The Free Course Solo Faith Built to Train Its Own Preachers
There is a moment familiar to almost every new preacher. Someone hands you a text, a date, and about fifteen minutes on Sunday morning — and nobody ever taught you what to do with any of it. Solo Faith Church built a free course for that moment. The Art of Preaching has been open on the church's learning platform since late July.
It Starts with Reading, Not Speaking
The first module, Foundations — Rightly Dividing the Word, spends its time on hermeneutics before it says a word about delivery. The distinction it works hardest on is exegesis versus eisegesis: drawing meaning out of a text rather than reading your own meaning into it. That order is deliberate. A preacher who can hold a room but cannot handle a passage honestly is not a problem the pulpit needs.
Then the Sermon Gets Built
The second module, Homiletics — The Anatomy of a Sermon, takes a message apart piece by piece and shows how the parts hold together, from the title through to the altar call. The third module is where the course turns personal. Attack the Text — Preaching Mnemonics teaches the sixteen-element preparation system Pastor Doug developed across years of his own study: a repeatable way to work a passage until the sermon is genuinely in it rather than laid on top of it. That system is the reason the course exists in this form instead of as a reading list.
And Then You Stand Up
The final module, Styling the Sermon — Outline to Delivery, covers what happens between the desk and the pulpit, including preaching without notes. Each of the sixteen lessons pairs with a short quiz and a hands-on assignment, so the coursework is not something a person can sit through passively. Someone who reaches the end has studied a passage, outlined it, and prepared a complete sermon of their own.
Who It Was Built For
Pastor Doug built the course first for the people coming up inside Solo Faith Church — armor bearers, ministers in training, anyone the congregation could see God calling forward — and opened it to the public afterward. That order shows in how it reads. It was written for someone the instructor knows by name, and the tone never quite loses that.
It is now open to anyone: pastors of small congregations across Cabarrus County who were never formally trained, lay leaders asked to fill a pulpit on short notice, and members who simply want to understand what goes into the message they hear on Sunday morning. There is no cost, no cohort, and no application.
How to Enroll
The course lives on the church's site at The Art of Preaching course page. Select Join to enroll, or work through it in the Solo Faith Church mobile app. It is one of seven free courses on the church's shelf, all listed at Solo Faith Church. The congregation meets at 587 Old Charlotte Rd SW, Concord, NC 28027, and anyone working through the material is welcome to come sit under the preaching it teaches.
Solo Faith Church is telling this story because the quality of preaching across a county shapes the spiritual health of everyone sitting under it. Training a preacher well was never an internal matter — it is a service to every congregation that preacher will ever stand in front of.
You're Invited — Visit Solo Faith Church This Sunday
Solo Faith Church meets every Sunday at 587 Old Charlotte Rd SW, Concord, NC 28027. Come as you are. Learn more here.
Community Support Note: This post is part of Solo Faith Church's community journalism initiative, which shares the work being done across Concord and Cabarrus County. The information here came from a description provided directly by Solo Faith Church leadership alongside the church's own published course listing, not from independent reporting.
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