This is a guest post written by Dr. Jeffrey Arthurs. Jeff is Professor of Preaching and Communication at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. We team up together each year to instruct Doctor of Ministry students in Preaching the Literary Forms of the Bible. He is the author of Preaching with Variety and Devote Yourself to the Public Reading of Scripture. I hope your enjoy and profit from his insights. I always do.
As a teacher of preaching for more than twenty years, I have listened to thousands of student sermons. Most of those sermons were biblically accurate, and most were theologically grounded. (I’m glad to see a growing trend toward Christ-Centered preaching). About half were interesting; about a third were clear; and about a quarter were applied with insight and specificity.
Here are my top three observations on how to improve:
(1) Think yourself clear. Our job is to “package” in 30 minutes what it took us 10+ hours to prepare. This demands ruthless simplicity. I’m not talking about dumbing it down. I’m talking about having your idea(s) so well in hand that you could deliver the gist of your sermon in 60 seconds or less.
(2) Be concrete in application. Come down the “ladder of abstraction” with real life examples. Show what the truth of the text looks like in actual situations for the actual people who sit before you. If the text urges us to be patient, ask yourself: when, where, with whom, how, and what hinders our patience? Read the Sermon on the Mount and notice how much time our Lord spends at the bottom of the “ladder of abstraction” with concrete application.
(3) Model. Be an example of speech, life, love, faith, and purity. Don’t be afraid to illustrate the text from your own life, either “positively” or “negatively.” To be sure, there are risks with each, but when done with humility, and when done in the context of pastoral ministry where you are more than just a talking head on Sunday morning, God’s truth through your personality is powerful. This is part of the way you can watch over their souls—by pointing out how you yourself are being saved through preaching.
“Our job is to “package” in 30 minutes”. The preachers of old did not worry about time spent preaching. If it took all day then it took all day. I am genuinely curious why you feel the need to stick to a certain time? For 1900+ years this was not the case.
I am more guilty of this than anyone. But really, why not preach until you are done and not “worry” about who wants to get out of there? How is that your (Pastor) problem? That is our (parishioners) problem. I will tell you one thing, if I am under the knife, I am not telling my surgeon, “Hurry up, I am hungry and football is coming on at 1pm.” But there are many times I would tell you guys that. If a surgeon takes all the time he needs to care for our bodies, how much more time should our Pastors take who are caring for our souls?
Time for me to confess and repent.
With all sincerity,
Josh
Josh, thank you for your insight into a difficult subject. Let me give you my quick answer and then I’ll see what Jeff wants to contribute, too. We have allowed our culture to dictate the length of our worship. Thankfully, many in our faith-family at Calvary Bible express the same feeling as you do. They often tell me to take as long as I need.
Hi Josh. Thanks for your sincere question and perpective. By “30” minutes I did not mean to dictate how long sermons should be. I was just using that phrase as a short hand way to say that the time we spend in exegesis and prep will be much longer than the time we spend in delivery. For me the ratio is more than 20 to 1. I personally find it difficult to preach less than 35 mins. A couple of other thoughts:
The average length of a sermon in evangelical churches is 32 mins.
Most sermons are better if they are shorter. That is, they have more impact because they are concise and forceful. And of course, we are at war with our media saturatd culture that makes it hard for listeners to pay attention to material that lacks relevance.
Spurgeon urged his students to shorten their sermons (which meant to keep them under 45 mins.): “but you say to me, I want to do justice to my text! And I reply, that is fine, but also do mercy to your people.”
What advice would you give a student preacher concerning length? Give it no thought? Keep the sermon under 2 hours? Fill up whatever time the people will tolerate? What criteria help us decide how long to preach? Just saying, go till you ‘re done does not help because there is always more that could be said.
Hi Jeff,
Thank you for your helpful response. Spurgeon is one of my favorite preachers so it was a nice surprise that you quoted him!
Here’s another good quote from Spurgeon: “Surely if men’s hearts were right, short sermons would be enough.”
Thank you again for your response!
Blessings,
Josh