I have answered about 20 phone calls this month dealing with the same question. It is, "What do you mean by the sermon's purpose?" In lesson one of the Preaching with Power course I teach that the first thing you need to determine before you begin to write a sermon is its purpose. The purpose of the sermon is NOT its theme or its subject. It is simply what you want the listeners to do as a result of hearing the sermon? Why are you preaching this particular sermon? What do you hope to accomplish with this sermon? Perhaps I need to re-write that section of the Preaching With Power course this month.

I have been busy re-building my web site at www.preachwithpower.org to be a more helpful site with more sermon building material and essays on methods of sermon creation. I hope to put up hundreds of pages or resources in the next several months. One of the biggest sections will be at www.preachwithpower.org/sermonoutlines . Every day I hope to publish a new outline. Another section I am working on daily is www.preachwithpower.org/sermonstarters . This consists of small sermon seeds and sermon ideas to jump start the creative process.

I have begun a blog at wordpress. That blog will deal more with personal opinions etc. www.preachermarsh,wordpress.com There is not much there yet, but since it will rain a lot today I will have time to post.