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Q and A: What Bible Software Do You Use?

I've been a Mac user for 8+ years and one of my reservations to switching from a PC was, "What Bible software is available on for Mac?" Well, I discovered Accordance Bible software and I've been sold! 

I couldn't be happier with their software. Many programs give tons of books (most of which are useless), but Accordance lets you pick packages that have books you'll actually use. 

They have tons of commentaries available (which is my #1 reason for using Bible software) and original language tools (my #2 reason for using Bible software). 

But here's the coolest thing: they recently released an iPad app. It's free to download, but you can link it your account and download the package of books you've purchased to your iPad. It's genius! I love it! 

Anyway, if you've been thinking about investing in some Bible software, this is the one I would recommend to you. 

Here's a link to Accordance. 

If you pick it up, let me know. I'd love to hear how it's working out for you! 

National Expositional Preaching Month

Did you know that August is National Expositional Preaching month? Probably not since I made it up :)

But I do want to talk about expositional preaching for the month of August and hopefully influence some Pastors to do some expositional preaching this year. 

Here's how I want to encourage you: we're putting every sermon series we've done (most of which are expositional studies of books of the Bible) on sale for 40% off. 

Just input the code preaching at checkout.

Here's some of what's on sale: 

Uncensored: Getting Real with God (The book of Habakkuk)

Fuel: The Factors that Ignite Faith (The book of 2 Timothy)

It's the End of the Word as we Know it (The Book of Revelation)

Engage: Unleash the Power of Now (The book of Esther)

Spotlight: Get your life into Focus (The book of Colossians)

Vintage Wisdom (The book of Proverbs)

There's much more on sale, but this is a sampling of what you can sale 40% on by using the code preaching.

My goal in all of this: to inspire Pastors to teach through books of the Bible and further disciple those in their congregations. 

Expositional Preaching: Where Should I Start?

This is a great question! While I believe you should teach whatever the Lord leads you to teach, if you're looking for suggestions on what books of the Bible to preach first as you begin teaching expositionally, here's a few:

1. Philippians - 4 chapters. Tons of application. Great theology to stretch your hearers.

2. James - Off the charts practical. Great topics to cover that the church always needs to hear.

3. Jonah - Great story. Short book. Not overwhelming.

4. Ruth - Beautiful story. Great opportunity to stretch your hearers with some Old Testament history and great application about God's faithfulness throughout the book

Here's a couple of books that helped me over the years become a better expositor: 

1. Biblical Preaching by Haddon Robinson

2. Rediscovering Expository Preaching by John MacArthur

Expository Preaching - Remember your Audience

The key to expository preaching so that it doesn't become a college lecture is to remember your audience. There's a misnomer that unchurched people aren't interested in history or background. Not true. Christians aren' the only people who watch the history channel.

I am a firm believer in giving as much facts and data as you want... as long as it pushes the ball up the field.  I don't share trivia for the sake of trivia. Instead, the background you give should give a basis for the application you give. Application without a theological foundation is just a glorified episode of Dr. Phil. 

So remember your audience - the whole audience. That there are new believers, non-believers, and seasoned believers in the seats and we need to make sure our messages speak to all 3. 

New Series Starting on Easter!

 

Why do you teach through books of the Bible?

Over the last 9 1/2 years we've taught 23 books of the Bible (it'll be 24 once I finish Esther in February). If you know me, then you know one of my life goals is to teach through the entire Bible. I'm sure there a few that I'll teach more than once, but my goal is to teach the 'whole counsel of God'. 

Having said that, why would I want to teach through the entire Bible? Here's a few reasons: 

1. It's the primary way to disciple new believers.

2. It teaches people to work their way through the Bible personally

3. You deal with topics you'd never talk about only doing topical messages

4. It lowers the stress level of the Pastor because he always knows what's coming next and doesn't hae to stress out about what to teach.

5. You will always come back to the Bible's major themes. 

There's other reasons, but I'll leave it at that.

I would encourage you to build book studies into your preaching calendar. You'll see a difference in your congregation!

New Series on Sunday!

Planning a Preaching Calendar (Part 4)

Most Pastors don't preach 52 weeks a year, nor should they in my opinion.

The reason is because it's not possible for a Pastor to hit 52 home runs a year. Plus, a Pastor should be grooming and raising up other teachers who are gifted and need to express their gift.

A healthy church needs to have more than one voice. It needs to have a few voices that can speak into the lives of the congregation in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So what should a Pastor do to introduce these other gifted communicators? 5 things:

1. Decide what Sundays you aren't going to teach - Plan those in advance and don't change your mind. This way you give your speakers plenty of advance notice.

2. Assign topics or passages of Scripture they are strong in (that you may not be) - Before becoming a dad, I never taught on parenting. But because parenting is atopic our church needs to hear about, I'd have other speakers teach on topics like parenting when I wasn't there.

3. Try them out on low attended Sundays - The Sunday after Thanksgiving or Memorial Day weekend used to be the Sundays every new teacher got first at our church. I still use low attended Sunday to 'break a new teacher in'. It's good because with a lighter crowd the pressure is lower and they can makes mistakes without scaring too many people away if the message goes south :)

4. Listen to their messages - I try to listen to every message that's given from my pulpit. It's my responsibility to make sure that what's being taught is quality, so I listen carefully and then share my thoughts with whichever staff member taught.

5. Give feedback in advance - Everyone who teaches gives their message in advance to our Pastoral staff. We listen, evaluate, encourage, and give feedback so they can tweak their message to take it from good to great. This is usually tough (most of our staff say it's harder than giving the message on Sunday), but it pays huge dividends if you take the time to do it.

Tomorrow I'll share one final thought about your preaching calendar...

Planning a Preaching Calendar (Part 3)

What makes the Fall different than the rest of the year? I didn't think anything, but my friend Nelson encouraged me to notice what people are thinking about during the Fall. School is starting and people are hitting the books. I noticed that every Fall I want to buy new pens, pencils, and a Trapper Keeper (do they even make those anymore?)

So we experimented with doing a spiritual growth campaign in the Fall this year and it has been a tremendous success. This is where the entire church is studying the same thing. This year we did "The New Testament Challenge" and as we looked at some of the major challenges of the New Testament on Sunday (systematic theology), we had everyone in our church reading through the New Testament in 63 days and discussing the reading in their Small Groups (verse by verse). Our children's ministry and youth ministry are also working through the New Testament challenge as well at each age level. The result has been fantastic spiritual growth in the lives of those taking the challenge.

It has also been a great way to get people into small groups and to raise up new small group leaders. I believe this is something that is going to become a permanent fixture for us each Fall.

You may want to plan to try one as well.

Tomorrow I want to talk about pacing yourself throughout the year in your teaching...

Planning a Preaching Calendar (Part 2)

Yesterday I talked about looking at the calendar, today I want to talk about balancing the calendar.

I believe there's a couple of different types of series that as Pastors we should teach each year:

- Evangelistic/ attractional series - I believe Easter is a time of great harvest, so we always plan a series of teaching that focus on a felt need, but end with a presentation of the Gospel.

- Book studies/ Spiritual Growth series - I try to teach 50% topical/ 50% book studies in a given year. I want the people in our church going through the Bible and learning God's Word. I believe it's a mistake to do all evangelistic and attractional messages. People need to come to Christ, but they also need to grow in Christ. Some of my Pastor friends disagree with me, but I don't believe a church can grow to maturity without expositional teaching. In 2009, I am planning to teach Ephesians, Titus, and Malachi. I may teach another book in the Fall, but I haven't nailed the Fall down yet :)

- Specialty messages - Every year, there's going to be weekends where you do what I call a "Specialty Message". This could be a message on baptism because of an upcoming baptism service. It might be a July 4th message where you decide to teach on freedom in Christ using the backdrop of America. Or mabye you want to teach a message on giving thanks around Thanksgiving. Every year, a specialty message or two make its way into the preaching calendar.

The key is to balance your calendar so you teach on evangelism and reach people and then get them in God's Word and begin the discipleship process.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the Fall and how it can bring tremendous growth and depth to your church....