This is another one of the most popular questions. Whenever I have a seminar or receive questions through the mail, someone asks, “How do I know my sermon is ready for preaching.”
This is a very important question, but often our own misunderstandings of what “ready to preach” means can cause issues. For example, “Ready to preach” does not mean that the sermon can not be made better with more thought, study, and prayer.
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Photo by Janet Hudson
What is interesting however are those who leave citing positions that I do not hold. Hence a couple of emails this week assumed that I teach the “seeker sensitive” marketing methods that were popular in the last decade. They are no longer on the cutting edge as the evangelical church has moved on to other tactics to foster growth.
At any rate, I must admit that it has been a while since I have written on the topic. Here is an article two years ago entitled God’s Grace or Mere Methods. Here is another one entitled Surface Needs or Real Needs written about a year ago. Then there is another one of a couple of years ago that I titled Seeker Sensitive Ministry and Felt Needs Preaching.
Essentially, I believe that the church runs into issues when it attempts to use marketing methods that are alien to it. Madison Avenue techniques are designed for Madison Avenue. They are designed to help marketers to market products.
Some techniques look at what people want. They then construct a product to give people what they want. In contrast, a “gospel oriented ministry” will not be constructed around what people want. In many cases we are so messed up we do not even know what we need. A Gospel oriented ministry will not construct ministries around what the people want. Instead it will construct around what the people need as enlightened by the Most High God.
My 5 year old child would eat candy every day if it were up to him. His “felt needs” are for more sweets and less vegetables. However, I know that would not be for his good and so I give him the vegetables. I give him water and juice instead of soda pop. I give him what he needs whether he feels he needs it or not. I give him what he would want me to give him were he to look at it from my perspective as his father.
Many of us are serving candy and soda pop to our people. We want the big church so we don’t tell them what they need, but we tell them what they want to hear. We throw a whoop on the end of some pablum and feel happy that malnourished saints enjoy our anemic messages.
Maybe some of our people are not growing as Christians because we are giving them candy instead of solid food. What is solid food? Yes forgiveness is solid food. Our need for the most high God to step in our lives. That is solid food. But also, sometime you gotta talk about the ethical requirements of “being Saved.” What is expected of one who has this spiritual power that God alone gives? Sometime you gotta talk about loving the unlovable. That’s solid food. Sometimes you gotta talk about blessing those that curse you and doing good to those who despite-fully use and abuse you. Yes that’s solid food. Sometime you gotta talk about our connection to systems of evil in this world during the rest of the week. Yes, That’s solid food.
We have heard about God getting us a new car and a new house enough. Now it is time to start hearing about a God that will use us to relieve suffering. We have heard about being blessed enough, now it is time to start talking about being a blessing. We have heard about God “hooking us up” enough, now it is time to start hearing about “You hooking someone else up!”
As preachers, it is time to move on so that the Good News can be good to somebody else beside just the folks sitting in front of you every Sunday morning. May the Lord bless us as we seek to preach the whole counsel.
Photo by Kaihsu Tai.
the first of these myths is that Black Preaching is primarily about preaching style. Often when one thinks about what is Black Preaching and its connection to Black Worship, they think solely about black style. They think about a “hyped up” worship experience. As Sherman Cox has pointed out in his seminars on black preaching, “when one thinks about black preaching they normally think about style.”
the great problem is that style is a small component of strong Black preaching. In fact style can hide poor preaching. Have you ever listend to a preacher who was shouting, but was shouting about nothing? Style should always be totally dependent on content. Style should always be secondary to content. If you have to choose between style and content. Choose the content. Great content preached wholeheartedly, will bring its own style.
Great preaching is not about “yelling” or other stylistic components, it is about powerfully preaching the Word of God from the perspective of those who live with their “backs against the wall.” Our first myth that makes Black preaching solely about style trivializes the tradition and encourages the people to have a weak connection to truth.
It is interesting how many budding preachers turn on the television and think that copying the various personalities is effective preaching.  They end up with superficial copies of some preachers. Sometimes they even copy preachers with incorrect or superficial theology. So you end up with a superficial copy of a superficial original. Certainly I am not saying that all television preachers are superficial or wrong, but there are many that are. So what can you do?
You can be trained. Now I do not wish to argue that seminary is required, although it can be very helpful, but I do wish to argue that you need to begin a lifelong training program if you going to be an effective communicator of the Gospel. So what do I need?
1) Preaching Training. Learn how to put together an effective sermon. Learn the fundamentals of an effective sermon. Learn how to preach in such a way as to encourage understanding of the message. You can find a number of books that will help you in this endeavor. I would encourage you to sign up for my own Supercharge Your Sermons course and/or download our free ebook You Can Preach: 7 Steps to an Effective Sermon. If you do these things you will be well on the way to constructing effective sermons.
2)Bible Training. Learn the contents of the Bible. What was said and where. All of these things will inform your preaching. Start a Bible in a year program. Read it daily. Read it for sermon ideas as well as for inspiration. Read the Bible! Let me also encourage you to do a forgotten practice…Memorize Scriptures. You may have done it when you were young, start doing it again.
3)Theological Training. Learn the basic teachings of the Bible. What does the Bible teach? How does the Bible Teach it. What are your denominational teachings? How do they inform your understanding? Are you in agreement with them? Why or why Not? These are some of the questions that will indirectly inform your preaching and provide depth. Read a theology text and some of your denominational literature.
4)Christian History. Some hate history, but it will provide depth to your sermons. It will also help you to understand the same basic questions that come up over and over in history. It would also be helpful to know about your denominational history. Read a book here.
5)Pastoral Care. All preachers are not pastors, but most are assumed to know how to do some basic pastoral care. Once again. There are a number of books on the subject that can help you in this. People will come to you wondering how they can make the principles you spoke of in your message real in their lives.  You need to spend a bit of time understanding this question if possible.
Great preaching doesn’t happen immediately. It takes time. And over time you will get better and better. Begin a training program that will make you a well rounded preacher. This will help you be more true to your God and the people you serve.
I was talking to a laymember the other day who was very excited about a sermon he had heard. The member gave me all four of the points of the sermon and was excited about applying the sermon to his daily life. Interestingly enough, he searched on the internet to try to find this sermon and other sermons by the same preacher.
The preacher was a white American preacher. This preacher didn’t yell. His voice did keep a pleasant rising and lowering due to a natural conversational tone. The preacher didn’t whoop or use any other “stylistic” components of the African American Preaching Tradition. So What did the preacher do?
The preacher did three things that I have written on in other posts that can help any preacher’s sermons. The first thing he did was had clear and easily identifiable points. The people did not have to guess about what was important, the preacher simply told them. The preacher clearly defined the points and clearly defined what he meant by the points. We as preachers cannot expect anyone to remember our points if they don’t even know what they are.
The second thing the preacher did was clearly illustrated the points with stories. Each and every main point had a story connected to it. These stories were memorable and clearly connected to the point. Sometimes we tell stories that are only tangentially related to the point. Stop doing that. It takes away from your message. However, if you have a clear point and a relevant memorable story, you are well on the way to a sermon that people will remember.
Finally, the preacher’s stories were more intense as the sermon continued. The layperson told me that each story and point was “stronger” than the other one. Please note that I am not talking about yelling to manufacture intensity, I am talking about the content being stronger. So point two was stronger than point one, and point three was stronger than point two, and point four was stronger than point three. Here was a use of the “whooping curve” without necessarily whooping. We must leave people with the strongest content at the end, and that content should be related to the point illustrated and the main point of the sermon.
Here was an effective preacher who had content that the people remembered. And the people were ready to apply it to their daily lives. If we are to learn from this preacher, we must clearly define our points, illustrate them well with stories, and make each point progressively intense. Then the people will understand and be ready to apply the sermon.
A few weeks ago, I heard a sermon by a preacher who obviously had heard of the benefits of stories in effective sermons. However, a particular illustration had great difficulties for the sermon. It actually detracted from the message in that it was very involved. One had to have a scorecard to remember all the names that the preacher presented. However, that was only the first problem. The next problem was that the story just didn’t seem believable. It may have been true, but it wasn’t believable. Finally the story was illustrating points that needed no illumination. As I thought about this sermon, I quickly thought that these are three rules that can help anyone’s use of stories. Namely, if you are going to use stories effectively you should do these three things.
The first thing you need to ask yourself before you use a story is will this story aid understanding of the sermon? If you drop the story, would something be missing? Don’t just tell a story to fill the time. In addition, don’t even tell a story to illustrate a point, if the point is already clear, move on.
Sometimes a short referring to a cliche’ or even a great hymn or spiritual from the tradition will be all that is sufficient to illustrate the point you are considering.
The preacher I referred to above told a story that was long and involved. It had 5 characters who were interlocked together. It was confusing to get the names right. One should always keep in mind that you cannot do in a sermon what you can do in print. Yes you can tell a short story in print, however, a sermon requires either more work on the part of the story teller or less complexity.
Keep your story simple!
The last and very important thing to remember is that your story should be believable. Note I didn’t say it should be true. Yes, it should be true, but it must also ring true. There are some stories that are just so far fetched that you probably shouldn’t use them in the pulpit because the fact that the story is hard to believe will detract from your message.
Now, there are some exceptions to this rule, like obvious homiletical devices, but in general, if you are telling a story that is supposed to be an actual occurrence, make sure that it is believable.
If you break one of these rules then your sermon will suffer. As I listened to the preacher and looked at the preacher, I could tell that he was getting more frustrated as he was further alienating the people by his less than effective sermon.
So please make sure that your story aids the sermon, is simple, and is believable before you attempt to use it in your next sermon.
On this site and in other places, we spend a lot of time discussing the need to exegete the scripture for effective preaching. This is a very important dimension in sermon preparation. However, you must also understand two other important “narratives” or “stories” to be able to effectively understand the context of your preaching. In short there are three stories that we should understand.
Who is the congregation? This really affects your preaching. You need to understand the denominational tradition of your congregation You need to know and understand the issues of your denomination. You need to know and understand how the church fits into that tradition. You need to know if there are any issues going on in that particular church. You need to know who has the power in the church. Is there conflict in the church? Are there any struggles in the church?
It is important to answer these questions and others like them. Don’t act like you think you know the answer without working to really answer the questions. about what you think the answer is, you need to do the real work of answering. Don’t assume that legalism is a problem in your church because you see it as a problem for your denomination. Don’t assume that your church’s number one problem is misuse of congregational power when the problem might be your own misuse of power. The main point is that you don’t assume anything. Ask and answer real questions about the congregation so that you can preach to the real people sitting in front of you.
Know who you are. What are you dealing with? What are you struggling with? If you don’t analyze yourself, then you are very likely to simply use the pulpit as a bully pulpit. If you don’t analyze yourself, then you might be preaching to demons from your own past rather than preach the sermons that the people who are in front of you need.
What is your theological worldview? What do you really know and believe? It is important to answer such questions to make sure that you are still preaching that which you are certain of and not things that you used to believe. Look at your own story and again don’t make any assumptions, answer the real questions.
Then you go to the scripture itself to understand the scripture. Look at the scripture and exegete it according to all of the principles that you have seen on this site,most notably the four waves of exegesis.
It is pretty rampant. It steals the point from the people’s minds and reinforces the same tired point that you have preached every week. It gets the people to shout, but doesn’t help them live during the week. It kills the creativity of the preacher and pushes the people to ignore the rest of your sermon. What am I talking about? It is the “IRRELEVANT CELEBRATION!”
What is the irrelevant celebration. It is a celebration that has nothing to do with the point of your sermon. The irrelevant celebration removes from the minds of your people what you just preached. You worked hard on the sermon. You put forth effort into it. But the celebration is so powerful that folks will remember that above everything else. So if you celebrate your main point. All is well, but if you have a small number of tired recitations that is all the people will remember. Don’t preach a masterpiece about the sermon on the mount and someone leaves thinking you simply preached about what you always preach about, “Didn’t God put food on the table…Didn’t God pay your rent…etc…”
The irrelevant celebration stifles the creativity of the preacher because the preacher, instead of coming up with a fresh celebration that is in line with an exegesis of the congregation, scripture, and your sermon, the preacher simply pulls out a “stock” celebration that has nothing to do with any of that, but the preacher simply knows that it will cause a rise out of the congregation.
The irrelevant celebration pushes the people to ignore the rest of the sermon because celebration is like the desert. If the desert has nothing to do with the meal, then why should the people even listen. You have seen such sermons. You look at the congregation, and they have obviously checked out, until the celebration, when they check back in. And why not, the people are not rewarded with a deeper appreciation of the truths in your message by a relevant celebration. They are not rewarded for struggling with the concepts that you have just presented, with a celebration related to those concepts….So they are pushed to ignore your sermon.
And worst of all, the irrelevant celebration gives the people a false belief that they are ready to confront the coming week with help from God as given to them in your sermon. Instead, they only have a trite phrase that you say every week. The irrelevant celebration may be rampant, but it is by no means the only way to preach. I would encourage you, this next week, to celebrate. Go on head and celebrate. But leave the stock phrases aside unless they are relevant to your sermon. Go on head and preach….and then celebrate….But make sure that it is a celebration that is relevant to your sermon.
This is a common question. How do I preach doctrine. We have some beliefs as Christians that we need to preach. Doctrines such as the deity of Christ, Salvation by Faith, and perhaps the Trinity.
Related to this are the questions from various tradtions. For example, a Pentecostal asked about preaching on the Gifts including speaking in tongues. An Adventist asked about preaching the Sabbath. A Holiness person wanted to know about preaching on Biblical Holiness.
Now sometimes these types of sermons end up being preached in a problematic way like this:Don’t Do This
However if a doctrine is valuable then it should have present benefits and not just future rewards for right belief. In addition, if the doctrine is true, it should have something to say that will help those on the underside of society that needs help.
First, the brunt of African American preaching is in being practical. We are speaking to the real practical needs of humanity. So your first order of business is to find the practical difference that your particular doctrine makes in daily living.
Certainly this doesn’t preclude the need to define and describe the doctrine. However, if the doctrine is going to be made real in the lives of your hearers, then the doctrine must have practical contemporary ramifications. It is these practical contemporary ramifications that you need to make clear in your sermon.
Next, we are speaking a word of hope to those who find their selves with their backs against the wall. So we need to find a word of hope in the midst of pain. Doctrines or teachings should help our people. They should help us interpret life in light of God’s perspective.
Our Denominationaly unique teachings should help us interpret life in light of our own heritage sent to us by our ancestors. So it is our job, as preachers, to take these doctrines and help our people understand how they help us deal with the world we find ourselves in.
If you are going to preach doctrines, that is good and important, but don’t fall into the trap of teaching doctrine in such a way that it is irrelevant to our lives. Such preaching is not being true to our ancesters who worked through these doctrines that they have passed on to us.
Subscribers to the SoulPreacher have already received this article in the 31st edition of the Soul Preacher email magazine. In addition, those who have attended our second web seminars have seen the expansion of this concept. However, everyone else can now learn from this very powerful way of looking at exegesis of the text for preaching.
Exegesis can be seen as looking at the Biblical text from different angles and different depths recursively. You don’t just read the text once, you read it many times. In addition, you don’t just look for the same things every time, you look for different things in each reading. I have begun thinking about the exegetical process as one of waves.
Here we are introduced to the text. We first must pray for God’s enlightenment. Then we read the text out loud. We are not necessarily looking for anything but for God to speak to us. This might be seen as a “devotional” type reading. However after reading this text, you should note everything that comes to your mind that is related to the text. You may think about a hymn your grandmother used to sing. Note that if it is related. You may think of a gospel song. You may think of a television show or story. You may think of other Biblical characters and ideas. A particular word may jump out at you. All of these things should be noted and written down.
It is possible that there may be certain things you don’t understand, go ahead and note those, this will be places to come back and look at. Note all of these things and try to reduce it down to one-two pages. This process of making it compact will help you to really understand the text.
Here we are attempting to answer all the questions that we can answer from the Bible without referring to commentaries, dictionaries, or other folks sermons. You do want to look at cross references though. For that I would suggest the Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge. Look up important aspects of the text in that book and find all the cross references. These will help to round out knowledge of your particular text by looking at other texts.
Here you want to determine the story in the text. What is the narrative? What is going on? Who are the characters? What are the characters doing? What is God doing? These are some of the questions that you will ask during this phase. You also want to look at the use of power in the text. Who has the power? How do we get the power? Is the power beneficial?
In addition look at the theology presented in the text. What does the text have to say about God? What does it have to say about that which is transcendent? What does it have to say about living in this world?
Finally you want to make specific reference to HOW the author of the text tells the story. What words were used? Why would the author use those types of words? What arguments are used? How are they related to us? During this phase you will use cross references and a number of bible Translations. The key is that we are only looking at the Bible.
Then refine your one-two page exegesis to include that which you have discovered in this phase.
Now you want to see the questions that you still have left and look them up using Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries. What have others said about the text? Does it agree with your observations? Do you think you should refine yours or the commentary needs to refine its understanding?
Another important source is the sermons of others. Find others who have preached on the subject and skim it. Often you can find valuable material like illustrations and the like from this practice.
Then you want to also make use of denominational resources. Our Methodist friends would most certainly see what John Wesley has to say about the subject. Those in the reformed tradition would break open John Calvin to gain insight into the subject. The Seventh-day Adventists would bring Ellen G. White into conversation at this point. Here you want to look at what others from your ecclesial heritage has had to say on the subject.
Go ahead and refine the exegesis again with what you have discovered here.
Now you are ready for what I consider to be a very important phase that is often overlooked. Here you should take a stroll through the text. You should walk and live in the text. If you are preaching about the sermon on the mount, then you are not ready to preach it until you have experienced the first, second, and third wave, and then walk in the text. You should look over at the mount. How does it look? If you don’t know then pull out a geography book and the bible dictionary again and see. How is the weather? you may not know, but you might get some insight form a good bible dictionary. What kinds of foliage are around you? What is the temperature?
How many were there listening? Where are you sitting? How does Jesus’ voice sound? Are there other competing sounds? What do you smell? Are there animals near by?
and finally, ask yourself about the emotions in the characters. What emotion does Jesus have? How is he showing it? What about the listeners? Are there some smiling and other frowning? What emotions does it stir in you?
You cannot answer all of these questions, but you can answer many of them. And answering these types of questions will help you really experience the text, and also help others experience the text.
One might ask “what difference does this stuff make?” That is a good question. Let me say that I once preached a sermon that was enriched by my knowledge of the terrain of the wilderness that Jesus was “driven” into by the Holy Ghost. That terrain was slanted downward. Can you talk about how Jesus was driven into a terrain that was slanted downward into a dead sea? Can you help someone who feels like they have been sent into a wilderness by God, but not just a wilderness, but one that is slanted downward?
After doing this refine the exegesis again, and now you are ready to begin constructing your sermon.
William Willimon in The Intrusive Word writes that “We ought to preach as if we were opening a package that could be packed with dynamite.” By that he means that we should expect dislocation, surprises, and jolts. Too often we package our sermons in a neatly finished package where we know all the answers and God always acts the way we expect. We create a world in the sermon that is much unlike our own world.
Over my life I have seen many old Westerns. These were shows that dramatized our mythology of the conquest of the Western United States in the mid to late 19th century. These stories were interesting in that the Good guy always won. Right always came out on top. In short, the bad guy didn’t always get away with the money. That was comfortable for us to see, we want to believe that down here good will always win. We want to believe that I will not lose my job and if I do a better one is around the corner. We want to believe that we will qualify for that house. We want to believe that if we pay our tithe or plant our seed there we will live a life of luxury.
What kind of world do your people see in your sermons? Is it the imaginary world where money is no problem, or is it the real world that your people live in, where layoffs are coming even though the church record books show the financial giving was not at issue? Will we preach the imaginary world where you will always get a better job when you lose the one you have now, or will we preach in the real world where our people actually have to take job that are beneath their training? Will we preach the imaginary world where a cure for our ailments is guaranteed by God, or will we preach in the real world where faithful people die of ailments while some unfaithful people live on?
Too many of us are preaching that “old West” theology. Good always wins, Bad always loses. The people may shout about it, the people may sleep on it, but in either case, the people will not be equipped to live in the real world. I encourage you as preachers to struggle with the reality of real suffering before constructing this mythological world that belongs on late night television.
I feel like starting with the quote from Mark Twain who said: “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” There are many who think that the three points and a poem deserve to fall off the landscape of possible sermonic choices. They see it as an artifact of a bygone era that much like the horse and buggy needs to be set aside for more “effective” modes of presentation.
Some preachers would promote the dialectic method. Others would promote a narrative form. Still others think that we should not go to the scripture with a set form in mind and should let the text guide the sermonic structural choice.
But what is the three points and a poem method,and what are you attempting to do in each section? First there are three sections to the sermonic form. The first is an introduction. Here you want to give all of your background data that you have found that is relevant to the sermon. You want to talk about when the scripture was written and to who. In addition, you want to apply this to the lives of the people.
I was listening to a sermon on I. Corinthians where the preacher compared the background to the background of the people who he was addressing. He attempted to eliminate the time difference between the Corinthian church and the present church so that they can see that the text was referring to the present context.
Sometimes people are confused when I use the term “Introduction.” I do not mean introduction to the sermon per-se. I mean an introduction to the life and times of the people in the text and an attempt to realize the importance of it. This will definitely include what you traditionally think of as “introduction,” but it includes more as stated above.
After the introduction is the guiding statement of the sermon. Here we take what we have done in the introduction and use it to come up with a compass for the sermon. This is almost always a practical question. You can get at this question by looking at the Seven Interrogators: Who, What, When, Why, Which, How, and Where. Once you come up with the guiding statement, the sermon writes itself. An example is “How to Stand in the Midst of Trouble” based on Ephesians 6:13. Please note that this may or may not be the sermon title. In addition, be sure to state that clearly before moving to the next section of the sermon.
Here, you already have the text, you have the guiding question. Now you simply need three answers to the question that you just presented. A few words here. First, the answer should be explicitly or implicitly in the scripture. People should not wonder how you made the connection. It is possible someone may disagree with your application, but they will at least know the connection you tried to make. Second, you need to illustrate each answer with a biblical, historical, or contemporary story. Here you want to drive the point home by illustrating it. Next, you need to tell people explicitly how to accomplish the point. Finally, you must explicitly define what you mean by the point.
So using the example Ephesians 6:13 and our guiding statement “How to Stand in the midst of Trouble” we have three points. First put on the full armor, second, prepare for the day of evil, and finally, you just stand. Looking at the points, the first one says to put on the full armor. We would explicitly show that it is in the scripture. We might then illustrate and define the point. We might talk about armor in battle and why it is used and why it is important, we might talk about the battle we are in with Satan. We will definitely tell that we are not talking about battling with guns or swords. In addition, we must clearly tell people HOW to put on the full armor. That is the first point.
Then we might look at the second point which is to “prepare for the day of evil.” This is only implicitly in the text so we have to explicitly point to it in this section. Note that the text says: “so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.” This implies that if you are going to stand in the future, you have to prepare for it in the present. Go ahead and state it that clearly if you have to. Then once again you want to tell people how to do that today. In addition, describe the point fully.
The third point is to just stand. In it we have two sides, “having done all” and “just stand.” You might give a story of perseverance. Remember to tell people how to do this. You may not like these three points, get three more. I don’t think I would preach it as it stands, but I just use it as an example.
By poem, I don’t mean a poem per-se, but a celebration. Here you want to celebrate the answering of the question. In our example, we want to celebrate that we will stand. We want to celebrate that no matter the pain and heartache, that we can make it through it. You do this by gathering materials like poems, hymns, spirituals, gospel songs, and scriptures that are what I call “shouting materials.” These are materials that emphasize God’s power over our circumstances and our ability to persevere.
The point here is that you are ending with a “celebration.” I think it is interesting how many sermons have good beginnings, a solid middle, and then die out in the end. You need to end strong, and you do that by celebrating the Good news that God is on our side.
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We are going to begin a series of posts about the myths of Black Preaching. There are a number of these that we need to clarify if we are going to understand how black Preaching helps us. the first of these myths is that Black Preaching is primarily about preaching style. Often when one thinks [...]
It is interesting how many budding preachers turn on the television and think that copying the various personalities is effective preaching.  They end up with superficial copies of some preachers. Sometimes they even copy preachers with incorrect or superficial theology. So you end up with a superficial copy of a superficial original. Certainly I am [...]
I was talking to a laymember the other day who was very excited about a sermon he had heard. The member gave me all four of the points of the sermon and was excited about applying the sermon to his daily life. Interestingly enough, he searched on the internet to try to find this sermon [...]
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