What makes a good sermon?
Preaching is the big fat elephant in the room. Most preaching is appalling, disconnected and boring and yet no one talks about it. We all pretend that everything is ok.. we wouldn’t want to offend the preacher. They are doing there best and all that… But I think we need to talk about it. What actually makes a good sermon? What is it we want to hear? I have been asking people what they look for and the following 4 points are common:
FOUNDATION// The sermon is grounded in the Bible. The Word of God is brought to life! So many sermons are dominated by stories about holidays or the latest movie, or interesting observations on the world: but leave out the Bible. Getting back to the foundation. But as one person warned, you cannot assume that people will know the Bible stories.. so assume low understanding of the Bible.
ACTION// The second thing is that it totally applies to their life. That at the end of the sermon they are left with this feeling like they need to take action. This means being challenging.
MEMORABLE// Third characteristic is that the sermon is memorable. One way suggested to make this happen is to use physical illustrations.. so use a prop.. something that will be a bit different. But gotta be careful that people don’t only remember the illustration and not the message!
EXCITEMENT// And the final point shared was that the preacher is personal. They share their passion. What is it about the scripture that fires them up? They are real, in touch with the issues of the community. They preach with conviction and power: not from themselves, but by the Holy Spirit!
So what do you look for in a sermon?
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7 Responses to “What makes a good sermon?”
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[…] post from my Anglican friend, Mark Brown, about changing times and what makes a good sermon. Bible preaching, Bible teaching, Brown Blog, Mark Brown, sermon relevance what makes a good […]
For me, the sermon is the pinnacle of the worship service, as God’s Word is preached…
So hat do I look for? Pretty much what you have put here already…
Faithful exegesis, practical application and good presentation are the important things for me, and its what I endeavour to do when I am preaching… Those three things make it memorable to me when I hear a sermon… I still remember hearing John Stott preaching a sermon back in the 90s entitled “The Hound of Heaven”… No gimmicks, just a message faithly given in the power of the Spirit!
Have a blessed week, mate…
Dave
How about prayer? I wonder how much time pastors actually spend in prayer that God will speak through them. Preachers are tool, instruments, that are used by God. Thorough preparation is an absolute necessity, but all the resources, visual illustrations, and object lessons accomplish nothing without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. There is no substitute for prayer.
I’m reading John Stott’s ‘The Living Church’. He says that there are a number of characteristics in Christian preaching and lists them as five paradoxes:
Biblical and contemporary - taking the text and relating it to the world
Authoritative and tentative - acknowledging the infallibility of the Word and the limitations of the preacher
Prophetic and pastoral - being faithful to the Word but gentle with those who fall short
Gifted and studied - the ability to preach is a gift but also requires self-discipline in the preacher to develop the gift
Thoughtful and passionate - well researched but with fire there too
John Stott quotes Billy Graham as saying that if he had his ministry again he would study three times as much and pray more.
A couple week’s ago, a student in Sunday School asked us if we prayed for the preacher during the week. Most of us dropped our eyes. The next day, I decided to pray every day for three things:
1. careful and deep preparation
2. clarity of thought
3. passion of heart
So, I guess that’s what I look for in a sermon.
Thanks, Mark, this was a helpful item and some helpful feedback. Agonising over sermons is no new thing. In 1965 Helmut Thielicke wrote that most sermons were ‘the mere grinding out of a routine vocabulary - God, grace, sin, justification - which produces a kind of Christian gobblegook that never gets under anybody’s skin and at most elicits the reaction, “Well, that’s the way the minister has to speak, but what’s it to me”.’ I’ve always found Walter Brueggemann’s reflections on the interface between Scripture and life extremely helpful. For example in his wonderful book, ‘Finally Comes the Poet’ he writes, ‘The gospel is too readily heard and taken for granted, as though it contained no unsettling news and no unwelcome threat. What began as news in the gospel is easily assumed, slotted and conveniently dismissed. We depart having heard, but without noticing the urge to transformation that is not readily compatible with our comfortable believing…The gospel…is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized and rendered inane…closed, managed, useful truth…The church on Sunday morning…may be the last place left in our society for imaginative speech that permits people to enter into new worlds of faith and to participate in joyous, obedient life…To address the issue of a truth greatly reduced requires us to be poets that speak against a prose world.’ Yes!!
[…] I need to be the best conduit that I can be. On my web wanderings today I found this article by Mark Brown. He makes some interesting points. Have a […]