…check out these words on being focused in your sermon from Mark Patterson.

I feel like I’m preaching a little bit more out of experience than out of study these days. This is going to sound heretical, but I think you can over-study. Sometimes I go into what I call the preaching forest and if I venture too far I can’t see the forest through the trees. I lose my perspective. I lose my point. My message can actually become muddled.

I’m more and more convinced that the best messages have one organizing metaphor. It is the law of scope–more is less and less is more. That is a huge challenge when I talk about chasing lions. I want to preach all 200 pages, but I really need to limit it to one dimension of lion chasing.

I think of it as the bed of nails principle. If you lay down on a bed of nails they won’t penetrate your skin because the pressure is diffused. That is what happens when we try to say too much. But one nail penetrates! That is why I believe in one-point preaching.

To read his other tips, go here: http://www.evotional.com/2007/03/preaching-forest.html

Found via: http://churchrelevance.com/2007/03/13/mark-battersons-4-preaching-tips/