Sermon

delivered. The sermon was given by British Colonial Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards. His goal and purpose was to teach and warn people of the dangers of sins and the horrors of the afterlife. The speech was given at his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts to an unknown effect. Edwards had started The Great Awakening from his preaching. He was also a descendant of four generations of Puritan ministers and the most renowned and influential of Puritan Leaders. Edward began his sermon by saying

William Bradford was one of the main reasons that the Puritan movement got rolling. He led puritans to the New World. When people wanted to give up he pushed them to keep moving. Bradford believed in something, stood for it, and did something about it. It was because of him that the Puritans could live and have freedom of beliefs. His writings were historical narratives. He talked about the lifestyle of Puritans. He wrote Of Plymouth Plantation, which was about the colony’s first years in America

determined to adhere to the religious styles of old. His intellectual and theological reason, along with his fervent zeal fueled by the Holy Spirit, makes him one of the greatest evangelistic preachers and apologists of all time. His life, works, and sermons inspired other leaders to spread the gospel message and brought about life-altering revivals and conversions in those he reached. The first Great Awakening, forerunner to the American Revolution and Protestant missionary expansion,

and sermons inspired other leaders to spread the gospel message and brought about life-altering revivals and conversions in those he reached. Our textbook author wrote, “All authentic leaders must be confirmed in order to lead.”

John Swales defines a discourse community as a group of people that has an agreed set of common public goals, ways to communicate with its members, to provide information and feedback, genre(s) that the group may further communicate its goals, lexis, and a threshold level of members (220-2). The group I chose to study St. Luke Church of God in Christ, St. Luke COGIC, bears the qualifications to be a discourse community. Founded in 1925 by Millissis Shannon and her husband Charles with only twelve

“In 1732 Benjamin published Almanack under the name Richard Saunders.” He made it both entertaining and useful, and that made it very profitable. The Almanack contained old proverbs of wisdom from many nations. They were copied and printed all abroad. Benjamin considered his newspaper another way to communicate, where he sometimes published moral writers and his own works. He made sure he did not print libeling or personal abuse. If someone came to him with such an article he would print it

am consciously aware of my sermon’s ability to help others view me as someone who is on this journey with them, who happens to have more expertise in biblical studies guiding them, but who is not belittling them. Lucy Atkins Rose suggests keeping a sermon conversational, and this is a way in which I find myself striving towards in my homiletical approach. I believe this method offers a more relational experience and, as she also suggests, would inspire growth

in his prosperity gospel preaching parallels the promise of the potential for success and social mobility fostered by capitalism. Again, American values, in this case capitalism, are foundational to televangelism and embodied by Osteen through his sermons and religiously intonated self-help books. Not only that, but the material promises of prosperity gospel are also this likely to foster evangelical support of the capitalist system, an idea which is gaining traction with American religious historians19

to find their own personal style. I think of a sermon like a softened ball of clay; each preacher has their own unique mold that will create a particular impression into one side of the clay when they preach a sermon. The congregation receiving the sermon then also has a mold that will leave an impression on the other side of the clay. Both molds shape the clay, or in other words, both the preacher and the congregation play a role in how the sermon is given

to value logic and reason over faith in the church. This caused the faith in the church to become incredibly low. Going to church started to be a chore, and individuals would only go to receive the sermon, if at all. Upon seeing the overall state of religious faith, preachers began taking their sermons to the people by preaching in central areas and going from church to church throughout the colonies. This became known as the first Great Awakening. At the forefront of the Great Awakening were preachers