Meaningful Preaching on the First Commandment for Teens

Abstract

Attention spans are short. Distractions are screaming for acknowledgment. Listening to an entire sermon is difficult. This may not be true for an entire congregation, but it might be a commonality among many people. When a preacher makes his sermon engaging for those present, he provides a greater opportunity for his hearers to listen to the whole sermon and to make personal applications in addition to any applications he makes during his sermon. As a preacher strives to accomplish this, he ought to keep his preaching relative to the struggles he sees in his members. One of the biggest struggles for Christians of all ages is keeping God as number one in life. Teens particularly have difficulty with this as they search for an identity among their peers. The author of this paper proposes that exploring how Luther preaches about the first commandment is a great resource in helping to create an engaging presentation about the first commandment in which teens will be fully engaged.