Brush up your preaching skills

Covenant Seminary hosts free mp3 downloads of our Preparation and Delivery of Sermons course which is taught by Dr. Bryan Chapell, President of the Seminary and author of numerous books, including Christ Centered Preaching.

As one who has taken this course, and benefitted greatly from the homiletics program at the Seminary, I reccomend everyone to download the lectures. They will help improve your skills and give you much to think about.

Another resource people should utilize is podcasting via iTunes. I use iTunes to download several podcasts and listen to sermons from different pastors from different parts of the country with different ministry/preaching styles. I think this is important that way you don't get stuck in a rut with what you hear and how you preach. Think about it; every Sunday there are literally hundreds of thousands of sermons preached just in the U.S. alone. If you add the whole world to that, then there are millions of sermons every Sunday, all from the same Bible. Each sermon is (or should be) derrived from its particular social/ethnic/theological context, but it is helpful for someone in St. Louis to hear something from Seattle. It gives you a little different take on a passage, as well as a better understanding of what's going on in the broader Church.

Now, I do not suggest just listening to sermon after sermon after sermon. We should study for ourselves and not "rip-off" material form others. I just think that it can be helpful to listen to people inside and outside your own tradition and context to gain better insight on delivery, interpretation (even!), illustrative material, and edification. Listening to others' sermons has helped me to improve greatly with regard to my own style and how I deliver sermons and I think it can help others as well.