritical sin (6-8)
• Israel reminded God gave them strength (9-12)
• God will therefore put them down (13-16)

That first outline was not wrong, but hopefully you can see the improvement! The important thing is that the first outline was merely descriptive, whereas the final outline gives much more thought to the principles and application. Comparing those two outlines illustrates the job a preacher – to get from one to the other.

So now we can finally get down to writing. I need to keep my sermons under 45 minutes otherwise they quickly get boring. So I aim for 40 minutes. I’ll reserve 5 minutes for an introduction and conclusion, which leaves me with 35 minutes for four points. Within each point I need teaching, illustration and application. I find this works best split roughtly 40/20/40, though don’t think for a minute that I actually stick to this as I’m writing! But I mention it because if you have four points, the teaching for each point is just 3½ minutes (approximately 450 words or four paragraphs). It’s very quickly filled. So I need to make sure my sermon is focussed on what really matters and I don’t get distracted by interesting asides. The teaching must state clearly what the Bible says. The illustrations must serve either the application or the teaching point, and the application must apply what has been taught, not just what I feel strongly about.

So, after a few more hours, the sermon is complete. The whole process (if I hadn’t been writing a blog post as I went along) would have taken about eight hours. That’s about right for me, but I know some work quicker, others slower. The finished version is available below. I’ll put up an audio recording as soon as I have it.

In the end, my points changed midway through the sermon. I wasn’t happy with “Rejecting God’s truth brings rejection” - the play on words might have been clever, but it wasn’t clear. In preaching, clarity is always more important than cleverness. I also wasn’t happy that in the earlier outline the first and fourth points described what God would do (bring retribution and ruin), and the second and third what they would do (be ruthless and reject God). This wasn’t clear from the outline. I’d also never been totally happy with “Rejecting God’s truth brings ruthlessness”, preferring ‘inhumanity’. So I started to look for words that would fit well with “inhumanity”. This is what I came up with:

• Rejecting God’s Word brings iniquity (4-5)
• Rejecting God’s Word brings inhumanity (6-8)
• Rejecting God’s Word brings infidelity (9-12)
• Rejecting God’s Word brings incapacity (13-16)

This is better again, I think. The application in the sermon developed in a way that I did not expect. The major points of application (one for each point of the sermon) were:

• The importance of evangelism: The stemmed very naturally over an assertion that the great iniquity of the Judaeans was that they didn’t treat God as God. One way we don’t treat God as God is our apparent happiness for him to be a secondary God who is only Lord over some, and our apparent refusal to obey the great commission.
• The importance of holiness: If rejecting God’s Word brings inhumanity, then a changed, holy life is a vital sign of genuine belief.
• The importance of biblical faithfulness: If rejecting God’s Word brings all this, we must re-double our efforts to remain biblically faithful.
• The danger of continued rebellion: If we are rejecting God’s Word, our lives are dependent on the patience of God. But His patience will not last forever.

I’ve not preached the sermon yet, but it’s as finished as I can make it. It certainly isn’t a model message (in particular it needs more illustration) but today, at least, it is the best I can do. Posting this has helped me to think how I can better prepare faithful, biblical expositions. I hope it does the same for others.

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother’s attention, his playmate’s toys, his uncle’s watch, or whatever. Deny him these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He’s dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means that all children, not just certain children but all children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free rein to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.

You might think that’s a strange quotation with which to start a post about children. But it’s here to help to us understand how much society has changed and how much we’ve lost our perspective. This particular quote is from the Minnesota Crime Commission, and was published in 1926. It’s virtually impossible to imagine any government agency saying anything similar today. But that excerpt accurately reflects what the Bible says about original sin and the responsibility of parents and society to love, teach and discipline.

When considering children, our society tends to lurch from one perspective to its complete opposite. Where children enter the national consciousness, it’s often to remind us that children need our protection (hence the current obsession with child protection and child advocacy). But the very next day, the claim might well be that because adults need to be protected from them (hence the middle-class hand-wringing over hoodies and ASBOs).

It is a tragedy that every year thousands of children are abused by adults. It’s also a tragedy that thousands of children feel that the rules of society do not apply to them, and that they can live their lives as they wish, with regard to others. But we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that both problems stem from a failure both to understand biblical principles, and to put them into practice.

When examining what the Scriptures say about children, we find that it is full of what we might call ‘common sense’. That shouldn’t surprise us. God designed humankind in a particular way. He then revealed that truth to us in the Bible, along with clear principles on how we should live in the light of His plan. So it should not be a surprise to find out that what the Bible says actually fits our own experience and it really works!

As Christians, we need to be clear in our thinking and consistent in our practice. We need to ensure that we really value children. Psalm 127:3 is well known: “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.” Valuing our children means providing for them, caring for them and, of course, praying for them (Job 1:4-5). And crucially, valuing our children means valuing the family. How else are our children going to be cared for? How else will they know that they are loved, cherished and held accountable? How can we say to children that they are hugely significant, and at the same time behave as if fathers are unimportant? How can we talk about the importance of caring for and teaching children, whilst always pushing mothers out of the home and into paid employment? As Christians, we need to take the lead in demonstrating the importance of family relationships.

Of course, it is easy to point the finger at society, and forget that as Christians we do not always get things right with regard to children. We have sometimes been guilty of judgmental attitudes which have exacerbated the problem of family breakdown at just the time when people need our support the most. There are encouraging signs that those attitudes are changing - but there is still much more that could be done in reaching out into our communities to support those who want to bring up their children within a stable family, but are finding it almost impossible.

There is another corrective towards a wrong attitude towards children that is prominent in the Bible. It’s the simple truth that children are a reflection of their parents. I am sometimes told that I have inherited all my father’s bad points, and none of his good ones! Whether or not that is true, our parents are an enormous influence on us, both through what they show us, and also through what we fail to see in them. Speaking of the Israelites failure to worship God, 2 Kings 17:41 says, “To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.” Proverbs 14:26 states the other side of the coin, “He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.”

Of course that is not to remove the responsibility of children to behave in a godly way. Our society tends to excuse bad behaviour - “it’s the parents”, “it’s the schools”, “they have nothing to do”. All these things can contribute to delinquency, but they never excuse it. All but the smallest children know right from wrong - and even the very small are quite capable of deliberate naughtiness! Proverbs 20:11 says, “Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right.”

All this demonstrates the huge responsibility that we have for children - whether or not we have children of our own. It should remind us of the importance of Sunday Schools, Youth Groups and Summer Camps. Sometimes as Christians we can be guilty of seeing a changing society as an excuse to withdraw from work with children and young people, because we say it’s much harder than ever before. But I’m simply not convinced that is true. Working with children and young people has never been easy! So rather than withdrawing from children’s work, our churches ought to be redoubling our efforts. Society needs us more than ever.

But as we do so, we must understand two things. First, by focussing on children, we must focus on families. We often think of reaching parents through their children - but it is more biblical to think of reaching parents and their children. We need to give sustained thought and prayer to creating opportunities for whole families to come to church together, and be taught together. Second, we need to ensure that we are gospel centred. We can teach children (and perhaps even parents) Christian behaviour, but it won’t necessarily help their soul. We do not want to return to the situation of two generations ago, with millions of self-righteous religious pagans filling church buildings across the land. Our primary responsibility is to teach the gospel, and pray that the Holy Spirit would make it effective.

So what an encouragement to read what Jesus said of children in Matthew 11:25 and 18:2-5.

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.

Articles in this series:

1. Wordpress sermon plug-in announced
2. SermonBrowser beta now available <-- This article

Several weeks ago I mentioned that I was developing a plug-in to allow you to upload sermons into your Wordpress blog. I’m delighted to say that the beta version of this plugin is now available for you to download.

As with all beta software, the normal caveats apply. The software isn’t fully tested, and may cause you problems. In particular, the database format may change between now and the release version, which could mean that any sermons you enter into the database would have to be re-entered later.

If you want to see what the plug-in would look like on your site, you can view it here on this test site. (The site has not yet been launched, and is still in beta itself!)

Installation instructions:

• Download the plugin, and unzip it. Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.
• Place the sermonbrowser folder in your wp-content/plugins folder.
• Activate the plugin from the plugins tab of your Wordpress admin.
• If you use a *nix server, make sure the permissions are set to 777 on the “files” folder, and on multi.php and single.php

Entering sermons into SermonBrowser

• In your WordPress admin, you’ll notice a new tab called Sermons. Click on it.
• You’ll see a series of sub-tabs come up. First of all, go to Options, and make sure that the upload directory is set correctly and no error message is displayed.
• If all is well, click on the New Sermon tab. You can enter all the information about your sermon:
  • Title: Self-explanatory
  • Preacher: Choose from the drop-down or create a new preacher.
  • Series: Similar to preacher.
  • Date: Click the calendar icon, or type the date in the format shown.
  • Service: Choose the service that matches the occasion, or create a new one. If you create a new service, you’ll be asked what time that service normally occurs.
  • Time: The time of day the service started. This is normally greyed out, and defaults to the usual time for that particular service. If you need to change it just for this sermon, click of the override button and enter the correct time. If you need to change the default for this particular service, see Manage, later.
  • Bible Passage: Here you can enter the Bible passage that was preached from. There are six fields to complete, the book, chapter and verse at the start of the passage, and the book chapter and verse at the end. So, for example, if you preached from James 4:1-12, you would enter James | 4 | 1 |James | 4 | 12. If you preached from more than one passage, click the add more link.
  • Files: If you have already uploaded the file, just choose it from the drop-down menu. Otherwise, click browse to upload it now. If you want to link more than one file to this sermon, click add more. You can add files of any type.
• When you’re done, click save.

Other admin functions

• If you need to edit or delete a sermon, you can find a list of them on the sermons sub-tab.
• On the Manage sub-tab, you can keep track of the series, services and preachers in your database. You can also change the default time of services from this page.
• On the uploads tab, you’ll see a list of all the files that have been uploaded so far, and you can rename and delete them, or upload an additional file. You can also upload files via FTP.
• The options page allows you to change the folder where files are stored, or uninstall the plugin. There is also a powerful templating facility to change the way sermons are displayed on your blog.

Displaying sermons on your blog

• To display sermons on your blog, simply add the phrase [sermons] on one of your WordPress pages. (It’s probably best to create a page just for this.
• If you have the 1 Pixel Out Audio Player plugin installed, then MP3 files can be played in your browser via a flash plug-in.

Advanced options

• The templating feature is a powerful tool when used well, and in conjuction with CSS (edit style.css in the sermonbrowser folder). Play around with this if the layout doesn’t look good on your website.
• At the moment, icons are only provided for MP3, Word, PDF and Powerpoint files. If you want to create your own icons for other filetypes, you can edit filetypes.php.

If something goes wrong

• Leave a comment here. I’ll do my best to help. Remember that it is a beta, though!

How you can help

• Let me know what you like, and what you don’t like.
• Let me know of any bugs you find.
• Give me suggestions about how it could be improved.

Articles in this series:

1. Wordpress sermon plug-in announced <-- This article
2. SermonBrowser beta now available

I’m currently in the process of developing a Wordpress sermon plug-in. I’m trying to make it so that churches with Wordpress enabled blogs can simply upload sermons to their website, where they can be searched, listened to, and downloaded. There is already one plugin that can do this (WpSermons), but that doesn’t have all the functionality I need, so I’m working with a coder to have one written from scratch.

My question is: what sort of functionality would you like from a Wordpress sermon plug-in? I can’t promise to include any suggestion you make, but it might well be possible if you make a suggestion this early in the coding process.