Recently I heard a very good sermon that could have been excellent were it not for one factor. The preacher talked so long on his first and second points that he didn’t have time to adequately develop point three. Unfortunately, that was the one that would have been the most interesting and crucial as far as his listeners were concerned. It was also the knotty problem he said he would be dealing with during his sermon introduction.
My guess is that in his preparation, this speaker never clearly established what his sermon subject and desired response were. If he had, he would have known that points one and two—though related to his subject—would need to be limited time-wise or he wouldn’t be able to adequately cover the bigger and more crucial final point.
Running out of sermon time is a common flaw that preachers experience. Who in the clergy hasn’t erred in this regard? My belief is that the problem can’t be corrected during the process of preaching the sermon. Rather, it needs to be resolved early on during the sermon-preparation process.
There are five key steps to effective sermon preparation:
- Subject
- Response
- How-To
- How Long
- Key Sentence
In other words, a preacher needs to ask five critical questions:
- What’s my text about, or what’s my sermon subject? Do I have this subject/text clearly in mind?
- What am I calling for, or how do I want people to respond?
- Do the people know how to do this? If not, what how-tos do I need to include in what I have to say?
- How long do I expect it to take before the people will begin to see results from responding to this sermon?
- And, can I clearly express my subject and response in a key sentence?
Once a preacher has developed answers to these critical five items, he or she can ask one more question. About how much time is it going to take for me to cover these, the most important aspects of what the Lord is asking me to say?
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Please click here to visit David Mains’ Sermon-Coach.com website.
You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Please click here.
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