So, what I'm going to share in the next 25 minutes is really a bit of a personal sort of focus on how I personally prepare for a preach because obviously everybody's different. We've all had our journeys and we've come from different places, and it all comes out in how we preach. And so when I was preparing these notes, um I was going to put guidelines for preaching, and I thought it's Claire's guidelines for preaching. So I'm just that's my little disclaimer that this is how I approach it, and everyone has their different ways, but there are definitely some things over the last 20 years or so of preaching that I know I've become quite passionate about in preaching that that I want to see and and um hear in preaching, so I'm going to share some of them. But I was just thinking of um, I was a very shy uh child and teenager, very, very shy, and um would never in a million years have spoken in public. And actually, when I became conscious as I got older, and um you know, sometimes I was asked to lead like in a young people's group or something, that I actually hated the thought of it, and I didn't even like people who wanted to do it because I thought they were just a bit much, and um, but I was um I I just helped in the Sunday school at my little Baptist church, and I can remember a particular day one one Sunday morning when I was telling a story, I can't remember what the story was, but with a group of six-year-olds, I think, and I just remember this moment when I modulated my voice and I whispered in the story because of what was happening in this Bible story, and I can remember the note the way I just noticed this sort of group concentration of all these little kids suddenly all came into together just because I was whispering, and um, it really sort of impacted me in it in that I really I just learned something that I could capture people just from modulating my voice, and I learned how to tell little Bible stories, you know, and for a few years that's that's what I did, but it really um it did give me a some sense of that there's power in I've got some power in my voice, and how I speak is um is is you know, there's a power in it, and it matters, it matters how you present yourself, and it matters, and how you connect with people you're speaking with is so important. So, what you just said is really important. Connecting with people, so I'm gonna go through a few things, these are my top tips, um, and you'll have loads of others of your own, as you you know, I'm sure you all do. But one thing is how how connecting with people, one thing I do is I just imagine a person that I'm preaching to who I know will be sitting there, and I've in fact I've got about five people, my go-to people. So, my sister, Jane Reeves, and sometimes in our service feedback on Monday morning, people get the Jane Reeves feedback from what she thought of the thing because I know how she thinks, and there's other people, so you know, I always think of trying of a man I know. So, because I don't want to just be a feminine preacher who preaches to women, I want to sort of have a voice that will cross some of those barriers, and I always think what if somebody is in the room who's never been in church before? I always think it is a discipline for me to prepare a talk with that in mind. What if somebody has never ever heard any of this before? What would they make of me saying this? So, what do I need to say in order for them to find a way in? You know, so one of the ways that one of the times when you most experience that is that if you speak at a wedding and three quarters of the people in the room aren't Christians, and how on earth do you you speak about that? In the summer I spoke at a wedding and they wanted 1 Corinthians 13, brilliant passage, and um, and you know, it's easy to preach out of that on love, but actually the thing I landed with was I've got to tell people who wrote this, and the fact that he was a murderous religious zealot, you know, because and so how did he get from being that to writing the most famous passage in history, possibly on love? That was I just was thinking, all these people they have no idea this great sounding thing came from this voice. So I always think about that. I always think about older people or somebody's suffering. So it's in some ways we're I don't want to repeat the point, but there is there is that sense of connecting with who you're speaking to, and that is before you do anything. So in my notes here, I've got what do you do before? If your um preaching is part of Woody's, or we are we're pretty much always in a series, so it's part of your job to explain why why why this sermon is coming out today on this particular day. You need to explain something of the context of where we're thinking because it's part of the mission of the church, and um Dave's covered this a little bit, and so you know, for a few words about what we're doing at the moment, that needs to be part of it. So you need to read the sermon outline, the series outline, and work out well, what's your bit of this series outline, and then you need to read the passage, and I always read it in a few versions. I mean, I'm sure you know all this stuff, but um, it's worth you know, what are you doing when you're doing that? Is really you're looking for it to start to impact you personally, and you know, so reading reading Bible passages in a few versions. I like reading the message version. Now I know it's not a technically, you know, like um, you know, it's not it's not for exegesis, it's actually somebody's personal um interpretation. But Eugene Peaceon was an incredible theologian who deliberately wrote the message because he noticed his students when he was teaching at Bible college weren't really excited by the Bible, and he was like, I'm it's incredibly exciting. And he really he realized that they just hadn't engaged with the kind of street version of what it was teaching, they were engaging on this intellectual level, and so actually the message. Some you know, if you want to read a sermon on Israel, read Romans 9, just the passage, that whole chapter in the message is absolutely brilliant, it's a sermon in itself. So, and then collect. This is so this is again my personal thing. I am not somebody who prepares in two hours like Dave. I tend to think at the beginning of the week I get a document up and I write the passage, these the sermon title, and I put the passage on the top of the document, I read a few times, then I start collecting. And I personally collect from anywhere and everywhere. So I read psychology journals, I read news articles, I put it into Google, I see who said something about it, I find people's quotes, I and what I'm doing, I'm chuck out 90% of what I collect, but sometimes something happens in the collection that's really fascinating. So yesterday I was reading an article about what how the brain changes when you think about your future. So, you know, I might use it on Sunday night and preparing a sermon on the spiritual disciplines. What on earth has it got to do with that? Come and see. Um so what so that that's before. Second point, um, introductions. For me, how you introduce a sermon is really important, and I spend a lot of time on the introduction, and it helps me to get into where I'm going as I'm preparing an introduction. So, some things that I think are really helpful in an introduction are a killer question. Now I know for asking a question at the beginning of a talk. Why do I do that? Because I think half the people in the room might be thinking about what they're gonna have for dinner afterwards. They're not there, they're not even interested yet. And um if you say to them we're gonna talk about um reading the Bible, they might be like, Yeah, yeah, I know about that, I've been reading the Bible all my life. But how can you ask a question that will make them think, oh, I don't know, don't know the answer to that, or make them think, or engage their brain, or come together. So back a few months ago, this is one of my favourite questions I've asked recently. I came up with the question, have you ever had to stop something to start something? And I just kind of let it hang there a little bit, and and then you know, I came back to it three times in the in the talk, and it was really about recognising sometimes you've got to make way for something by stopping something. And I think you know, spend a bit of time ask thinking about what is the question that is really that you're trying to answer, because a question will bring people together, and you need to ask questions that people actually want the answers to, you know. So it's not like Jesus is the answer, it's like why doesn't God answer prayer? You know, that's a question people have, isn't it? Why doesn't God heal more? It would be so great if he did a great great advert, the church. Why on earth doesn't he do that? Those questions are what people are really asking, so don't ask questions they're not asking. So, anyway, that's really a tell a story. Best speakers in the world apparently are telling a story within 30 seconds. So just launch into a story. I just did it. You know, when I was a child when I was younger, I I, you know, was teaching in Sunday school. It's just because it gets people into the room, really important. Um, I love images, quotes, I love stats, I love news articles, I love science articles. I often put a the odd one or two in a in an introduction. And so I try and form an introduction for it that will take about five minutes, starting with a question that will lead by the end of the introduction into so we're going to read this passage about this that we've been talking about that we've all come together to agree needs to be solved. And so by the end of my introduction, I want to say something like, you know, we're so we're going to go there now and we're going to read this passage. I might sometimes add a little Bible verse from the Old Testament or something in a different context that points to the thing. So that's how I do it, anyway. Everyone can do it differently, that's how I do it. When you read the second point, uh third point, when you read the Bible, read various passages. Um if you've got a massive Bible passage, what do you do? Do you make people in this day and age sit and listen to a five-minute Bible? I just don't think you can, but sometimes you need quite a lot of scripture in, or the whole chapter seems to tell a story. So, what do you do when you've got a massive bit of Bible that you want to use? Well, one thing I've just the again, top tips. One thing I think you can do sometimes is miss a good chunk of it out, but tell it in your own words. So, what's happened is he's been telling everybody this and he's been explaining why this, and then suddenly go to where in the passage is crucial, and that you actually want people to hear that bit of scripture, you can miss out middle sections and tell the beginning, and then after that, Jesus went away and he came back, and da da da, and you tell you tell a little bit in your own words, then you go back. And even though it's just as much talking, there's something about that way of doing it that is less is more engaging than just reading a really long passage. If you have to read a really long passage and you think they've got to hear every single word because it's amazing, tell them in advance. Just say, by the way, this is a massive reading. Are you up for this? Can you stay with me? You know, you know, it's kind of give them a heads up, and most people will engage with that. So that's my top tip. You're drawing, and then you then so you've done an introduction, you've done a Bible reading. This is my structure, and then I want to draw out some points. I generally do aim for about three because I think five or six is quite hard to follow. Unless you're more like Dave, who does tend to have a lot of points, but they all flow from one to another and they gradually build. But you've got to find your way of doing it. But I tend to go for three points. Now, here's something that I came across a few years ago, and I found it really helpful. How, what points do you make? What sort of points might be helpful in a sermon? Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California, he said this thing once. He said, in behind the scenes, while I'm preaching, I've got in my head this structure: head, heart, hands. And he said, Head corresponds to your thinking and how the person listening, um the point of preaching is to get to people's thinking and often distorted thinking and kind of start to work on it. So um, where does where's somebody believing a lie or got some kind of false understanding, or something needs to change in their thinking about something? And so, you know, you need to address it in some way. And so I tend to, my first point tends to be here's some information, here's a bit of exegesis about the passage, here's some context, this is why it's written, and then I'll zoom in on, you know, have you ever noticed that actually you've become really discouraged really easily around this, you know? Have you noticed that around the healing thing, there's a little part of you that is not really expecting healing to happen? So instead of saying, it's great, God's gonna heal today, doesn't he's great that he heals. Reality is you've got to get to that bit where they are thinking, yeah, but he's not really going to because I've done it like 50 times and you didn't. And if you don't address that thinking, or you're not really going to because I'm addicted to porn, and he doesn't listen to prayers of somebody who's addicted to porn, or whatever it is, the thinking that is going on behind the scenes in people, or I'm just full of shame, or I hate myself, or God doesn't listen to me, He's more interested in the superstar. All of those things are actually going to affect how people even listen to and respond to what you're preaching. So I think get into people's heads, that's my first thing. Second one, heart, what's got to change? What is possible to transform, be transformed in people's hearts? So actually, if you move to a place in in often, my second point is something to do with you know, God can forgive, He gives grace, He doesn't need you to be perfect in order to come into your life and meet you. He can heal when you're still in a mess. Or no, you are as important to God, and He wants to come and show you, and He wants to hear your heart, and He, you know, He wants to help you forgive because actually, if you don't forgive, you're gonna be stuck, and it's heart sort of stuff, and then finally, hands um for Rick Warren's. He he said it just corresponds to what you're gonna do differently, how are you gonna actually act in the world differently? I think that's really important. What do you want people to do afterwards? Just have a load more knowledge? Honestly, it's such a good question. What do you want people to do differently afterwards, after you've preached? And think about it and locate it. So that's you know, I'm drawing out those kind of points. Three things that I think are really important are contested ground, telling stories, and pivotal moments. So, um, contested ground, please find it when you're preaching. You know, what am I talking about? That is that is basically why people aren't already doing the thing. So everyone knows they've got to read their Bible. They're supposed to read it every day. Why aren't they? What is hard about it? Find the contested ground. If you don't find the contested ground, then basically it's all very agreeable, and you won't actually touch the thing that needs to change. You just won't get there. So people, so find, you know, Jesus, feeding of the five thousand. I'm just thinking off the top of my head, feeding of the five thousand. Okay, so that's about prayers of faith that can, you know, do these all this miraculous stuff, God's prediction. Why are people already not understanding that God wants to provide in that way and answer prayers in that way? You've got to get there. So you've got to find that where the fight is, and often it's a lie that's been being believed, or it's something around shame, or something like that, or um unbelief, or the culture around says something different, and so we're saying one thing, and the culture is saying it so loudly that they're just going to go out and just revert to what the culture is saying. That's a contest, isn't it? And so you've got to find that when you preach, and um, I really encourage you, otherwise, it's just I think that maybe the Bible is every single line in the Bible is written to tell us how to do something because we're not already going to naturally do it. Maybe that's a big thing to say, but I got a feeling that that it's all written because it's all contested. Think about it, you know, every single thing is not necessarily naturally instinctive. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Yes, we agree, but we're not. That's the pro we the reason why it needed to be written down. But tell stories, if you don't tell, basically, most people will mainly remember the stories you tell. So find some stories. And when you tell a story, we do we have a lot of storytelling in wholeness. When you tell a story, um don't just make the person feel like, well, that's great for you. You know, if you tell a personal story about your recovery from addiction, yeah, back in the day I recovered from addiction, it was really great, and now I'm really great. I'm just not addicted anymore. Good. Okay, that's nice for you. How can you tell that story so that people can think, ah, I could do that then? And I think this is the way to do it is to tell the general story, tell the great news and everything like that, and then to zoom in on moments where you had what I call light bulb moments, a moment when you realise something that actually God loves me, He's my father, and I realised because he was my father, that I'm loved and known, and that makes me unique and precious. It's some moment where you have some revelation, a light bulb moment that I can change or this can happen, and like my light bulb moment when I told whispered in my story, it was like a little moment of oh, that is you know a shift, and that helps other people to see, or I could do that too, or I could have that revelation, or whatever it is. So when you tell your personal stories, don't make people envious, make people enabled. And if you tell somebody else's story, you can do the same thing, but you've always got to check that you can tell the story, it's really, really important. And if they say, Oh, I don't know because I don't want to be known for it, you can sometimes anonymize it, but you have to check. And I think other people's stories are really can be so amazing. The other day, Dave told a story of your Southside guy who got baptized, and it was just to be honest, is this best bit of his sermon, it's right at the beginning. Can't remember anything he said after that. Um, I'm nearly finished. Um, one one more before I just sort of finish off, really. Look for fresh revelation, something is freshly revealed to you will really help you preach with a bit of fire. And to be really honest, if you're not moved by what you're preaching and experiencing as you're preparing, nobody else is going to be moved. So, do you know what's really amazing? Is if you cry while you're preparing a preach. Now, maybe you're not a crier, but it's kind of like that is that is the gold, it's the rever is where something impacts you and you share out of it. And so look for revelation in the passage. What's that mean? It means like a fresh unveiling of something that is that you thought you already knew. Remember this moment years ago, and it was it was an incredible moment for me. It's just I was reading the story of the Jesus on the boat in the storm, which I had read since I was five years old, and it was about ten years ago. I was reading this passage, I was reading it, preparing for preach, and the last line of this paragraph says this sentence that I've never noticed before. And there were other boats on the lake too. And I just thought, what? In my picture of Jesus in the boat in the storm with the disciples, there's never been Any other boats there? But the writer took care to write that, and I said I just thought, wow, they might not have even seen or heard. If it's a mad, wild storm and Jesus doing all that, they might not have even seen or heard what was going on. But they experienced the peace that came on that lake, the sudden dropping of the stall when Jesus said, peace be still. And they might have been very puzzled by it. They might have seen in a distance something had happened, or they might not have done. But the reality is, is when something happens to us and we experience something with Jesus that changes our life, the world gets to benefit. And that is the way of the kingdom, isn't it? And I just thought, wow, my peace, even if somebody doesn't even know God, my peace and the experience I have of peace can bring peace into the world. And that for me was a revelation. Loads of other things, you know, so many different things, but look for something that impacts you so that you can share that, and that's very important, I think. So that's really the my my main top tips. But uh, towards the end, so you've got your viewpoints and you've made them, they're gradually hopefully building in momentum towards something because, like these guys have said, you need to move, you you've taught needs to move towards ministry, so you just got to have that. You cannot just say the end, you know, you have to think where where am I going? And actually, what I feel like my main thing I think is I'm coming towards the end of a talk, is think about the work of the spirit. I don't want to say something that doesn't have to be supernatural, like go and try harder, go read your Bible more. You know, it needs to be something where the transforming power of the spirit is essential in order for this to happen, and then you can invite people into that kind of experience of do you want to experience the Holy Spirit helping you to do this or to deal with your shame or to help you forgive somebody or whatever it is, and so it just have that as a check as you come to the end. Make sure you have your sermon is has you've you know that it's got to be supernatural, otherwise, just a talk and some information. That's it, really. That's the end, the end, so yeah, that's the end.