28 March, 2024

The Web World I Travel: Resources for Bible Teaching (Part 1)

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by | 19 October, 2012 | 1 comment

By Greg Lee

I preach . . . so the Internet has become a great friend of mine. Yes, it”s fraught with potential pitfalls. You should avoid wasting time there viewing bad content or downloading a full sermon as a “Saturday Night Special.” But the web at its best is a place I use for the following:

 

Living in the Present

Throw away your shoebox of news clippings set aside as illustrations you might use someday. Isn”t it almost always better to have an example from last Tuesday instead of 1998? No shockers here: cnn.com,news.google.com, people.com, espn.com, and the website for a local newspaper.

 

Accessible Research

Wikipedia.org is great for basic information (not for controversial subjects where contributors are promoting their own bias). Beyond that, you can immediately find statistics or studies on a wide range of issues from sites likegallup.com, lifeway.com, pewresearch.org, and psychologytoday.com.

 

Inspiration

My preaching gets better””and my own soul is awakened””when I listen to great preaching. That makes sermon podcasts at iTunes essential to me. Beyond the spiritual benefit, I also get new ideas for sermons and series, notice how different guys are structuring their messages, and listen for why some humor works and some doesn”t. The podcasts are free and play on your computer, iPod, or Smartphone, so I rotate the feeds from five to 10 pastors I want to listen to every few months.

 

Bible Study

Much of what we used to spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on for books or computer programs is now available free online. For simple use of various translations: BibleGateway.com. For reading plans and the best mobile app: youversion.com. For in-depth textual study: netbible.org, bible.cc, and blueletterbible.org. If you haven”t visited them, you will be shocked how much is there!

 

Something Pithy

Need a great quotation? Brainyquote.com and thinkexist.com are awesome. Trying to find the right video clip? While YouTube has everything, it is also a wasteland. Try wingclips.com, sermonspice.com, or bluefishtv.com.

 

Idea Organization

I need a simple system to remember the article I read, quote I heard, or experience I had, so Evernote.com is a gift from God. It is no exaggeration when Evernote claims you can “capture all of your thoughts, ideas, and inspirations, into a single place.”

 

Open Source

The web is about sharing. You can use great resources other pastors want to share and share yours with them at enormous sites like sermoncentral.com. Also, very large churches are becoming very generous to share what they create with any church that wants to use it. The most comprehensive is LifeChurch”s open.lifechurch.tv; on it you can freely browse and download sermons, series, graphics, videos, worship plans, and more. I think most people understand today you keep your integrity in check by acknowledging sources you directly use and doing your own study and preparation””it”s more than changing the names of Craig Groeschel”s kids to your own when you tell his stories!

 

Feedback

The web at its best is social where, beyond just gathering information, you can interact easily with people. For yearly planning, I ask on my blog, “What should we teach on this year?” I get more responses than I could ever use. It is interesting to see what people are curious about, and it has prompted more than one series.

I also ask, “What would your unchurched neighbor come to church to hear about?” I think that is an even better question. In planning specific messages, I use Facebook to ask people questions about a theme or a text, and it helps me apply the message to Monday, not just to Sunday.

In evaluation, we use zoomerang.com””again a free resource””that lets you design your own surveys for simple feedback from any group of people.

Greg Lee is lead pastor with Suncrest Christian Church in St. John, Indiana.

 

1 Comment

  1. Mike

    Thanks for the resources mentioned. I already know and use a good deal of them. I noticed that e-sword didn’t make the list, but is also great””downloadable and free, with Bibles, dictionaries, commentaries, maps, etc.

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