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Simple Steps for a Good Sermon

Simple Conditions for a Great Sermon

Simple Sermon PathOne of the great joys of life for many parents is helping coach children through their chosen sport. Calling out splits for my track running daughter as she sets her personal best, or watching from the dugout as my son’s baseball team manages a come-from-behind win is a joy. We spend hours together working on their sport outside of practice and games because every human endeavor is filled with complexity. Often in order to help the athlete get to the next level, they have to learn a new degree of complexity. Eliminating wasted movement from each step. Judging the pitcher’s delivery and the probability of a good pitch. The components of velocity in a good throw.

But in the heat of the moment, when the event is on the line, simplicity trumps all.

You have heard what seem like nearly meaningless things to say come out of coaches’ mouths. You may have even thought, is that all a coach does? Say the same things anyone could say? But during the meet, or on game day, it is often too late to make complex changes. So, if you listen to the coaches you hear them call out again and again, “just breath”, “stride out”, “see it and hit it,” “play is at 1,” “this is the final lap, dig deep.”

Track coach on the sideIt is not that the athletes are poorly trained, or clueless to the game. And it is not that these mantras are all the coach understands. There is just too much going on. Simplifying helps the athlete focus on the most important component and trust hard work and practice will make everything else automatic.

When you are in the middle of the heat of a heavy ministry week it is too late to change your entire view of preaching.

There is too much going on during that kind of week for a lecture on preaching. What you need is to simplify things and trust your hard work and training over the years has made the rest automatic. This article will not transform your view of preaching. It will cut through the noise, point you to a few key simple practices, and clear your mind of the rest. The truth is, in those heated moments of ministry, it is the simple things that often go by the wayside. It is the simple things that cause us to be off our game.

Here are a few phrases a preaching coach on the sideline of your life might say in the heat of an overwhelming ministry week. The pressure is on. Time is limited. The finish line is coming. The coach sees you a touch off your game so simplicity becomes the name of the game. See if you can find the ones you need to hear. Perhaps you can coach yourself through the next difficult week, or ask someone you love to call out the simplest of truths from the sideline…over and over again.Uconn Coach

  1. Find something new to you in the passage

In a busy week of ministry it is all too easy to bring out stale bread, slather it with illustration butter, and call it a sermon. Preaching old thoughts is part and parcel of preaching. We proclaim an ancient faith, a timeless gospel. Still, preaching what we already knew in ways we already knew often leaves our sermons flat, dull, and lifeless. Much of preaching will be reminder. That is good. But every sermon needs a spark of new insight. Even if it is something an eighty-year-old saint in your congregation has noticed before, if it is new to you it will add energy and life to your preaching. Besides preaching is not just for the congregation. It is also for the preacher. It must be something that is actually there. It should not be a leap of your imagination, or a twisting of the passage to fit your needs. A genuinely new and meaningful insight will bear fruit throughout the sermon process. Reminding yourself to keep studying until you see something new in the passage will prevent you from many preaching ills: lack of intellectual interest, flat energy in delivery, know-it-all demeanor, and more. Most importantly, it will force you to “see” the passage again with faith God is always doing something new. Keep studying until you have something new.

  1. Find good news for you

Wrestle with the meaning of the passage (not some other passage) until you find the good news in it for you. It must be news, but it also must be good. #1 above makes sure you have some level of “news.” This condition makes sure it is good news. In every passage there is a way to preach the good news of God’s gracious character toward those who love and serve Jesus Christ. Good news is not limited to a simplistic description of salvation. Instead, salvation reaches out like the nervous system in the body and touches every limb of Christian life. How does this passage directly, indirectly, subtly, or explicitly offer good news to God’s people? The places where it feels like bad news are often the very location of the good news if we study, pray, and wrestle long enough to find it. You do not need a rehearsal of all the exegetical steps at this point. Studying until you find something new and wrestling until you find good news will press you back to the resources of your training. These two simple commitments will prevent you from beating people up from the pulpit. Many sermons from tired pastors start to slip into what can be summarized this way: “You all know this already, why aren’t you living it? Try harder or you are not a faithful Christian.” Instead, we need to preach a gospel that is living, the Word that is alive and ever renewed, and a life that is grace enabled, not guilt driven.

  1. Seek your own change

Personal ChangePerhaps no other single coaching phrase helps preachers tap into all the automatic training and habits they need to preach well. Simply ask, “How can this passage change my life this week?” This forces the preacher to #1 seek something new, and #2 seek something that is good news…something not only worth living, but able to be lived. The freeing power of the gospel, not the guilting power of the law, is what is required. When we live with a sermon well enough, long enough to find it changing us all kinds of potential becomes unlocked. We can study the structure of “how” the passage helped us see ourselves more clearly, see others more graciously, align our priorities more faithfully, or act with more consistency. It also presents us from some of the most frustrating sins of preaching for most listeners: condescension, moralizing, and hypocrisy. When we preach our old repentance it is too easy to subtly look down upon those who have not yet “got it.” When we preach our past victories it is natural to start telling others to be as moral and well-formed as we are. When we cease to preach to ourselves, we cease to see our need for growth and change. The heart is deceitful above all things, and we begin to imagine ourselves not as flawed and sinning creatures in need of grace, but models others should follow. Find something new in the passage. Wrestle with the meaning until you find good news. Diagnose what is really going on in the gap between divine character and your own human condition. Pray, listen, and obey until it changes you this week in even the smallest of mustard seed ways.

  1. Imagine others’ deep needs

Empathetically engaging others’ lives (diverse contexts, different stages of life, etc.) and how the good news of this passage might meet their deep needs is crucial to keep preaching from subtle narcissism. The first three steps can leave a preacher stuck in their own world. We have to engage all of our selves in studying a sermon so it requires our world. Yet preaching is not for the preacher in the end (it is in the beginning), it is for the listener. Often the illustrations coming directly from a preacher’s life do not resonate with all of the congregation. Beware of trusting the positive feedback on how “relevant” your own personal illustrations are. They are only “relevant” to those whom they are relevant to. Illustrations from your married life, or your family life can subtly alienate single individuals or couples unable to have children. Glimpses into your young life or your aging years can alienate both those on the opposite end, and those in the middle of life. It is crucial to imagine the widow, the orphan, the refugee, the outcast, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, male and female, differing ethnicities and walks of life. How does this passage speak to a deeply felt human need that crosses over all of these life situations and contexts? Drawing on the resources of your new insights (#1), fresh good news (#2), and your own experience of what helps you overcome (#3), imagine how to guide your people into similar experience in very different lives. This is empathy work, and it is hard work…but in concept it is simple. See the people God has given you, and love them enough to understand their world, in their way.

I suppose there is another level of simplicity that needs to occur. Once the sermon is developed and the time for all of the above is gone, it is too late to rework all of those steps. And we need something a lot more condensed if we are ever going to remember it.

See the people. Love them. And show them the good news for their every day lives.

It is the equivalent of saying “see it and hit it.” Or “focus on your breathing.” But it might be exactly what you need this week. Wee the people. Love them. And show them good news for their every day lives. That is what we want from our preachers. It is what we need from our pastors. It is what we preachers easily forget in the heat of the moment.

See them. Love them. Gospel them.

And then again between services remind yourself: See them. Love them. Gospel them.