Repreaching Sermons

My congregations has requested that I repreach some.

 

Sure I think it is ok to repreach messages. I don't believe the Lord leads a pastor in the study and working of the sermon for just a one time occassion.

 

Whenever I do recycle...I find myself making quite a few changes...ESPECIALLY if the sermon is more than a few months old.

Please don't take this wrong: I'm a better speaker than I was five years ago. Not trying to brag...hopefully, as we mature, refine our skills, live and learn, we ALL get better. Some of my older sermons kind of make me cringe...I look at them and say, "Man, I could have done better than THAT."


So the older the "recycled object," the more work I have to put into it to meet my standards for how it should be delivered.

 

sometimes having to eat stale bread keeps one humble.

 

true...but I don't want to feed the stale bread to the rest of the gang.

 

lol, rbell.

seriously though, I see no problem with preaching an old message.

I have beside me on my desk a tape by Dr. J. Harold Smith 'God's Three Deadlines.' This message was preached many times by Dr. Smith before his passing, yet each time it was very effective.

And yes, I would agree, the longer we are in the ministry, the more we are able to better tweak our earlier sermons.

I remember the first message I preached. I was in Berkley Springs, West Virginia; 1982. I prepared a message on 'A New Man.'

As I preached, I got nervous among the seasoned pastors that were present (it was at a campground).

I stumbled all over my words. Instead of saying, 'Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour working with his hands' my words came out, 'Let him that stole, steal; no more let him work with the hands.' Needless to say, I received a few guffaws that night.

But they allowed me to come back. I have since preached that sermon twice and each time it gets better; not necessarily because I am more seasoned, but because the Lord reveals more each time I read the Word.

 

all christians are to be workmen, not just preachers.

as to laziness because of repreaching a sermon, I do not believe it is so. Just as the Spirit opens new revelations when we study the Word, He can give us new revelation to add to the old Word.

 

Rippon, I think you are taking too great leap here. You are assuming that a pastor that repreaches a message is not studying the Scripture regularly.

I am sure that does happen, but I do not think that is the rule.

Here is an instance when I have repreached an old message. I was preaching through a book and came to a difficult text, after wrestling with it for awhile it became evident that it was going to need more time than I had before Sunday. So I repreached on old message while continuing to wrestled with the text and preached the new message the following week.

I have also used some old messages when I first arrive at a church to free up some extra time to build relationship with people and get to know the church, etc.

Like rbell said though, just about every time I repreach a message I make revisionis to it. There is always something that can be improved upon and especially updating illustrations and applications based on the current situation.

 

I was requested to repreach a message on the salvation of the soul, by those who had already heard it, but on behalf of some who were not there the first time.

By the same token, we were doing a lengthy series on the preaching of John the Baptizer, followed by a series on the appearance of Jesus. When Jesus was baptized, there were several who had not been there the first time for the lesson on baptism, os it was taught again.

 

I cannot remember who the preacher was who said, "If a message is not worth preaching twice, it probably wasn't worth preaching the first time."

 

As a missionary raising his support (which is finally almost done) I have preached the same message more than once in different churches... I do get tired of them, and I do loose the "freshness" that I had the first few times I preached it so I prepare another one.

I have heard my pastor use the same message twice, but it is a rare occasion.

 

I think there's two questions here: Preach the same sermon again? Yes, since the sermon will ideally exposit the meaning of a text and that meaning will not change since the text doesn't change. However, do tweak the application to your context and always keep fresh illustrations. As someone pointed out, if you don't think you can preach it more than once, don't preach it at all!

 

i've preached the same text on multiple occassions, but i haven't repreached a sermon to a congregation. But then again, i've only been at my current place of service for 2 years...

 

During my 20 year pastorate, I never repeated any sermon, but did come back to certain texts several times, with a fresh "take". As I am now doing pulpit supply, I find that I can reuse sermons only if I refresh them and sometimes add more contemporary illustrations.

But the laziness factor ... in one church where I was a member years ago, we figured out that our new pastor wasin trouble when after only six months he had begun to repeat messages! He left us shortly thereafter.

In another church the pastor did a poll in the spring of each year, asking the people which messages they would like to hear again in the summer. I wanted a place to check, "None of the Above"! It felt like, "Oh, summer, let's goof off!"

 

I take notes in my Bible, and I always catch myself smiling when I read a phrase in my notes that reminds me the pastor has preached this same sermon before. That is a smile of love and recognition. I doubt the sermon is exactly the same! And would I remember if it really was? Nope. Would I get something new out of the exact same sermon? I'm sure I would. After all, we put them on CDs and people check out their favorites to listen to time and time again.

Repetition is good for learning.

 

haven't repeated any yet... but, that is just because I have been here 18 months, and this is my first pastorate.
I may preach from the same passage, but don't plan to use the same outline, however, I learned to never say never.

 

I was recently requested to repreach a sermon, but for Sunday evening Bible study. We went through each point, searching things out, and it took me 3 weeks to repreach it.