Our preaching students are just that – students. They have offered brief Bible talks and have participated in various aspects of the public worship but they have never presented a full length sermon. The need to prepare them to speak became even more pressing when we learned of a pulpit vacancy that will soon occur in Moco Moco. The students will assume the preaching duties there for the present time.
We began to teaching and clarify some fundamental Bible doctrines that these men will have to face very soon. On this the second day of classes we began to teach about the nature of the church. Like so many places in America, Guyana has many religious denominations. The people are often confused by so many differing views and ideas. By grounding the students in what the Bible actually says about the church we hope to help them teach undenominational, New Testament, Christianity to the people.
Our morning class began with a discussing of the word “church” and its usage in the Bible. We then sought to show other words used for the church including “kingdom” and the “body of Christ.” From this we were able to show that Jesus Christ is the owner of the church (Matthew 16:18; Acts 20:28) and the King over his kingdom (1 Timothy 6:15).
From this it becomes evident that ownership brings certain privileges such as the right to name his church, the right to set standards for admission and the right to define the activities of the church. The morning was a fine start to this study.
In the afternoon we began to teach the students how to develop an outline for preaching. They first chose a text and then developed the “big idea” from within that text. It is important that sermons always arise from the text and not from some idea or concept with the preacher. Students must let the word do the preaching.
