Good preaching can change the world.
Words, when properly chosen, carefully crafted, and well delivered, can move people, inspire people and speak something new into being. Good oratory can move people to tears or to anger, inspire love or hatred, create unity or division. But preaching is more than mere oratory. Preaching is sacramental in the truest sense of the word. Preaching proclaims the truths of the Gospel and serves as a means by which the Holy Spirit can mediate God’s grace to listeners.
But, as almost anyone who goes to church regularly will know, there are lots of bad preachers out there. There are also lots of mediocre preachers. People who put in only the bare minimum effort, or who think they don’t need to work because God will do the important part anyway. Preachers who have given up on the belief that words matter, or who have just accepted that people supposedly have a short attention span and so give only a half-hearted morality, take little better than a CBeebies episode.
Everyone who preaches has an obligation to do their best. To put in their full effort and energy into the task. It is a moment when you have the opportunity to present the Gospel and create the space for the Holy Spirit to work. Preaching is a sacred task, and if we approach it with anything less than our full competence, our full interest, and our full desire to see people transformed by God’s grace, then we should not be preaching.
Whether you’ve never preached before or whether you’ve been doing it for years, I hope you find something helpful in my top ten tips for preaching. They have come from what I have read, what I have been taught, and what I have picked up along the way.
1 – Start Big, Finish Strong
If you do not grab your congregation’s attention in the first few sentences, then people will stop listening to you. Your last few sentences will often be the part of the sermon someone is most likely to remember. You need to get the beginning and the end right.
Don’t start with a story, an anecdote, an example, or something like that. You might think it is inviting, but all too often it just obscures what you are actually there to do. Set out your case, what it is you are going to be telling them, and do it clearly and simply. You do not fluff to make your sermon relatable. You just need to trust in the message you are giving.
Finish clearly and concisely. Avoid the urge to keep going until you feel you have made a sufficient impact on your listeners, and do not get stuck trying to find the right way to end, only to end up circling back to the beginning. Restate your case. Tell them why it matters. Challenge them to respond. Always leave them with a call for response – you are not just giving a lecture, you are seeking the transformation of the congregation.
2 – Only What Is Necessary
Say only what is necessary to get your message across. Just because you think something is interesting does not mean your congregation need to hear it in your sermon. Resist the urge to pad your sermon out because you do not think it is long enough – that one will just be short. Say what you need to say, then stop talking. Anything that does not add to what you are trying to say in the sermon will only take away from your message. Keep it clear, simple, and to the point.
3 – If You’re Not Interested, They’re Not Interested
If you do not find your topic interesting, then it is likely that the congregation won’t either. But by your enthusiasm and presentation, you can render something previously boring into something captivating. The more interested and passionate you are about your topic, the more likely you are to bring the congregation along with you.
If you must preach on a topic that you do not find interesting, then you must work harder to find the points of interest within it. Do not give a half-hearted sermon just because you don’t like that special event or that Bible reading. Put the effort in, find the points of interest, emphasise the connections, and present it effectively. Do not stand up to speak until you have found your interest.
4 – Find Your Voice
You must be confident in your voice. This is not about what you sound like, although that is part of it; it is about knowing that what you say matters. When you preach, you must do so with the conviction that what you say can change the lives of the people in front of you. Be confident in your message, in your text, and in the God who has placed you there and by whose authority you preach.
When you speak, do so with conviction. Do not drop your voice, shy away, speak quietly, or let your nerves show. What you have to say matters. You are not an imposter. You are meant to be there. Trust in the Spirit to work through you if you just open your mouth and confidently proclaim the truths of the Gospel.
Practice speaking. When you feel the urge to ‘umm’ or ‘ahh’, resist it! Instead, pause, take a breath, and continue. You do not need to use filler words, which make you sound uncertain, if you allow yourself the space and the time to breathe, regroup, and continue. As a preacher, your voice is your weapon. You must tend it and train it for effectiveness.
5 – Whole Body Enterprise
A sermon uses the whole body. The way you hold yourself, the way you move, the way you stand or sit, the way you use your hands, the way you use your voice. They all add, or detract, from the effectiveness of your sermon. Not enough gestures can make you look stilted and wooden. Too many or too dramatic gestures make you look like a drunken marionette. If you walk around, it’s easy to lose connection with the congregation, but if you stand still, you can look nervous.
Find a way to be as comfortable in your body as possible. People will be looking at you. You must get used to this. Get used to being in front of people and speaking to them. Ground yourself in your space. If you are standing still, make sure you are standing comfortably and well-balanced. If you walk around, make sure you check the ground for obstacles, and practice keeping eye contact with your congregation at the same time. Talking for an extended period of time takes physical effort. You must train your body to enable your voice to fill the space – do not rely solely on amplification, because it will make your voice sound small if you cannot fill it out yourself.
Do stretches or weightlifting to strengthen your chest and back muscles. Take on regular breathing exercises. Recite while walking or doing physical labour to train yourself to talk while short of breath. Practice talking while holding two large stones in your mouth; it will force you to work on your pronunciation and diction. Time yourself speaking to learn how fast you naturally speak, and make sure you do not talk so fast that no one can understand you. Practice speaking in large empty spaces – like the empty church – and learn how to project your voice. Speak from the diaphragm, not your throat. Lift up your head, and cast your voice. Not shouting, but projecting. If no one can hear you, they will not listen.
Your voice is your instrument, as much as any cornet is for a musician. You must remember to warm up before starting.
6 – Trust The Text
Put your trust in the Bible. It is all you need for effective preaching. You do not need lots of quotes, pictures, stories, anecdotes, or jokes to keep people listening to you. The way you speak, the words you choose, and the majesty of scripture are sufficient. Use other material only where it is necessary, adds, and highlights scripture rather than replacing it. The Gospel is enough, trust in the Spirit to speak through it and through you. You can always introduce the quote earlier in the service (if you are not leading worship but just preaching, then ask the worship leader to include it).
If the quote or story is relevant and useful for your sermon, keep it short and use it only to highlight the scripture, not as a central point of your sermon. Scripture must always be the most important and central point of any preaching.
7 – Performance, Not Entertainment
Preaching is not entertainment, but it is a kind of performance. Do not consider the purpose of a sermon to be entertainment. You do not have to be a comedian or an entertainer to be a good preacher. You should not be boring, but you are not there to entertain. If the congregation goes home each week feeling uplifted and happy, you are probably doing it wrong.
Preaching includes elements of performance because it is a form of directed communication. You must consider how you talk, what words you use, and how your body language and gestures aid your communication. You are not performing like an entertainer performs; you are performing to the degree that you must consider how you present your sermon. The method by which you present the message must make it easier for the congregation to understand and remember the content of the sermon. But do not let the method overwhelm the message.
8 – Learn From Others
Take the time and put in the effort to learn from others. Read books about how to preach. Read books about how to use rhetoric and give good oratory. Read Cicero and Aristotle. Watch videos on how to preach. Go on courses. Listen to sermons. Watch speeches. Watch good ones and learn what they do. Watch bad ones to learn what not to do. Find rhythms and patterns of speech that work for you. Borrow turns of phrase that fit well into your own style.
A preacher must put in the effort to learn their craft. Preaching is a science as well as an art. Study it. Apply yourself to it. Preaching is one of the greatest responsibilities you will ever carry. If you are not willing to work, to study, to practice, to learn, then do not become a preacher. Even if you will only do the occasional sermon, you should still take the time and effort to do your best for God.
This also applies to your time with scripture. A good preacher must be in love with scripture. Spend time with it, breathe it in, memorise it, learn it and love it. Without a deep knowledge and understanding of scripture, your sermons will always be paddling in the shadow end of the Christian experience. Read the commentaries. Watch videos. Learn the history. This is even more important than learning how to preach.
9 – Preach Like Every Time Is Your Last
It doesn’t matter whether you are preaching to three or three hundred. When you preach, you do so as an act of worship and loving service. If you are not prepared to give it all you have, to give it your time and energy, then you shouldn’t be preaching. The people in front of you deserve the best from you, and so does God.
There will be times when you don’t feel like it. When your faith is shaky. When your head is all over the place, or life at home isn’t great. There will be times when the people in front of you have worn you out, and you just don’t want to do what you are doing. But if you are the only person to preach, then you preach out of your weakness and trust in God to carry you through. You put the effort into it, you pay the cost, and you give that sermon in faithfulness to one who gave everything for you.
Never walk away from a sermon and know you gave less than your best. Every time you preach, approach it with the same intent and energy as if that will be the only sermon the people listening to you ever hear. Give it everything you’ve got, because Christ has given it all for you.
10 – Accepting The Graceful Disconnect
There can be a disconnect between the effort you put into preparing your sermon and the impact your preaching has on the congregation. It is possible that you deliver a sermon you’ve spent weeks on that is the greatest thing since Augustine, only for no one to react. It is equally possible to give a sermon you prepared the night before, and the Spirit works powerfully amongst the congregation.
This isn’t a reason to not put in the effort. It’s a reminder that the congregation has their part to play. If they do not listen to you, if they are not open to your words, there is not much you can do. All you can do, then, is trust in God to work through your words for those people.
Your preparation, your presentation, and your skill are there to prepare the ground for the message to be heard so the Holy Spirit can work.
Prepare, Present, Proclaim
I hope those tips were helpful. Please add your own in the comments! If you take nothing else away, please take seriously the responsibility that comes with being a preacher, for good or for ill.
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