Overcoming the feeling that you haven't studied enough
With so many resources available in Logos, do any of you battle the feeling that you haven't studied or prepared enough prior to delivering a lesson or a sermon?
I often sit down to study for a lesson and I am overwhelmed with the number of resources I have at my fingertips waiting to be read or studied in preparation, and regardless of how long I spend in my study I see that I haven't even put a dent in the materials that I have available.
At what point can one say, I have prepared enough, let me now teach what I have learned?
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I understand where you are coming from. A number of years ago when I was leading a home group bible study my wife told me that sometimes my lessons were "too deep" for the group. She was right. I was trying to disseminate knowledge rather than actually meet the needs of the group or help them discover and understand how God's word might meet a need.
My advice would be to try and develop a specific purpose, goal, or theme with each lesson and then focus creating a lesson that meets that goal. I would also advise taking advantage of dividng your library into collections and developing a good process for your personal study. There are a number of good resources in logos will give you some good ideas. A few I have used are RA Torrey's "How to Study the Bible for Greatest Profit", Bob Utley's "You Can Understand the Bible, and the Handbook for Bible Study. There are many others you may find helpful.
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Derek,
Speaking here as a non-ordained minister, its so easy to think that we arent ready, Moses did, others also including Jeremiah did - I find Jer 1v4-8 so reassuring.
6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” 7 But the LORD said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
declares the LORD.”
The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Je 1:6–8). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.You can only teach what you know, teaching that has sunk into your heart and has grown root, and sprouted, this is the teaching that brings forth fruit because it is real..
... sometimes (if you are like me) you can read and reread and wrestle with a difficult passage and it wont make sense, sometimes the message only comes through blood toil and tears, (atleast I have found that) and I find if it has not impacted my heart during study and I am recycling another persons view, it can appear dry and lifeless, and sadly at times maybe we have to admit it is the case, at the end of the day we all can pray is, "Here I am Lord, your humble
servant, help me communicate the truthes of this passage and your love
clearly.."and guess what He does... the message and the teaching are His, we sow, He reaps, his word accomplishes the purpose(s) for which it was sent, despite us and our feelings of inadequacy, praise to His Name
Never Deprive Anyone of Hope.. It Might Be ALL They Have
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Derek Browning said:
At what point can one say, I have prepared enough, let me now teach what I have learned?
That's the biggie. Even after I've killed the horse I find that I tend to stand there and to continue pounding on it.
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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The biggest risk is spending our time preparing the mind and not preparing the heart.
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Derek,
I feel your pain! :-)
I have been in ministry for over 35 years, and now working predominately on training and equipping ministers and ministries. What I have learned is that you can never learn enough. Two things I recommend:
1) Personal preparation - by that I mean spending quality time with the Person of God, apart from, but in the context of, the Word of God. God doesn't need teachers, He desires models who teach. Only truths that have been "born again" in you will ever really help and transform those whom you teach. I tell people that we have to demonstrate as well as proclaim the gospel.
2) Ask God to tell you what the person or persons whom you will be teaching actually need right now (where they are are, where they are going and what they need to get there). People don't need Bible teaching. What they need is the part of the Bible that they need for the season in their life that they are in right now. The good news is that God still speaks to His servants that information so that they are equipped to give a good word "in season". I am ever so thankful that God still speaks outside of the Bible (but never in contradiction to the Bible).
You have in Logos the best tools available to help you prepare once you are prepared and you know what the people need. Just don't let the massive amount of resources overwhelm you, work on getting what you actually need so that you can give it effectively. Remember, as ministers we are only the mailman. We give the message (birthed in prayer and study of the Word), and then after giving the message cover the recipients in prayer that they will take the message to heart and be doers of the word and not just forgetful hearers. If you do just that, you will hear well, done on that day! And after all, that is what it is all about, isn't it?
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Derek Browning said:
do any of you battle the feeling that you haven't studied or prepared enough prior to delivering a lesson or a sermon?
Oh most definately, I must also point out that you are never really prepared enough for the Word of God. it is infinite and perfect and we are finite and flawed. We need to always study his word and consistently go back and study his word some more. When we think we have had enough of God's word....for preparation; we are in real trouble.
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I guess that's my problem, I'm not quite sure that I ever know when the horse is dead. Lesson planning usually stops with me just giving up and saying "that will have to work", as opposed to me saying..."this is it."
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Derek Browning said:
I guess that's my problem, I'm not quite sure that I ever know when the horse is dead. Lesson planning usually stops with me just giving up and saying "that will have to work", as opposed to me saying..."this is it."
This video may be beneficial to you
[View:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM4O-i3bS3M:550:0]0 -
There have been some very good things sad already. So I will simply add that, Yes I often feel that I'm leaving something unstudied. But I almost always have more to preach/teach than I have time to preach/teach it.
For instance I usually end up with something around nine pages of notes and I have to turn that into a measly three page sermon. :-)
There is still lots of Logos to plumb but my time is finite and so I have learned to operate within those boundaries.
George Somsel said:Derek Browning said:At what point can one say, I have prepared enough, let me now teach what I have learned?
That's the biggie. Even after I've killed the horse I find that I tend to stand there and to continue pounding on it.
On the other hand after my study is "complete" and the sermon also is written and tweaked. I then worry about overteaching what I'm teaching and beating the horse from that angle.
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
Derek Browning said:
I often sit down to study for a lesson and I am overwhelmed with the number of resources I have at my fingertips waiting to be read or studied in preparation, and regardless of how long I spend in my study I see that I haven't even put a dent in the materials that I have available.
You guys better quit making statements like the one above or else Logos might decide to lower the number of resources they offer in their packages and even future upgrades.
My advice is: 1) Don't try to read all of your resources, 2) Make a collection of practical resources for sermon prep. or prioritize the resources that you use the most and 3) Go over your material before presenting it. If you waste time trying to see what every single resource says about the lesson you want to preach, then that means you need to organize yourself better with time and how you approach the resources you have at your finger tips. Guys, please understand this: You DON'T have to read your entire library to prepare a sermon on, let's say: James 1:12, because It'd be unwise to do so. I love Logos and when I first got it I spent too much time just trying to run search results about certain passages and see what every book in my library had to say about it and trust me that started affecting my sermon delivery and it also affected the content of my sermons. I was trying to pack too much information that in the end the whole sermon was not profitable for the audience. Remember, is the audience we're trying to reach with simple practical truths. Just take for instance the simplicity with which Jesus taught the importance of obeying His Word. In Matthew 7:24-27 one simple illustration got the point across. If you hear and obey you're wise, if you hear and you know you need to obey, but you don't then you're foolish." Simple truths like this one will be the ones that will be impressed on our hearers heart, not how much content from every book in our Logos library we can pack in one sermon. So don't feel bad, just organize yourself a little bit better....[:)]...Anyway, I hope I didn't come across like I'm rebuking you or something like that. I understand where you're coming from, but it's just a matter of organizing yourself and prioritizing your resources to make the best use of the software on your sermon prep.
For more information, please pre-order the I-Beam of sermon preparation by Morris Proctor: http://www.logos.com/product/8493/the-i-beam-of-message-building
You might also find the "Inductive Bible Study with Logos 4" Manual very useful to organize your resources better and have a more meaningful and productive Bible study. You can get it here: http://www.logos.com/product/6835/inductive-bible-study-with-logos-bible-software
Blessings!
Douglas
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I use Bible storying, which means I have to translate from the Greek or Hebrew (assisted by English for the Hebrew!) into the sort of Albanian that's comprehensible in our village. To do that, you need to know what it means (mist in the pulpit's a fog in the pew!). The Albanian translations, even when accurate (not all the time) are often not comprehensible to those among whom I live. If I can't translate it into Albanian, 90% of the time, it's because I don't understand the original. Hence Logos. My first port of call is always UBS Translators Handbook (any update coming for that, Logos, to cover the missing books?). Then I tend to go to Cornerstone and/or Tyndale, now contested by WBC and, after my last wild fling, NICOT/NT. Once I feel I understand the text well enough to translate it, I don't need to continue wading thro the commentaries. Sometimes I go through all of them and still don't understand it. Having clarified my own understanding of the text, I try to present a paraphrase of what the text says, referring to the commentaries as little as possible. e.g. in the MAry and Joseph story, I tell them that an engagement normally lasted a year (information gleaned from the commentaries), so Joseph would get some rude remarks about a shotgun marriage when he married Mary hastily and the Child made his appearance indecently early.
So the more I know, the better I can communicate. But I don't need to chuck it all at them! In fact I'm trying to train others to tell the stories, and they don't have access to any commentaries. But they can communicate what they understand better than I can, though I may understand much more. The important thing is communicating the Word in a way God can use to speak to people's hearts, and our Believers can often do that much better than I can. It's still my duty and my joy to try to understand the text as well as I can. I think I've now got about as many commentaries as I need (still waiting for some on prepub, but am thinking of ducking out of EEC now I have splurged on NICOT/NT).
But I'm so grateful to Logos for offering the resources that help me do my job better.
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I guess I approach my preaching with a different perspective. I figure that when I'm delivering a homily these are not my words but the words of the Holy Spirit, so I trust in His help to guide me to the resources I need to deliver that specific message for that specific day to that specific group of people. I'm not saying that I do not study or prepare, and leave everything to chance but that at the end of the day I trust that the Good Lord will provided me with the right words to deliver His message to the people of God and forget about my own inadequacy. After all there is no way I could stand in front of all these people to deliver my own misguided messages. Of all the prep I do, I think daily prayer is the most important part.
Merry Christmas!!
Viva Cristo Rey!!
Deacon Harbey Santiago
Archdiocese of Baltimore
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nicky crane said:
I use Bible storying, which means I have to translate from the Greek or Hebrew (assisted by English for the Hebrew!) into the sort of Albanian that's comprehensible in our village. To do that, you need to know what it means (mist in the pulpit's a fog in the pew!). The Albanian translations, even when accurate (not all the time) are often not comprehensible to those among whom I live. If I can't translate it into Albanian, 90% of the time, it's because I don't understand the original. Hence Logos. My first port of call is always UBS Translators Handbook (any update coming for that, Logos, to cover the missing books?). Then I tend to go to Cornerstone and/or Tyndale, now contested by WBC and, after my last wild fling, NICOT/NT. Once I feel I understand the text well enough to translate it, I don't need to continue wading thro the commentaries. Sometimes I go through all of them and still don't understand it. Having clarified my own understanding of the text, I try to present a paraphrase of what the text says, referring to the commentaries as little as possible. e.g. in the MAry and Joseph story, I tell them that an engagement normally lasted a year (information gleaned from the commentaries), so Joseph would get some rude remarks about a shotgun marriage when he married Mary hastily and the Child made his appearance indecently early.
So the more I know, the better I can communicate. But I don't need to chuck it all at them! In fact I'm trying to train others to tell the stories, and they don't have access to any commentaries. But they can communicate what they understand better than I can, though I may understand much more. The important thing is communicating the Word in a way God can use to speak to people's hearts, and our Believers can often do that much better than I can. It's still my duty and my joy to try to understand the text as well as I can. I think I've now got about as many commentaries as I need (still waiting for some on prepub, but am thinking of ducking out of EEC now I have splurged on NICOT/NT).
But I'm so grateful to Logos for offering the resources that help me do my job better.
May I briefly hijack this?
I assume that in Albania you are dealing with a predominanty Muslim populace. How does that work? Do you encounter much opposition?
george
gfsomselיְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
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In general not much opposition from Muslims, tho in one village the small boys were encouraged to throw rocks at my jeep. They dented the metal but God protected the glass! It wasn't the stones they threw that prevented us continuing in that village, but the eventual lack of desire to continue studying the Bible. I refuse to speak ill of Islam, tho I have some criticisms of people's failure to practise the principles in which they claim to believe. Some people oppose us on the ground that they are Muslims, but people make the same excuse in England: "I'm Catholic", or Methodist, or whatever. The main opposition is spiritual: it's a battle for every enquirer, let alone Believer. There does seem to be acute spiritual opposition to Muslims realising that Jesus came for them. I have in the past had opposition from other Christians for refusing to speak against Islam, and, even worse, for causing scandal by attending the Catholic church (I'm Anglican, so used to attend both evangelical and Catholic churches). There has been a lot of backbiting at times, but the same words have been said in the same tone of voice, sometimes, by Christians, Muslims and atheists alike, so I presume it all came from the same spiritual source.
The few who have become believers have mainly been Muslims who were serious enough about their faith to want to learn more about God. As I was the only one offering to teach them, they came in contact with the Bible and rubbed up against Jesus. At first they tended to say: I'm a Muslim and I believe in Jesus. Now they usually say: I was a Muslim and now I believe in Jesus. I don't worry about labels. As there are Messianic Jews, in some countries there are also Jesus mosques. We don't have that here, and there's no call for it where I live as the Muslims are not very serious about keeping the rules of their faith. The idea of sacrifice is meaningful to people here, the idea of Jesus pouring out his blood to save us from our sins. Because sacrifice and blood are meaningful to them. They also appreciate that Jesus' sacrifice was much more than the regular idea of sacrifice here, which is often largely an excuse for a barbecue.
I've been here 17 years and still have a lot to learn. I had to wait 17 years before the country opened up, so I'm very aware of the privilege of being here, although we all find the culture challenging, to say the least!
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