  Next week I will be attending Lipscomb's annual Hazelip Preaching Seminar. The theme of this year's seminar is Preaching in a New World . I'm excited about attending this seminar because there are some great speakers that will be there and I would like to become a better preacher.
We are living in a new world. The church doesn't want to admit it, but we are. Thirty years ago a preacher could assume that almost everyone in the pews knew the stories of the Bible. Even if they didn't attend church regularly they knew about Noah, David and Goliath, and Jesus. You didn't have to tell those stories. You could just mention them and move on. It was a "churched" society. Well, you can't assume that anymore.
We don't live in a "churched" society anymore. You may lose a third, or more, of your congregation if you say, "Now, we all know about what happened to so and so in the Parable of so and so. " No! Not everyone knows what happened. They don't even know what a parable is. Preachers could get away without telling the story in the past, but now we have to tell the story.
We have to tell all the stories! This is something I have to remind myself every time I prepare for a sermon. I have to assume the listeners don't know the story. Preachers have to learn how to preach in the new world. Those that don't will get left behind along with the churches they preach in. 
