Some readers preach every week, perhaps multiple times each week.  Others only preach periodically.  Perhaps this post is more for the less frequent preachers, but it could apply to all.  Simple idea today – when you have the choice of what to preach, don’t make it more complicated than necessary.  There’s always a lot to think about when you preach – the text, the congregation, your own life and circumstances.  Then there are all the aspects of effective communication, all prayerfully reliant on the Lord throughout the process.  Preaching is hard enough already, don’t make it harder:

Don’t go for an obscure text unnecessarily.  If you’re preaching through a book, then you probably need to deal with the difficult texts – it’s healthy for you and the church.  But if you have the choice, especially for a one-off message, don’t be afraid to use a familiar text.  By familiar I mean familiar to the listeners.  It may be familiar to you, but I would suggest you still need to study and immerse yourself in the text, even if you think you know it.  But don’t worry about listeners yawning and saying to themselves, “Oh here we go again, the same old text.”  Chances are they haven’t heard it that recently, and perhaps they need it again anyway!

Don’t go for multiple texts unnecessarily.  It may be tempting to combine several texts to construct the message.  There are reasons to preach with a combination of texts (see recent posts on “low fence” for more on this).  However, a lot of the time I would ask if it is worth the extra work?  Either you skim the preparation and present the texts superficially, or you diligently study each text in context and multiply your work by many hours.

If you have the opportunity to deliver a stand alone sermon, select your text wisely.  Don’t add unnecessary work, either in difficulty of text, or number of texts.   Don’t bite off more than you can chew, preaching is hard enough already!