Pastoral ministry and family life rarely yield the full quota of hours we would like to perfectly prepare each sermon.  However, there are some elements of a sermon that don’t do well with a short-cut approach.  Time spent on this aspect of the sermon is always time well spent.

Clarity.  It doesn’t come by accident.  The only thing that is clear when you don’t spend time on clarity is that you didn’t spend time on clarity.  It takes work to think yourself clear and then more work to preach in a clear manner. 

However, it is tempting to bypass this aspect of sermon preparation.  This is because everything seems so clear to you, the preacher.  You have spent hours in the text (hopefully).  You have wrestled with understanding the passage and then forming a sermon.  Yet for the clarity to come through, you have to pay close attention to matters of clarity.

I have been both a student and a teacher in preaching classes.  The students know that they need to communicate a clear big idea.  They know that the class will be asked for the big idea once their sermon is over.  Consequently the smart students “work the system” by stating and reiterating their big idea seemingly to an extreme level.  Then when the prof asks the class what the big idea was, there is usually a pause, followed by three or four different ideas.  The preacher sits there with a puzzled look.  “I thought I was being clear!”  If prepped students looking for the idea can’t spot it, what about a congregation who may not even know what a big idea is?  They’ll come up with something, but if you are not clear, then it will not be what you intended.

So before you preach your next sermon, do a review for clarity.  Is the big idea clear?  Does the sermon flow in a clear manner?  Are the transitions clear?  Are you using vocabulary people will understand?  Be clear, be clear, be clear.  If you’re not clear, then what are you achieving?