In the latest Biblical Preaching Bitesize, I share ten pointers for preaching Easter effectively. The Easter story is the heart of the Christian faith, and a key moment in our church calendar. So why might we struggle with preaching at Easter?
1. The story is so familiar. The Easter story comes up repeatedly throughout the year as we present the gospel in various situations. Sadly, the most wondrous news of all can become stale and predictable. We can end up saying the same things about the cross and the same things about the empty tomb. Listeners can bring assumptions from artistic images they have seen, or from presentations they have heard before.
2. The wondrous truth can get buried. Each passage that we might choose to preach is saying something about Easter. But sometimes, that theological and potentially life-changing truth can get buried in the story’s recounting. Or it can be lost because listeners get the sense they are listening to a famous old myth rather than the central moment of human history. When stories feel like a myth, listeners listen differently.
3. The preacher can feel flat. Familiar material, a busy time of year, and a preacher recounting history rather than feasting on the Word of God can lead to a flattened heart at the front of the church. We don’t want that, for our sake and theirs.
And don’t miss the encouragement at the end. What could be more powerful than a vivid image projected on the screen in a church using the best contemporary software?
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Is there a small detail in your preaching that would yield disproportionate fruit if you gave it some attention? Maybe even a “non-content” element of preaching that would make your biblical content land with more precision and penetration? The answer is, yes, absolutely. Give some thought to your transitions!
As I listen to sermons in the classes I teach, it is often the transitions between points that either let a sermon down or help a sermon land with force. Each transition is an opportunity to give breathing space (for fast-paced preachers), or assurance of progress (for more ponderous presenters), as well as a re-entry point for distracted listeners, and an opportunity to restate the main idea at a key moment in the sermon. Then, of course, there is the main function of a good transition: to set up the next point in the sermon!
Transitions are small moments with big impact. In sporting terms, transitions provide assists so that the sermon points can score goals. Every coach knows the person giving the assist will get less glory but is critical to the team’s success.
So, hopefully, I have convinced you that transitions matter. Feel free to go to your next sermon and think through how each transition could be most effective. Or, if you want five specific suggestions on how to transition well, please check out this Bitesize episode on The Biblical Preaching Podcast!
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As you preach, there are numerous defining moments. That is, pivotal decisions or moments that will multiply the impact of the sermon. The whole sermon matters, of course. You can’t expect one great line to do great work when it is packaged in fluff. But while you work on the whole sermon, remember that there are some defining moments that could make or break it.
1. The unseen preparation (yours and theirs!) – Whatever happens during the sermon itself is really just the final part of a process. There has been a whole lot of unseen preparation before the moment of delivery. Of course, there have been the ups and downs of sermon preparation for you, the preacher. The prayer, the study, the wrestling with word choices, the hunting for illustrative material, the interruptions, the storm, and the calm inside you and in your study. The journey to the pulpit may have been arduous, or somehow serene, but hopefully God has been at work in you before he will work through you. And I am only describing the last few days, but God has been at work for years. However, the sermon is not just about the preacher. How has God been stirring the listeners? Providential circumstances, carefully timed conversations, quiet questions inside, or overwhelming challenges without. It is not unusual for a sermon to touch a nerve that was only sensitized in the preceding days. “How did the preacher know that about me?” Often, the preacher didn’t. But someone did. It is helpful to remember that a lifetime of preparation is brought into the sermon from all sides, and only God can be aware of that, let alone influential in it!
2. The first moments of the introduction – It is hard to overstate the importance of the first moments. I don’t mean the introduction. I mean the first impressions. Do you seem comfortable, or nervous, or indifferent, or agitated? Will listeners get the sense that you have something to say that is worth their focus and time to listen? Will people who have never heard you before feel welcomed and engaged? Will regular listeners sense that you are well prepared, or will they get the sense that you are somehow “off” this week? Remember, humans are wired relationally. When you sit at a table in a restaurant, you know whether you like the server before you have a chance to evaluate your first interaction. Sometime, watch a video of yourself. Watch up until your first word. Prayerfully and conversationally evaluate (that is, ask God what he thinks, and ask someone else what they notice – don’t just trust your own perspective). Then watch the first couple of sentences, and evaluate again.
We will continue this list of defining moments in your sermon next time, but feel warmly invited to comment with any that are on your mind!
Defining moments are pivotal decisions that will impact the essential nature of your sermon. So far we have thought about getting started, and about the move from passage to message. Now let’s add a couple of unplanned moments that tend to show up quite often in the process:
5. The moment of breaking through a log jam. Most messages are not a smooth journey from passage selection, through each sequential step, to a pulpit-ready sermon. Somewhere along the way, there tends to be a log jam and we get stuck. It could be the wording of the main idea. It might be a needed illustration. Or perhaps the sermon is ready, but the introduction feels bland and in need of a major overhaul. Sometimes the whole thing might feel okay, but flat. You are stuck and you feel it. What can you do? Sometimes the jam is the necessary reminder to really pray about the message – wrestling with God for some kind of breakthrough. Sometimes the jam needs to break you free of your computer – stand and preach it out loud, then when it seems to flow better, go back and try to capture what you said into your outline. Sometimes the jam will break only after you take a break – pray about it and leave the preparation for a walk, a night’s sleep, or a conversation with someone else. I suspect new preachers will know the panic a log jam can create in your heart. And I suspect that seasoned preachers will know how often a log jam occurs in the preparation process, and then proves to be a defining moment.
6. The interruption or even, the attack. Maybe you have a nice predictable rhythm. Perhaps you start preparing on a certain day, then take X number of sessions to study the passage, move on to shape the message on another day, and then have X number of hours to complete the message. It may be nicely and neatly regimented by years of practice. But then there is the interruption. It is almost predictable. The washing machine breaks, the family member’s computer goes down, the phone call from the congregant in a crisis, the thing that demands several hours that you do not have to spare. It happens. If it happens so often that you feel under-prepared every time, perhaps you need to review your standard plan for sermon preparation. Perhaps it is time to lift some stress and get further into the process sooner in the week. At the same time, it is good to recognize that God has used many sermons that felt under-prepared from the preacher’s perspective. Sometimes the interruption, or even spiritual attack, is the necessary mechanism to push our dependence back onto God, where it belongs.
Do you experience variations of the log jam and the interruption? How often?
While the whole preparation process will shape your message, some defining moments will fundamentally change the outcome of the process. We started with two related to starting preparation. Now let’s think about two that tie into the transition between passage study and message formation:
3. The decision to transition from passage study to message formation. The first half of the preparation process focuses on understanding the passage. The second half involves formulating and writing a message. The shift between these two phases is critically important. If you shift too early, then you will be working on the message without really grasping the meaning of the passage. If you shift too late, then you will have plenty of exegetical insight to share, but little time to craft a message that lands in real life. Do you tend to fall in one direction or the other? It is hard to see a lack of understanding in the mirror – we all tend to think we have a good grip on a passage when it may only be a superficial sense of the meaning. Or you may be in a rut of sharing exegetical nuggets without crafting a message that is shaped to speak into real life. And some, sad to say, neither know the joy of being gripped by a passage, nor the pleasure of crafting a sermon that hits home – they just use a passage as a launch point for some standard favourite content. If that could be you, then it may be time for some candid conversations with some listeners, and for radical surgery on your ministry. It will be worth it.
4. The realization of who will be listening. At one level, this moment is fairly straightforward, as long as it happens. That is to say, after studying the passage to understand the author’s meaning as accurately as possible, then you consciously introduce your listeners into your thinking as you move to crafting the sermon for their benefit. You don’t want to be thinking too much about your listeners when you are studying the passage, because your concern is the original audience of the text. Neither do you want to not be thinking about your listeners when shaping the message, because your concern has to be for them as the audience of the sermon. That moment of introducing conscious consideration of your listeners should be a standard point in the process every time (and essentially the same moment as number 3 above). But then there will be some sermon-specific moments in this category too. You might realise how the message could hit very close to home for someone in your congregation. You might be told that a certain person is going to be present. You might be at church when someone walks in that you were not expecting (and you realise your message requires some tweaking for their sake – either to be more accessible, less provocative, or whatever.)
As this list continues to build, what defining moments do you recognize in your sermon preparation?
In our church, we have just completed an eight-week series in 1 Peter. Here are some brief reflections that may be helpful:
1. This epistle is relevant. I know that is not breaking news to you, but it bears underlining. 1 Peter speaks to people that felt like oppressed outsiders in the society in which they lived. It did then, and it does now.
2. Suffering may be necessary. We have lived through decades of relatively little suffering, but times seem to be changing. Suffering is not permanent, “now for a little while.” And suffering may be part of the plan, “if necessary.” In 1 Peter 1:6 we are introduced to the possibility that suffering is not the result of bad luck, but divine providence. As we come towards Easter we have the ultimate example of deliberate and planned suffering.
3. Biblical background helps. There is the situational background of the readers, forcibly moved from Rome and repatriated to these five regions of modern Turkey. There is the historical background of Peter’s life and experience. Keeping that in mind, as he would have done, is helpful to shine a light on his call to be prepared (3:15), to stay humble and to resist the devil (5:6-9), etc. Then there is the textual background of Peter’s biblical awareness as he wrote. For instance, the situation behind Psalm 34 seems to be shining a light on much of Peter’s writing in this epistle.
4. Difficult texts still have simple points. Preaching the end of 1 Peter 3 and the start of 1 Peter 4 is not easy territory to navigate. There is the timing, location and content of Jesus’ preaching in 3:19; then the reference to Noah in 3:20; followed by the awkward reference to baptism in 3:21. It is exegetical difficulty piled on exegetical difficulty. I chose to give some minutes to explain that complexity, but not before I emphasised the simple point of this section: Jesus suffered and Jesus was victorious. It helps to keep a clear picture in mind when trying to make sense of the complex.
5. The letter has a strong DNA. God’s pattern is for suffering now to be followed by glory later. It was true for Jesus, it was true for Peter’s readers then, and it is true for Peter’s readers now. Suffering and then glory: this idea works its way through the entire letter.
6. Variation can help a series work well. We had a team of preachers on this series. One of the messages was preached in first-person. It came in the middle of the series and really helped the series to not feel monotonous in style. Different preachers helped the series, although it was important to make sure we were preaching a coherent series.
7. Non-Suffering forms of Christianity lead to harm. We seem to live between two extremes. One is the fatalistic idea that disaster is coming no matter what. The other is the idealistic idea that we should always be healthy, and wealthy and travel in a private jet. What is the healthy middle ground? It is not a gentle form of health and wealth – that is, things should generally go well for us if we simply trust, pray and obey. Many Christians seem to want to live with their basic orientation towards good circumstances. No, the reality is that we live in a fallen world filled with suffering. So let’s turn from gentle forms of health and wealth, and let’s engage a fallen and sin-marred world with our hope reaching out beyond this suffering to the glory to come. Our hope is not in our experience but in the character of our good God and his plan.
8. 1 Peter should prepare us for difficulty, but stir us to trust! Every problem we face in this world is a problem that exists within creation. 1 Peter urges us to look beyond this realm to the eternal realities. We look outside of this realm to the God who is so much bigger, the God who cares for us. “The dog bit me,” ~ yes, but God is bigger. “But it was a big dog,” ~ so what, God is bigger. “But it was a lion,” ~ it doesn’t matter, God is bigger. “Actually it was a killer whale.” ~ Ok, but God is still bigger than any problem we can face in this realm. What’s more, he already came and suffered, and is now sitting in victory. So we can be humble, be watchful, and be hopeful. We get to stand in the true grace of God whatever may come our way.
There are plenty more thoughts generated by two months in 1 Peter. But hopefully this list is a motivational starter for now…
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I have a series of videos on 1 Peter 2:1-10 that focus on the interpretation phase of Bible study. You can find them in this playlist:
Part of our challenge as preachers is to fight flatness in our preaching. This could be in terms of delivery, structure, or content. Perhaps you would add more areas too.
Basic Principle – When we stand in front of a crowd, which is an unnatural environment, then we have to fight a tendency to become restricted in all types of variation. What seems varied in our minds can sound flat, or monotonous, to our listeners. We have to fight against that flatness to be as engaging as possible.
Delivery – I am resisting the term monotony, because technically, that only refers to tone. Tone is certainly included, but we can become flat communicators in other areas too. The added pressure of speaking to a crowd, even if we are not nervous, will push us toward a restricted range of vocal tone. Or physical movement. Or facial expression. Or range of gestures. Or volume. Any aspect of our delivery can easily become repetitive and restricted rather than varied and interesting. Naturally, we will tend to bore rather than grip. So let’s fight the flatness in order to be engaging.
Structure – What happens with delivery, can also happen with the parts of our sermon. We can easily present the content in a flatter way than we anticipated. The nerves, or just the dynamic of a crowd, can cause us to progress through the passage at a fixed height. It is easy to lose the moments of greater overview to help our listeners, instead of either plodding at a fixed height or jumping between details without showing the connections. It takes a clear mind to remember to make the transitions clear and helpful. It takes a deliberate approach to give high-level overview and then dip down for details with clarity. If we don’t think about it, every sermon point will simply be the next natural step in our progression through the text. Naturally, we will tend to slide through the text rather than showing the contours and enlighten listeners regarding the passage as a whole. Let’s fight the flatness in order to be engaging.
Content – The same thing can happen with other aspects of our content. It is easy to get in a rut with how we explain the details in the text, or the kind of illustrations that we use, or the emotional energy in the support material shared. Five sporting analogies in a row is typically not as thrilling as we might feel internally. Always using cross-references in every point is not biblically engaging, it is dull. Don’t fall into a pattern of always offering illustrative material that is merely interesting, but never personal, or always personal, but also mundane. Listeners need variety in content to distinguish parts of the message and to offer the velcro for their minds and hearts to stay engaged. We have to fight the flatness in order to be engaging.
How else do you see monotony, or flatness, creeping into a sermon? It is also possible to get into a rut between messages, too. For instance, always using the same shape sermon, always quoting the same source (Spurgeon, anyone?), or always ending with the same emotional force.
One of the big differences between preparation and presentation relates to details. Every preaching text is made up of numerous details: nouns, verbs, adjectives, participles, grammatical notables, other Bible quotations, allusions, etc. It doesn’t matter what kind of text you are preaching, the building blocks of that text are details.
Sermon Preparation – When we prepare a sermon we should be like detectives with those details. Every detail is important and needs to be handled appropriately. We want to make sense of each detail in its context. What is there? What is missing? How do they work together? Our focus alternates between details and the big picture in and beyond the text. And as we study, it will become clear that there are some key details that carry significant weight in the passage. Every detail matters, but there are always some heavy lifters in a passage that we have to really wrestle with in order to grasp the meaning of the text. We have to work with all of them to figure out which ones are weightier, and then those weightier few should consume our energy for a season of preparation.
Sermon Presentation – When we present a sermon we are restricted in time and purpose. Our purpose is not to present every avenue of inquiry that consumed us at our study desk. Our purpose is not to download all of our acquired knowledge in a rapid-fire data dump. Our purpose is tied to our main idea and its application in the lives of our listeners. So for the sake of time and focus, we cut out unnecessary explanation of textual details. This is why it is vital that we identify the heavy lifting details in a passage – those that are necessary to feel the force of the text. As I have put it in the classroom, it is unlikely that the seven “ands” in the passage are the key detail to present.
So, in the study, diligently analyze the details. In the sermon, remember that some details need no more than a passing comment, while others might even be clarified simply by our tone in the reading. Other details, however, are critical and central to the passage. These call us to highlight them, clarify them, and make sure that our listeners feel the force that they exert within the passage to make it unique in meaning and unique in its potential life impact.
There are details, and then there are details. There are textual details in your preparation. And there are textual details in your presentation. After all, every passage is made up of lots of details. There are nouns, verbs, adjectives, names, quotations, allusions, grammatical constructions, figures of speech, and on the list goes. Whatever kind of passage you are looking at, it is built with the basic building block of details.
1. Details in Sermon Preparation. We should begin the study process with an interest in every detail. To study a text is to try to figure out why each detail is present, what it is intended to do, and how they all combine to convey a message. It might also help to notice what is not included. Exegesis is more than the study of details, but it can never be less than that.
The Bible is not written with padding to reach a word count – it wasn’t written by procrastinating students! The Bible is not a cheap paperback, overly elaborating every incidental detail to give the impression of a complex plot. The Bible is sparing in detail, precise in its writing.
Our job as Bible students is to see and interpret every element of the text. We can’t springboard off a keyword and ignore the rest of the passage. We must make sure our understanding of every detail coheres. If one detail is left untouched, we can’t be confident that we have grasped the message as a whole. So we scour the text, moving back and forth between analysis of details and synthesis of the whole passage in its broader context. We alternate between microscope and binoculars.
As we study the text we start to recognize that some details serve a more significant role in communicating the message of the text. Some details are important in making our passage unique. Other details are “load-bearing walls” in this passage. Every detail matters, but not every detail carries equal weight in a passage. It is only through careful study that we can identify which is which.
2. Details in Sermon Presentation. When it comes time to deliver our sermon we are limited by time and motivated by purpose. What is our purpose when we preach? It is not to present every avenue of inquiry that we have pursued in our study. It is not to download all of our accumulated information to our listeners. Our purpose is tied to our main idea and its application in the lives of our listeners. Therefore we select which details to highlight in order to effectively communicate this passage to these people.
This selection process involves an evaluation of the passage. In light of the study, what are the critical “load-bearing” details in the passage? It also involves evaluating our listeners. Are there details that may distract our listeners, or would our failure to pay attention to a detail come across as evading it, or as a mistake on our part? Some details can be explained quickly and easily, others take more time, but we will never have enough time to explain every detail as much as we might like.
Preaching is not as simple as following a formula. It isn’t simply study a passage, write a message and deliver it. We need to be meticulous in our study, but selective in our sermon. We need to treat every detail like the treasure that it is – an inspired word in God’s Word. And we need to preach God’s Word in a way that honours the words, but always seeing them as part of the coherent message of the passage as a whole. We need to pray for wisdom to see the passage as the original author intended, and to hear the message as our congregation will hear it presented. May we all grow in the varied skills it takes to handle all these details!
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This resource may be helpful for you or others on the subject of studying Bible passages:
One of the challenges of the pandemic has been preaching to a camera without people present. Thankfully we are currently able to meet, but there have been many Sundays of just preaching to a camera. When there is an actual gathering of people, and you are preaching, there are lots of things to be aware of between the beginning of the service and the sermon itself.
1. The Time – this is number one for a reason. Sometimes delays happen. End of service still needs to arrive on time. Maybe the announcements take too long, song introductions become mini-sermons, a technical hitch slows things down. What is the result? Well, you need to preach shorter. Be aware of where you can trim time from your message (an illustration that can go, a shortcut through the introduction, removing the review of the series so far), and be careful not to edit out important elements (the major points, the key transitions, etc.) Pray that you will not be annoyed by the adjustment. People can read people and at least some of your listeners will sense it.
2. The Pre-Message Messages – between the announcements, any interviews, prayers, songs, etc., there is usually quite a bit said before you get to preach. Listen to it and maybe you can integrate elements into the message. Especially if someone has done something nerve-wracking like a testimony, be sure to acknowledge and thank them. However, you have a sermon to preach, so make sure an engaging opening (or a terrible one) doesn’t distract you and weaken the message. (And if you are like me, there are sometimes quite amusing comments that come to mind in relation to what has happened earlier in the service. These are often better left behind when it comes time to preach!)
3. The Speaker Introduction – especially if you are a guest speaker, you don’t know what they are going to say about you right before you preach. Generally just say thank you and get on with it. Clever retorts made without time to evaluate can really backfire. (A note to those introducing a speaker. Please only say what is helpful. Too much praise, too much humour, or too much time all make it harder to preach effectively!)
4. The Service Mood – sometimes a congregation is laughing after you’ve been introduced, sometimes they are in a deep and sombre moment. Perhaps they have been bored to death already, or maybe they are distracted by the crying infant. It is helpful to read the congregation and launch accordingly. Adapt your introductory comments as appropriate.
5. The Congregation – as well as evaluating the mood of the congregation, it doesn’t hurt to be aware of the people. If you are not in a position where observing would be awkward, observe and pray for your congregation. This sermon is not about you preaching it, it is about them hearing it. Pray for their hearts to be open and for yours to be beating with Christ’s heart for them.
6. The Journey – minor detail, until you make a mistake. Be sure to check your journey from where you are sat to where you will preach. Any steps? Any microphone cables? I remember one church where I had to climb a literal staircase to get to the pulpit. I was thankful for those extra moments when my introduction came far earlier than expected (and my end time was pre-determined by being a live radio broadcast – I did a lot of thinking and praying on my way up those stairs!)
7. The Focus of the Preacher – it is good to be aware of all these things and probably other things too. At the same time you are thinking about the message. In the midst of it all, remember to pray. You want to preach focused rather than distracted or distressed.
Biblical Preaching 