Preaching has been described as the fine art of talking in someone else’s sleep. Most of us would plead guilty. We intend to rouse our people to spiritual vitality and dedication, but too often our listeners just yawn.
The Bible doesn’t preach homiletics. There is not one set way to craft a message. There is no one style that is anointed. Preaching of course, is the end product of a long process of prayer, study, personality, interaction with people and careful organizing of thoughts.
In recent years, I’ve developed four key steps that have helped me greatly in sermon preparation. These are the things I do after I have prayed, read the Scriptures and done my research.
First, and most important, I write out my entire sermon in 17 words or less.
If I can’t sum everything up in one short statement, I really don’t know what I am talking about.
On occasion, after I have asked people what they though I was trying to say in my message. How traumatic to have people reply with something totally different from what I thought I was saying! Obviously what I intended to say wasn’t heard. It was drowned out by secondary material. The reason: there was lack of focus on the key idea.
The short statement clarifies my thinking. It protects me from wandering while writing and gives me greater confidence while speaking. Using this statement to test all my supporting material keeps me focused. Often it forces me to cut out some great thoughts because they detract from my main point.
Second, I plan my invitation before I write my sermon. I make sure I know what I am asking people to do as a result of my sermon and how I am going to challenge them to do it.
No sermon is successful if it merely informs. A sermon must evoke a response or it has failed. The purpose of the sermon may be to get a commitment to change an attitude, start a new spiritual disciple or take some action. There must be some way to apply the truth.
If I want a specific response at the close of my message, I plan it before writing my message. Leighton Ford calls it “Preaching for a Verdict.” Many preachers finish delivering their sermons and then wonder what to do next. Even worse, their people wonder what to do next!
Knowing the response I am after keeps me on track. It’s another test of my material, making sure the sub-points of my message are working to get the desired response, not just supplying interesting side information that detracts from my purpose.
Third, I think of two or three people who are typical of those I am trying to reach. Long ago, I developed an approach to preaching that has helped me a great deal. I don’t think of myself primarily as delivering a sermon, but as helping individual people. The congregation and their needs are more important than the thoughts I have gathered. I don’t preach sermons; I help people.
Thinking of particular individuals keeps the people-focus in my preaching. Anyone can expound a text. That’s the easy part. Great people are able to touch people with the text. They address the needs of their listeners.
This can be dangerous if it leads to aiming a sermon at someone in particular. I’ve never directed at sermon at anyone. Using the pulpit to get at an individual would be a prostitution of the preaching ministry. But visualizing people can be helpful, especially in trying to explain the gospel to unbelievers and those unfamiliar with the Bible.
Our Sunday morning services are clearly designed as evangelistic events geared to reaching het unchurched of our community. In this context, I find it critical to test my message by asking, “Could so-and-so relate to what I am trying to say?” In my mind, I use Ernie and Bert, my two barbers to test my material. These two men have never been near any church and are typical of the secular unchurched market we’re trying to reach. I look at my sermon and ask, “If Ernie and Bert were here, would this make sense to them. Could they understand the vocabulary?”
Great preaching starts where the listener is and moves him closer to God. It’s life-related. With evangelistic preaching this means starting with the secular and moving to the spiritual and that’s tough for those of us who’ve been raised in the church. We tend to start with the spiritual and try to attract the sinner to it.
Four, I check the logic and flow of my outline. I spend more time on this than any other part of sermon preparation. Great preaching has a simplicity of construction and vocabulary. It requires time to build a simple, logical framework but it is what makes great truths understandable to remember.
I check vocabulary. Is there freshness? Am I depending on clichés? Is my vocabulary intelligible? People shouldn’t have to strain to understand. There are no golden words, only simple words spoken with deep conviction.
A friend of mine achieved what he was aiming for the other Sunday morning. After the service he got this backhanded compliment. “Pastor, if I’d know you were going to preach so well, I’d have brought a friend!”
You can receive this material regularly by email – just fill in your email address at the bottom right side of this page under subscription options and you will receive a copy of each new article as it is posted. You can also subscribe to the newsfeed at the bottom left of the home page. Just fill in your email address. To forward the material to someone else, press the “share this” button and fill in an email address.