In her book, Preaching That Matters, Carrell has a chapter titled, Delivering Not Decorating. You may recall that what I’m benefiting from most in the book are survey results of hundreds of listeners. For instance, she writes,

“Listeners use elements of the speaker’s delivery to determine the answer to many crucial questions: How much does the speaker care about us? How important is this topic? How sincere and credible is the speaker?” (p. 130)

Usually, discussions about sermon delivery focus on voice and body, things like volume, rate, and movement. All of this is often aimed at helping preachers be more interesting. But look at the questions above. The way we preach affects much more than being interesting:

Sermon delivery communicates relate-ability or pastoral care. This is where the pastor-theologian focuses on the “pastor” part. It’s where we let our folks know we love them dearly, as much, if not more, than preaching itself.

Sermon delivery communicates the life-and-death nature of God’s Word to us. I’ve said before, that one of my most common comments on sermon evaluation forms is, “I don’t sense that what you’re saying is important.”

Sermon delivery communicates our own interest in God and shepherding God’s flock. We can preach in a way that shows we’re in this with them, that we’re hearing God speak to us too.

For the sake of God’s glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) we don’t want to preach and have one of our listeners say,

“When he preaches, it sounds like he doesn’t care–about what he is saying or about us. If he doesn’t care, why should I?” (p. 130).

Randal