Pastoring From The Prayer Closet

Sermons For Pastors Of Small Churches

After nearly three decades of preaching to the same congregation, I’ve learned that a sermon doesn’t have to be complicated to be meaningful.

I’m sharing these sermons freely with fellow pastors. My hope is that you’ll find ideas, illustrations, and biblical insights that will help you as you prepare to preach to the people God has entrusted to your care.

What Is God Like?

What we believe about God shapes everything—how we pray, how we worship, how we handle disappointment, and how we treat others.

In this series, we’ll explore the character of the God we worship. These eight messages grew out of the Scripture readings from the Revised Common Lectionary. Rather than approaching each Sunday as an unrelated sermon, I found that the lectionary passages offered an opportunity to explore a common question: What is God like?

My hope is that these sermons will help people move beyond simply knowing about God to knowing Him more personally. In this series, we’ll explore the character of the God we worship.

Feel free to use these messages as a starting point for your own study and preaching. After all, the goal isn’t to preach my sermons. It’s to help your congregation discover how wonderful our God really is.

Eight Sermons in This Collection

1. The God Who Steps Back — Hosea 5:15–6:6

2. The God Who Finally Shows Up — Genesis 18:1–15
3. The God Who Sees You — Genesis 16 and 21
4. The God Who Scares Us — Genesis 22:1–19
5. The God Who Can Save America — Psalm 145:8–14
6. The God Who Sows — Matthew 13:1–9
7. The God Who Searches for Us — Psalm 139:1–12, 23–24
8. The God Who Surprises Us — 1 Kings 3:1–15

A Day In the Life of Jesus

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to spend a day with Jesus? To hear His voice, watch His miracles, or witness firsthand the way He changed people’s lives?

In this collection of five sermons, I tried something a little different. Rather than simply telling familiar Bible stories, I stepped into the lives of people who encountered Jesus and allowed them to tell their stories in the first person.

First-person preaching requires some imagination, careful biblical study, and perhaps a little courage! But it can also help a congregation experience familiar passages in a fresh and memorable way.

I’m sharing these sermons not because I believe every pastor should preach this way, but because sometimes a different approach can help people hear an old, familiar truth as though they were hearing it for the very first time.

Five Sermons in This Collection

Paul’s Greatest Hits

A Participatory Sermon Series from Philippians

Some of the Apostle Paul’s most memorable words have encouraged Christians for nearly two thousand years. While reviewing the lectionary readings for my preaching calendar, I noticed several passages containing these familiar truths. They reminded me of the greatest hits albums we used to buy. That’s how Paul’s Greatest Hits was born!

For this series, I decided to try something different. Instead of doing all the talking, I invited the congregation into the sermon by asking questions and giving them opportunities to discuss their answers. This approach, called participatory preaching, encourages people to think about Scripture and discover how God’s Word applies to their everyday lives.

I was first introduced to participatory preaching more than a decade ago at a pastors’ conference in Nashville. Since then, I’ve occasionally used it in worship, especially when children and teenagers join us for our monthly family worship services. But this was my first opportunity to use the approach for five consecutive sermons.

I’m sharing these messages not because I believe every pastor should preach this way, but because sometimes a different approach can help people engage with familiar biblical truths in a fresh and memorable way. Each sermon includes the questions I asked, reflections on why I asked them, and practical lessons for pastors who might want to try participatory preaching themselves.

Prayer First. Ministry Second.

Pastor Bill Harmon
West Columbia First Church of the Nazarene

Five Sermons in This Collection