Sermon Finder

Over the past two weeks we have added some new sermons to our database. These include:

• Lessons On Serving Jesus
• The Voice From Calvary
• The Birth of Jesus Announced

We have also added two new sermon series. These include:

• The Motives of a Child of God (3 parts)
• The Holy Spirit And You (5 parts)

Enjoy!

Labels: sermons

New sermons have recently been added to the iFindSermons.com website database.

The list is as follows:

• Walking Carefully

• Contributing To The Growth Of The Church

• Faith Under Fire

• The Christian's Warfare

• How To Walk In Purity
  
  
• How To Win The Victory
  
  
• Characteristics Of A Christ-Centered Church

You can access these new sermons at iFindSermons.com. Just go to our sermon search page and search for the title by adding it to the keyword field and then click find.

Enjoy!

Labels: buy sermons, sermon outlines, sermons

Each 3x5 card in my cardex drawer represented a a book, magazine, sermon or lesson of some kind. Each Sunday school lesson was also put onto a 3x5 card. I always included the titles, topics, scripture references, authors, price (for insurance purposes in case everything went up in smoke) and of course a reference number.

Some reference numbers were very easy to distinguish because of the cheat sheet that Mrs. Green had made me. The Dewey Decimal System has it's own special categories in the religious section. It also has some sub-categories. But beyond that you are basically on your own. So you will need to think about the how you will want to reference certain books so you can continue to add to the categories as your library grows.

This system worked very well for me for years. Within just a few months I had hundreds of cards referencing everything that I had in my library. No longer was I able to just stack the books on the floor in the corner of one of my rooms. Now I had to have shelves and a wall in my house to put the shelves against. My library was growing and I was beginning to use it as a special reference for preparing my messages.

Then the computer came along! More about this next week.

Labels: sermon books, sermon library, sermon magazines, sermons

Most pastors are far too busy to bother with organizing their books, magazines, cds, tapes, etc. Most of the time they are just stacked into piles without any thought about trying to find one of them in the future. We're too busy trying to prepare this week's sermon rather than thinking about the months and years ahead and how we are going to utilize the hundreds of books, magazines, cds, dvds, notebooks, and dozens of others resource materials. But, if we don't organize the materials we have collected, we'll soon have a worthless pile of thousands of very valuable resources that can't do us a bit of good.

So, each week I will help you understand how to collect, categorize and input your resources in a way that you can find what you are looking for in a matter of seconds and have it right at your finger tips each and every time you need it.

Before I get too deep into this topic, I'd like to share with you how I first began building my sermon library.

When I entered seminary in 1975, I began buying books for the classes I attended. After the first year, I had dozens of books and materials from these classes just stacked in the corner of a room in my house.

I soon found myself going back to these books and materials for various reasons, sermons, teen classes, reference to other classes I was taking and just to answer questions that people asked. It was at that time I realized if I didn't figure out some way to organize this resource material, it wasn't just going to grow into a larger pile, but it would be worthless to me. And, because I spent so much money on all these materials, it was a waste of the money God gave me, if I didn't find a way to utilize it better.

So, the first thing I did was go to our seminary library and speak with our librarian. She was very helpful. I can still remember her name, Mrs. Green. She was an expert on filing and organizing the library, so I asked her if she could help me with my own library. She used the Dewey Decimal System and a cardex. Five drawers across the top and about five drawers down. It was filled with thousands of cards cross-referencing all the books and materials in our seminary library.

I went to the local office supply store and bought a one drawer, metal card holder. At the time, my library only had a few dozen books, so it looked very empty. But I typed the titles, author's name and description of the item on the card and then followed the Dewey Decimal System. Mrs. Green photocopied the Religious category out of her catalog for me and I used that as my template. In the right hand corner of each card I would type the reference number that corresponded to the item. Then I added it to my cardex and I was on my way!

More to come next week!

Labels: sermons

I've been a pastor for 35+ years, so, it's relatively easy for me to put together a sermon and know where to find material from the Bible as well as the Internet for jokes, quotes and illustrations.

But for the novice pastor, it is a real challenge to find resources and know what to speak on week after week. After all, everything has to be new every Sunday and the Bible says "there is nothing new under the sun," and let's face it, none of us are that talented, skilled, or smart enough to be able to put together sermon after sermon with fresh and practical thoughts week after week without some help.

So, where can you go to find great sermon materials? Each week I will share with you a new place. Here is a list of both free and fee-based materials that are excellent resources:

www.ifindsermons.com - This website has free jokes, quotes and illustrations as well as some free sample sermons. You can purchase sermons individually for $5 or as a annual sermon subscription for $100. When you purchase the sermon subscription you are able to download up to 52 sermons of your choice in one year and you'll also receive 5 free sermons of your choice. iFindSermons.com has been around for 5 years and provides sermons to pastors around the world.

Next week I'll highlight another place you can find sermons, so come back again and check out Sermon Finder.

Labels: sermons