{"id":798139,"date":"2023-02-27T05:00:23","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=798139"},"modified":"2023-02-27T08:38:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T14:38:51","slug":"please-destroy-any-of-my-recorded-sermons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/please-destroy-any-of-my-recorded-sermons\/","title":{"rendered":"Please Destroy Any of My Recorded Sermons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of my recorded sermons are on cassette tapes. I know what you are thinking. I am old.<\/span><\/p>\n

I served as pastor of four churches and as interim pastor of nine churches. Many of the churches recorded my sermons and distributed them via cassette tapes. There are a lot of my sermons out there. I cringe thinking about someone listening to them today.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am not, nor was I ever, a good preacher. My words are not those of false humility. They are frank reflections of reality. Here are some of the reasons my past sermons are really bad.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. I did not deal with the biblical text sufficiently.<\/b> As I have listened to pastors in recent years, I am grateful for their solid biblical exposition. But my sermons mostly did not dig deeply into the text.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. My sermons had too many illustrations.<\/b> One of the reasons I did not deal well with the biblical text was my overdependence on illustrations. I told too many stories instead of dealing with God\u2019s story.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. I was dependent on emotions too often.<\/b> I used emotional illustrations often. I added humor too frequently. I was sadly dependent on emotionally moving the hearers rather than leaving the work to the Holy Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Some of my sermons reflected insufficient preparation.<\/b> In most of my churches, I preached two different sermons, one on Sunday morning and one on Sunday night. In addition, I prepared two Bible studies, one for a small group class I taught and one for Wednesday night services. Instead of doing one sermon well each week, I prepared several sermons poorly.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. I did not give sermons priority in my ministry. <\/b>Too often I let the tyranny of the urgent replace a needed focus on my preparation and preaching. My use of time in ministry reflected poor stewardship.<\/span><\/p>\n

I apologize to those of you who sat under my preaching. It is my prayer that God used my preaching despite me. I could have done better. I should have done better.<\/span><\/p>\n

Somewhere in my house are several boxes containing hundreds of cassettes. My wife probably does not want them destroyed. She will likely want our three sons to have them. I cringe at the thought of the three of them laughing heartily as they listen to their old man trying to preach. I cringe even more thinking about my grandchildren getting the cassettes.<\/span><\/p>\n

For those of you who are new in the preaching world, please consider my counsel. Do the opposite of what I did, and you will do well as a preacher.<\/span><\/p>\n

And if you happen to come across one of my old sermons on a cassette, please destroy it immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n

The world will be a better place for your diligence.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most of my recorded sermons are on cassette tapes. I know what you are thinking. I am old. I served as pastor of four churches and as interim pastor of nine churches. Many of the churches recorded my sermons and distributed them via cassette tapes. There are a lot of my sermons out there. I…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,183,175,192,177,14796,194,185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-798139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-communications","category-grow","category-how-to","category-lead","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-preaching","category-worship"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPlease Destroy Any of My Recorded Sermons | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I served as pastor of four churches and as interim pastor of nine churches. 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