Tag Archives: sermon delivery

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What I Learned About Preaching from the Beatles

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Through the years I have always been intrigued by critiques and analyses of musical performers. Recently I enjoyed a documentary on the Beatles and once again came away with insights for preaching.

One interviewer/reviewer said of the Beatles:

“They were fresh and they were honest.”

Just those two things, but extremely important for explaining part of why this new singing group took the world by storm.

It got me thinking whether these two elements of being fresh and honest are important for preaching God’s Word in church on Sunday.

First, why is being fresh and honest important for preachers? Our listeners resonate with a sense of freshness that they hear in our preaching. This kind of freshness means that you and God are together in the study before the sermon. Freshness means God’s Spirit is teaching you in the study and in your sermons and lessons you are relaying what He is teaching you. It is very current, very fresh material.

Then there is honesty. This gives our listeners the assurance that you are being real in your own faith-journey. Your preaching and teaching is genuine, not contrived. Our listeners find it easier to listen to us because they feel we’re real, not fake.

Second, how do preachers accomplish being fresh and honest? This kind of freshness sounds different, but not in the sense of always coming up with things they’ve never heard before. It might be the way your use words and phrases. It may be your particular style, but it is unmistakably you.

And being honest? It includes an honesty about your own wrestling with the text. It includes honestly preaching the text no matter how it might sound to the listeners. It also includes the sense that you believe what you’re saying and that it’s a matter of life and death.

Anyway, I hope this creates some thinking on effectively communicating God’s Word. You probably have things come to mind immediately that could add to either being fresh or honest or both.

May any sense of Spirit-created freshness and honesty result in our Lord receiving glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21),

Randal

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Remember, Our Goal Is Speaking To Our Listeners, Not Writing Sermons

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Consider writing out your sermon manuscript each week, but write it as you would want to say it, and then preach it without notes.

I’m slowly working my way through Carrell’s, Preaching That Matters: Reflective Practices for Transforming Sermons. Her chapter on sermon delivery provides interesting feedback from preachers on their practices.

Only a very small percentage of preachers practice their sermons out loud before preaching. I’m one of the ones who doesn’t.

However, I do practice speaking the sermon from the moment I begin writing the sermon each Monday morning. This is in line with Carrell’s findings:

“the path to increased transformative impact: [is] alter your preparation and delivery so that you honor the orality inherent in preaching.” (p. 142, emphasis added)

Carrell summarizes the “oral style” described by communication theorists, Dance and Zak-Dance. Two are especially noteworthy:

(1) “It makes conscious use of memory. The speaker need to be as free of notes as possible to concentrate on communicating thought to the audience.” (p. 142, emphasis added)

(2) “…speakers work to help the audience feel a part of the speaker’s thoughts and emotional processes.” (p. 143, emphasis added)

So, we write our sermons out like we’re speaking to our listeners. We know our material so well, including our carefully chosen words, that during the sermon we can get our thoughts across clearly and passionately and bring our listeners along minute-by-minute.

And all so that our Lord receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

P.S. Students often worry about forgetting what they’re supposed to say if they try preaching without notes. My answer is always the same: Look down at your Bible, take your cue, and keep preaching. You’re the only one who knows the orascript anyway.

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Key Questions Your Sermon Delivery Answer

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There’s nothing wrong, necessarily, with folding your hands like this. Really.

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

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The High EQ Preacher (part 4): Invite Them To Think With You

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I knew Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (by Bradberry and Greaves) was worth reading when I read: “If you want people to listen…” (p. 44). Every pastoral preacher or Bible teacher wants people to listen. And, evidently, from a human perspective, assuming God has graciously given ears to hear, a preacher’s emotional intelligence (EQ) is a factor.

But let’s start with this question: Do you ever think about what your listeners are thinking and feeling while you’re preaching? High EQ preachers want to know the answer and work hard at getting listeners to think and “talk” to them. It’s easy to get caught trying to remember what you need to say. When that happens, it’s impossible to think about whether you’re communicating effectively.

So, we certainly need to know our material well so we can focus on our hearers’ reaction to what we’re saying.

On page 46 the authors urge all their readers to

“…create a safe and inviting forum for discussion.”

That happens in two broad ways:

First, we must continue to work hard at our relationships with congregants before and after the worship services, and during any other times when interaction takes place during the week. As I’ve said before, our faith-family members need to know we love them dearly.

Second, we must continue to work hard at our relationships with congregants during the teaching times in church. You can create a warm, inviting atmosphere during the sermon. At a minimum, invite them to think along with you while you preach. At the maximum, invite them to talk to you while you preach. I enjoy actual, limited dialogue virtually every Sunday.

Whether your congregants actually enter into a conversation with you during the sermon is not the point. The high EQ preachers relate to their listeners in such a way that parishioners want to be a part of the conversation.

Maybe the most important thing you can do is make sure that you don’t sound so dogmatic that you shut down any discussion. If you heard that and raised your red flag, you might be prone to squelching dialogue. High EQ preachers have a way of speaking authoritatively for God without putting up unnecessary barriers to communication.

Before Sunday, work on knowing your material so well that you can focus on what your listeners are thinking while you’re preaching. And may our Lord receive His due in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) because you’ve created a safe place to interact with His Word.

Randal

P.S. A few days ago I watched a couple of sermons by T. D. Jakes, pastor of The Potter’s House in Dallas, TX. My mission was to simply watch how he relates to his faith-family during the sermon. He’s an extremely high EQ preacher!

 

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Making An Emotional Connection With Your Passage

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Look at the image. If you’re like me, many times we make a rational connection with our Sunday preaching portion (e.g., 1 Cor. 15 and all the proofs/arguments for the resurrection). Goodness, I’m in a Bible Church so I don’t feel an emotional connection to anything! But that’s not important right now.

What is important is understanding why making an emotional connection with our Text is so important to preaching. It has to do with one of the top characteristics of all good preaching:

the presence of passion.

I just finished reading, Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-speaking Secrets of the Word’s Top Minds, by Carmine Gallo.

I selected that book to continue my practice of reading one new book the week before I begin teaching a new class. I am currently teaching Advanced Homiletics to a fine group of students in the MAM or MDiv program at Lancaster Bible College/Capital Seminary in Lancaster, PA. This year I selected Gallo’s book because I wanted to spend some time reading about effective communication (I’m usually reading heavy hermeneutics stuff throughout the year).
I wasn’t surprised to read: “passion is the key to mastering a skill like public speaking.” (p. 8)
It’s one of the keys to “mastering a skill like” preaching too. Chances are good that if you heard a “good” sermon, passion was one key ingredient. Which is why Gallo writes,
“Dig deep to identify your unique and meaningful connection to your presentation topic….passion is contagious, literally. You cannot inspire others unless you are inspired yourself. You stand a much greater chance of persuading and inspiring your listeners if you express an enthusiastic, passionate, and meaningful connection to your topic.” (p. 17)
We might think that would be automatic for preachers: “Of course we preachers are deeply passionate about every preaching portion we ever preach.” Right? Wrong. Especially if you are preaching through books of the Bible. The topical preacher has a better chance of connecting emotionally with their topic/texts because they selected it for a reason. Expository, through-the-Book preachers don’t have that luxury. The next Text is, well, the next Text. It might be up your alley or it might not.
So, what can we do to make an emotional connection with this weekend’s preaching portion?
  • Love God this week. Feel something for Him. You know it’s possible for us to study hard all week and not do this, right?
  • Love His people in your church this week. Feel something for them. You know it’s possible for us to study hard all week and not do this, right? (these first two form the foundation for the next one)
  • Identify the one place where you are inspired by your preaching portion. How did it cause you to worship God as you studied it?
Before Sunday, make an emotional connection with your passage so you can say with 2004 TED presenter, Matthieu Ricard, “‘I am just full of joy to be able to say a few words about…’” (p. 23)

Preach well so God receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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Listening to Yourself While You’re Preaching

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Every once in a while I realize I’m listening to myself while I preach. And it’s a good thing because sometimes I need to back up and correct or clarify myself. If only we had an autocorrect feature built into our sound system! It would be helpful because, if you’re like me, you don’t naturally pay attention to what you’re saying while you’re saying it.

In his theology of preaching, God’s Human Speech, Bartow writes: “Preachers are self-critical, that is to say, throughout the homiletical process, in the preparation and delivery of sermons, and, afterwards, when the preaching moment is revisited. This does not mean that preachers are ‘uptight,’ forever second-guessing themselves. But it does mean that they are self-aware, conscious of what they are doing, not just before and after, but also while they are doing it.” (p. 129, emphasis added)
It was the “while they are doing it” part that jumped out at me. Being self-critical during sermon delivery is not automatic, but the congregation is better for it when it happens.
Here’s what I’ve experienced that helps me listen carefully to myself while I’m preaching:
  1. The better I know the material, the easier it is for me to listen to myself while I’m preaching. I’m not thinking about what I’m going to say next. When I’m prepared in heart and head I’m in the moment.
  2. There are times in the sermon when I know I didn’t use the right word. When I catch myself, I can back up and use a better word. There’s no shortcuts to expanding one’s vocabulary. Next to my Bible, my thesaurus gets a tough workout every week.
  3. There are times when I know I wasn’t clear. Writing out the sermon manuscript word for word helps decrease the chances of being unclear on Sunday. But there’s usually times when a puzzled look in the congregation tells me it’s time to pause for clarification.
Bartow writes, “Somehow we know that something just said needs modification, amplification, correction. Somehow we sense our involvement or lack of it, our believability or unbelievability. We sense the involvement or lack of it of our congregants too. And we take action as needed on the basis of our tutored (by our criteria) instincts.” (p. 130)

So, before Sunday be ready to listen to yourself preach so that God’s glory is enhanced in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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What I’m Learning About Preaching From American Idol Judges

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american-idol-new-judges-ftr

I admit it. I enjoy watching competitions like American Idol and The Voice. Partly because I love to hear good singing. Partly because the judges teach me about effective communication to contemporary listeners. Even though I focus almost entirely on the hermeneutical side of homiletics, I still try to think about effective communication.
There are many similarities between good singing performances and good preaching (notice I did not add, “performances,” because I do not like to think of preaching in terms of a performance).
So over the years, over and over again, I hear the judges tell a contestant:
“You need to make a connection with the audience and the way that happens is by losing yourself in the lyrics and telling the story so it’s believable. When you feel what you’re singing about, your audience will feel it too and believe your story.” Or something like that.
Do you see how this applies to preaching? A preacher losing himself in his sermon and telling the Story so it’s believable? A preacher feeling what he’s preaching about and conveying such feeling that his listeners find themselves believing it too?
Now, let’s ask ourselves what happens when we preach without doing this. How do you think we connect when we preach without losing ourselves in the message or without conveying the fact that we believe the Story? Not very well.
One of the authors in, Preaching the New Testament, included Jana Childers’ observation found in her book, Performing the Word: “In her view too much contemporary preaching lacks passion and does not sound like the preacher believes what he is preaching” (p. 236 of Preaching the NT).

I can tell you that many young preachers in my classrooms over the years have heard me say something very similar about their sermons. I wonder what the judges would say about my preaching.

Before Sunday, be sure your faith in the message allows your to lose yourself in the sermon and tell the Story in a way that’s believable. Feel what you’re preaching about and convey that emotion to your congregants.

For the sake of God’s reputation in the Church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21), preach a good sermon will ya?!

Randal

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Doing Our Part To Keep Worshipers Awake

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During our family’s recent vacation I was able to read a little paperback, Saving Eutychus: How to preach God’s Word and keep people awake. Millar and Campbell struck a balance between being biblical and interesting. I highly recommend the book. In the introduction Campbell flat out says: “It’s our job to keep people awake, and we’ll take the blame if they fall out the window” (p. 14). Well, yes and no. It would be interesting to list the sleep-inducers that are not in our control. However, one thing I noticed after listening to about 30 sermons over the past two months is this: biblical preachers often struggle maintaining adequate pace. If this might describe you–it does me–you will profit from the section, Agile Delivery (pp. 107ff.). The authors will force you to think about where to place emphasis in the sermon. They’ll help you think about not letting the sermon bog down. They’ll help you save your sleepy saint on Sunday morning.