Guidelines for guest preachers

Thank you for agreeing to serve us at Benoni Baptist Church. These guidelines are meant to anticipate questions you may have or information we may need.

Invite

You are invited to preach at Benoni Baptist Church on the _.
We are an expository preaching church.
We encourage guest preachers to stick to well-known texts or central doctrines.
We are a Baptist Northern Association church. To find out what we believe: https://www.baptistnorthernassociation.org.za/what-we-believe/.
If you are interested to learn more about us you can look at our website: https://www.benonibaptistchurch.com/.
We have about 250 people in regular attendance. We have people who attend from all four corners of Benoni and some folk from further afield. We are predominately English, but have Afrikaans second language speakers, and African second language speakers too. We are predominately white collar, but have blue collar workers too.

Church office contact details

Email: office@benonibaptistchurch.com.
Telephone: +27 11 425 1992.

Preparation

Please send the following required information to the church office:
- Your brief biography (1-3 paragraphs or 3-9 sentences/bullets).
- The text you will be preaching.
- The translation you will preach from (our default version is the Christian Standard Bible).
You may optionally send the following information to the church office:
- The title of your sermon.
- Your sermon outline (for sermon slide preparation).
- We normally record the sermon and post it online. Indicate your permission to do so.

Host contact details

On the day you will be hosted by:
- Name: _.
- Email: _.
- Telephone: _.
They will be with you before and after the service and will sit together with you.

Just before the service

Our address is: 35 Wordsworth Road, Farrarmere, Benoni, 1501.
Parking is available on the church property (and on the street outside).
Our Sunday morning service starts at 9:30am.
The church is open from 8:30am.
Please arrive at least 30 minutes before the service for the pre-service run-through in the meeting room (ask your host or a door greeter for directions).
Straight after the pre-service run-through is a prayer meeting at the same location.
Tea and coffee is served after the Sunday morning service. You are welcome to join us.
If you would like a quiet place to prepare please speak to your host.
Our pulpit is a lectern.
Our preacher uses a wireless headset mic. Please do a sound check before the service starts.

Our service

You will not be responsible for any part of the service except for the sermon.
The dress code for those who serve up front is smart casual. Men wear a collared, buttoned, long-sleeved, plain shirt with no pattern. Dress pants or chinos. No tie. No jacket while on stage.
The pastor or elder will go up and introduce you to the church before you preach, and may pray for you.

The sermon

Come up to stage about 2 meters to the left or right of the pulpit to avoid the stage monitors.
Please bring greetings from your local church.
Open in prayer.
Please read your passage of Scripture. You may ask people to, “Stand in honour of the reading of God’s Word.”
We preach between 30-35mins.
When you start preaching a green clock will begin a 35 minute countdown on the comfort monitor. When the countdown reaches 5 minutes the clock will turn orange. When the clock reaches 0 minutes the clock will turn red.
Please do share the Gospel explicitly and feel free to make a universal call to repentance.
We do not do altar calls. You may refer salvation questions to an elder after the service.
Close in prayer.
Take your seat.