Thursday 21 February 2008

Catchy sermon titles

I’m doing a sermon series on Romans, beginning in April. I’m trying to dream up some catchy titles for the sermons.
There’s multiple purposes for this. Hopefully we’ll post the titles on the noticeboard in front of church. Having provocative titles, that change each week, should signal to the area that this church is alive, active and (hopefully…) interesting. If I can get organised in time, we’ll do a leaflet drop across the neighbourhood. Also, I hope it’ll give church regulars a basis to invite friends to church. “Hey, would you like to visit church this Sunday? We’re gonna be talking about… ”.
Here’s what I got so far:

Rom 1:1-6, 16-17: How to have meaning & purpose in life

Actual main point: To be in the centre of God's purposes for the world, you
need to be ruled by Christ, who is the ruler of the world.

Rom 1:7-17: How to build strong communities

Actual main point: Strong churches (communities) are built around the risen
Lord Jesus. They submit to his rule, encourage each other to continue to
submit to his rule, and plead with everyone else to do so as well.

Rom 1:18-2:1: Why it's dangerous to do it "my way"

Actual main point: Human "wisdom" actively rejects God and makes him
mad! Social chaos is a symptom of this.

Rom ch 2: Why God hates religion

Actual main point: Human "religion" - even religion based on God's revelation
of himself in the OT - leads to self-righteousness. If we really paid
attention to God's moral standards, which are expressed most clearly in the OT
law, but are also impressed upon everyone's conscience, we'd realise we all fall
short of them (= sin), and deserve condemnation.

Rom 3:1-20: The one thing we all have in common

Actual main point: The one thing we all have in common is we're all entirely
guilty before God. All of us - Jew & Gentile. Entirely - throat,
tongue, mouth, feet, eyes. Which means we all need someone else - God
himself - to fix the mess.

What d’you think?
Advice, anyone…?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Kamal,


Stumbled onto your blog ...

I'm not commenting on how each title fits in with the passage, but personally, I'd get rid of words 'how' and 'why'

eg.

1. Have meaning and purpose in life
2. It is dangerous to do it 'my way'
3. God hates religion

etc...

Removing 'how' increases immediacy... We don't just want people to know how to have meaning - we want them to have meaning.


PS.

My brother's wife is Lucy. (your blog link calls her Lisa)



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