Joseph Webb and Sermon Titles

In the book Preaching Without Notes Joseph Webb provides some thoughts that one should keep in mind when creating a sermon title. He notes that often preachers don't spend the time on the title that it deserves. The titles are often "too hackneyed, too cliched, too theological, too ambiguous, too cute, too nonsensical."

Title Should Reflect the Sermon

While Webb doesn't provide an example or a method, he does give three things that a sermon title should do. First it should reflect the sermon. It should "capture the essence of the sermon." A title should be about the main point in the sermon. If someone just remembers the title, they should have your whole sermon in a nutshell.

Title Should Withhold the Sermon's Contents

This is a little paradoxical, but the sermon should not say exactly what you are going to say up front. Webb notes that there should be some mystery. While the people should be able to figure out what the sermon means later, initially upon hearing the title, they should wonder how the title will be resolved into a sermon.

Sermon Title is a Hook

Finally, the sermon title is a hook that will cause people to want to hear the sermon. All three of these should be a part of every sermon title. Effective sermon titles will incorporate the three.

Sermon Title Creation Method

For more information on sermon title creation, I would ecourage you to look at my simple method for the creation of a sermon title. Learn More Here..,
Learn the secrets of Good Title creation at my own "sermon title handbook" for a method for putting together good sermon titles.