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BACK to BASICS
PREACHINGA TEN STEP GUIDE TO MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS
Steve May
Becoming a great preacher,
like becoming a great artist,
requires a life commitment.
— Calvin Miller
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C.S. LEWIS once said that Christians need to be reminded more
than we need to be instructed.
This especially applies to the preacher’s relationship to
preaching. Most of us know what we need to do — we just need
to be reminded from time to time.
Therefore, I hope this back-to-basics guide will serve as a
reminder to preachers and teachers that a few small steps can
make a big difference in the impact we have with our listeners.
Here’s to great preaching!
Steve May
introduction
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YOUR SERMONS ARE AS GOOD
AS YOUR RESOURCES
IN HIS SEMINAR on preaching, Rick Warren talks about the need
to use good resources during the sermon preparation process.
He asks, “Did you hear about the preacher who insisted that he
would be original or nothing — and was both?”
Maybe there are a handful of preachers so naturally deep
and dynamic that they can dazzle and deliver without doing
any digging, but there aren’t many. And let’s face it, if Rick Warren
doesn’t think he fits into that category, you and I don’t either.
The bottom line is that most sermons are as good as the
resources used during preparation.
Great sermons are a team effort. By “team” I mean the
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writers, preachers, and theologians you turn to while putting
your message together.
Paul said to Timothy: And the things you have heard me say
in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who
will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2:2)
He’s saying, “Take what you’ve learned from me, use it and
pass it on. Tell it to others like I told it to you.” This is God’s
method, that we learn from one another and we teach one
another.
I’m not talking about carbon-copying someone else’s sermon.
Neither do I suggest that your messages should lack your own
stamp of originality and creativity.
I am saying that your most creative ideas will come from
the overflow of your research — what you read and study
and hear and absorb from God’s seasoned leaders during the
process of preparation.
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A great library is the first step toward great preaching.
Assemble a collection of reliable preaching resources. Then
commit yourself to the habit of getting outside input each week
as you prepare your message.
Seek out devotional books, commentaries, podcasts, and
collections of sermons and sermon illustrations. Identify the tools
that work best for you, the ones that can spark a good idea and
help you take it to the finish line. And then put those tools to
use each week.
I’ve been preaching since I was a teenager, and have been
writing sermon resources for 20 years. I never begin a sermon
or a sermon series empty-handed. That’s because I have learned
that over the long haul, your sermons are as good as the
resources you use.
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2THE IMPROVEMENT TECHNIQUE
MOST PREACHERS AVOID
WHAT IF I TOLD you that there is a preacher whose technique
you could study for just a few minutes a week, and by doing so
you will experience — in just a month or two — exponential
growth in your ability to effectively communicate the gospel,
resulting in a greater number of lives changed through the work
of your ministry?
Would you study that preacher?
Most pastors — even those otherwise motivated to improve
— resist the idea. Some outright refuse.
Who is this preacher?
It’s you.
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If you’re serious about becoming an effective communicator
of the gospel, you need to do the difficult (sometimes painful)
work of evaluating yourself.
It won’t be easy. You probably won’t like your voice. Your
accent will be stronger than you realized. Every “ummmm” and
“uhhhh” will have a nails-on-a-chalkboard effect. You will feel, at
times, like you’re droning on forever. It can be brutal.
However, you’ll soon discover things your congregation
already knows. You’ll hear exactly what they hear, week-in and
week-out. And you’ll begin to understand why some of your
messages, though solid in content, sometimes fall flat.
Every great coach and athlete does basically the same thing.
After each game, he sits in front of a screen and watches film —
analyzing every play, every call, every score, every missed
opportunity, every mistake. He does it so that next time he’ll
get it right.
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It has never been easier to capture your sermons with video
or audio. Start recording your messages every week. Then listen
with the intent of hearing your sermon as your listeners heard it.
Did your message tell the story you wanted to tell? Was your
big idea easy to understand? Did each illustration contribute to
the point of the message? Did you speak too fast? Too slow?
Did you laugh at your own jokes? Did you stumble too many
times?
With every mistake and annoying habit you discover, you can
pat yourself on the back. As you fix or eliminate each one, you’ve
taken another step forward to becoming a more effective
communicator.
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3THE TEN-SECOND TAKE-AWAY
GREAT SERMONS HAVE one point, not three or four.
“Wait a minute,” some will say. “Don’t the best sermons follow
the tried-and-true 3-points-and-a-story format?”
Actually no. Not if the three points are moving in three different
directions.
This is an important distinction to make: Your points, when
you use them, should really be more like subpoints. They’re not
three major ideas. They’re three ideas that support your one
big idea. Your points are like strands in a rope that, when wound
together, create the rope. Your points work together to create
your big idea.
Your sermon should have only one Big Idea. In the Advanced
Coaching Course, it’s called the Ten-Second Take-Away.
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This was hard for me to get used to. I was taught that the
best way to structure a sermon is to outline the passage. But as
it turns out, an outline does not a sermon make. There’s a
difference between outlining a passage and preaching a
message.
Outlining a passage is, basically, an academic exercise. Great
sermons take it one step further. Great sermons zero in on
the message of the passage.
In any Biblical text, there are several approaches you can
take, countless directions you can go. The best sermons are
built around only one of those “countless directions.” Only one.
On a Sunday afternoon several years back, my youngest son
(in high school at the time) said, “You know, Dad, most of the
time, after your first point, you could quit right there and it would
be an incredible message. Sometimes your sermons lose focus
after the first point.”
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He wasn’t referring to the length of the message, but to the
fact that I had a habit of going too many places. The problem
was that I was preaching the outline of everything I found in the
text — almost like doing a book report — rather than preaching
one specific message from God’s Word for today.
His comment challenged me to focus on finding one point,
one big idea, for each message — and only one.
Here’s how I say it to the students I coach: “Imagine that,
right before you speak, you’ve been told that instead of thirty
minutes, you have thirty seconds. Can you give your listeners
one statement that sums up what you came to say?”
It is essential to learn how to summarize your sermon into a
single sentence so that your listeners can say it like you said it,
even after they’ve left the building. If they can remember your
Big Idea well enough to repeat it, they’re more likely to put it into
practice during the week.
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Give it a try this Sunday.
After you’ve sketched out your outline for this week’s text,
zoom in on one Big Idea: focus on one thing you want to say
about this passage, one thing you want your listeners to do
in response to the Word.
Develop this one idea into a single statement — a ten-second
take-away — that your listener can remember, and can apply
to their lives.
There’s your sermon.
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4PREACH WITH AN EMPHASIS ON
DOING THE WORD
APPLICATION ISN’T JUST part of your sermon. It is the sermon.
Everything you say on Sunday needs to lead the listener
toward becoming a doer of the Word...
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says. (James 1:22)
Great sermons are a call to action. They answer the
question: What shall I do in response to the truth I am hearing?
A pastor once said to me, “I’m in a series on the attributes of
God. This Sunday is about God’s preeminence. What am I
supposed to do? Tell my congregation to be more preeminent
this week?”
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Obviously, no. But instead of just talking academically about
God’s preeminence, explain to your listeners what this attribute
of God means to them, personally. Show them how their
understanding of God’s preeminent nature can affect their
outlook on life, their choices, their attitudes. And show them
how to respond to a God who is above all others.
It’s not enough for your people to hear the textbook definition
of a Christian doctrine. Instead, give them a living definition.
Show them how the truth that they are hearing can make a
difference in their lives, day-in and day-out.
Application isn’t just part of the message; it is the message.
It’s not something you tack on to your conclusion, as you’re
wrapping things up. It’s a core part of your sermon from start
to finish.
Every step of the way, ask yourself: Am I showing my
listeners how to become doers of the Word?
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USE STORIES
THE OIL OF the sermon is a good story. It ensures that your
homiletical engine keeps running smoothly.
The story is also the best way to bridge the gap between
exposition and application.
One preacher gave this advice: Give them a point for their
head and a story for their heart.
My grandfather, a dedicated lay minister who preached as
many as 40 times a year well into his eighties, used to say to
me, “They’ll forget your theology but they’ll remember your
stories. So tell good stories that teach good theology.”
Do you know who made a habit of doing this?
Jesus.
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“Jesus always used stories and illustrations like these when
speaking to the crowds.” (Matthew 13:34 NLT)
For each idea that you want your message to
communicate, find a story to illustrate it.
Where do you find such stories? They’re all around you. Look
to your own experience. Or look to the news. Or the movies. Or
the best seller list.
As one great preacher said, “All of life illustrates Biblical truth.”
Get in the habit, then, of asking yourself often, “Which spiritual
application can be made of this situation, this event, this ball
game, this movie, or this news report?” The best of these lessons
will find their way into your sermons.
In lesson #1 I talked about the importance of building a reliable
library of resources. This is especially true for sermon
illustrations.
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Unfortunately most story collections for preachers and
teachers (in print and online) are dreadfully out of date.
That’s too bad, because the best stories to use in a message
are the ones from recent events. Your listeners can relate to an
illustration taken from the world of sports or business or
entertainment easier than they can relate to something that
happened 400 years ago.
That’s why it’s worth the effort it takes to seek out stories that
resonate with this generation of listeners.
As you prepare this Sunday’s sermon, don’t forget the WD40.
Give your listeners a story to bring every key idea to life.
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6ALWAYS BE PREPARING
GREAT SERMONS TAKE weeks to prepare, not hours.
Can you create a great sermon with an hour of preparation
on Saturday night? I suppose it’s possible, but I wouldn’t count
on it. It’s also possible to win a million dollars in the lottery, but I
wouldn’t count on that, either.
The best preachers I know are able to tell you — at least in a
general sense — what they’re preaching 3-6 months from now.
And most of them already have a rough outline of their sermons
for the next four or five weeks.
That’s one reason they’re so good at what they do.
Today I will encourage you to start planning your preaching
at least a month in advance. It takes only a week to get into a
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rhythm that will maximize your sermon preparation for as long
as you’re in the ministry.
If you haven’t already, sketch out what you’ll preach for the
next four weeks. Nail down text and topic, at the very least.
Select a couple of good resources to help in your preparation. If
it’s a commentary, put it on your desk and keep it there. If it’s a
podcast or tape series, put them where you can find them quickly.
If it’s a website, bookmark the pages you’ll use.
This week, as early in the week as possible, take part of an
afternoon to crack open each of the texts. Put some ideas on
paper. Scratch out the beginnings of an outline for each
message. Come up with working titles. Work on it for an hour or
two.
And then, after you’ve made a few notes for each of the
upcoming weeks, turn your attention to this Sunday’s sermon
and prepare as you normally would.
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Next week, set aside a couple of hours one afternoon, as
early as possible, to review your notes again for the upcoming
weeks. (You’ll need to add a new week-four to your list.) Spend
some time with each text, do a little reading, listen to a podcast,
check the Preaching Library, make a few more notes.
And then, turn your attention to this Sunday’s sermon. Prepare
as you normally would. You already have notes from last week
to start with.
From now on, let this be your preparation schedule.
Each week, early in the week, spend a couple of hours looking
four weeks ahead. And then turn your attention to this week’s
message.
This way, when you begin working on this Sunday’s message,
you won’t begin with a blank sheet of paper. This week’s
message will have been in the back of your mind for several
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weeks. When you sit down to get it ready for Sunday, you’re
already 20%, maybe 30%, perhaps even 50% of the way there.
Great sermons are prepared well in advance.
The habit of looking four weeks down the road helps you
develop another habit: Always be preparing.
When you study the Bible or watch the news or hear someone
else preach or go to the movies, you’re not just thinking about
this Sunday. You’re thinking weeks ahead. Things will catch
your attention that you might not have noticed before. You’ll
latch on to ideas that you might have otherwise passed over.
When you know what you’re preaching in the weeks to come,
it’s easier to keep your eyes open for fresh ideas that fit the
sermons that are coming around the bend.
When you make it your habit to always be preparing, you’ll
find that each Sunday morning you’re always prepared.
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7TALK ABOUT JESUS
DO YOU KNOW what was so great about the Jesus movement?
It was all about Jesus.
As millions turned to a personal relationship with him — many
from the counterculture and many from the church — they
identified themselves as “Jesus People.” Of all the labels that
evangelicals have embraced over the past 40 years, none hit
the target of who we are, or who we’re supposed to be, like the
label Jesus People.
This same identification should be reflected in our preaching.
Our goal in preaching is not just to get people to warm up to
the idea of God. Neither is it to persuade them to vote Republican
or to accept “family values” into their heart.
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Our goal is to lead others — believers and non-believers —
to experience a life-changing one-on-one personal
connection with Jesus.
Recently I read a secular critic’s evaluation of a bestselling
Christian author: “His books are filled with exclamation points,
but rarely do you come across the name of Jesus.”
I don’t know if what the critic said is true, since I’ve never
read this writer’s books. But I know this: such a statement can
never be true about our preaching. Not if we want to change
the world.
Make sure that every message you preach lifts high the name
of Jesus.
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DRIVE YOUR LISTENERS
TO SCRIPTURE
A GOOD SERMON presents solid Biblical truth in a straightforward
manner.
A great sermon does that and a little more: it also drives
listeners to search the Scriptures for themselves.
No doubt your goal for the people you serve is that Christ be
formed in them. For this to happen, believers need to develop a
solid relationship with Scripture — one that exists between
Sundays.
In addition to teaching them the Word week-by-week, teach
your people to love the Word, week by week.
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As often as you can, challenge, encourage and inspire them
to develop the habit of a daily time alone with God, which includes
daily time in the Word.
People who hear the Bible preached on Sunday are more
likely to live it out during the week. And people who dig into the
Bible during the week are more receptive to hearing it proclaimed
on Sunday.
Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season;
correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful
instruction. (2 Timothy 4:2)
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MEMORIZE THE BEST PARTS
OF YOUR MESSAGE
THERE ARE PARTS of your message that need to be said exactly
the right way.
There are parts that need to move smoothly, and parts where
you need maximum impact.
This means no fishing for words. No stuttering. No rambling
or repeating yourself. No staring at a manuscript.
Some parts need to be spoken with your eyes on your listeners
and with the conviction that comes from saying something
that you have taken the time to think thoroughly through
until you got it exactly right.
The way to do this is to memorize the key parts of your
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message. Take the time to write them out exactly as you want
to say them, and take the time to learn to say each phrase
in the best possible way.
Which parts of the sermon should you memorize? It depends
on your message, but at the very least, you should commit to
memory:
• The first 90 seconds of your introduction.
• Each key transition sentence.
• Your Ten-Second Take-Away.
• The final 60 seconds of your message.
The rest of the message you need to know well, but these
four elements of the sermon you need to be able to say in your
sleep.
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PREPARATION INCLUDES PRACTICE
I ENCOURAGE THE pastors I coach to spend an hour on Saturday
night running through their sermon a couple of times.
Then, on Sunday morning, run through it again.
During practice, make sure that you’ve committed to memory
the parts of the message that need to be spoken from memory.
Make sure your notes are simple enough to follow and detailed
enough to be useful. If you preach from a manuscript, make
sure it sounds like a conversation, not an academic paper.
The best you can, practice your sermon on Saturday the
way you will preach it on Sunday.
It’s tempting, when you hit a rough spot, to say, “It’ll work
itself out tomorrow when I’m in front of the congregation.”
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Over the years I’ve learned that rough spots rarely work
themselves out just because I’m now standing in front of a group.
In fact, groups usually make the rough spots rougher. If
something doesn’t work in practice, it usually doesn’t work
in the pulpit.
LEARNING FROM THE MAJORS.
Before the umpire calls “batter up” in any inning of a baseball
game, what do the players do?
They toss a ball back and forth. They practice fielding
grounders and making the play at first, while the pitcher practices
throwing strikes to the catcher.
And before the batter steps up to the plate, what does he do?
He takes a few practice swings.
Maybe you remember these rituals from Little League. But
don’t forget that the pros do it, too. The guys good enough to
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earn millions playing their position give it a dry run each time
they take the field.
Why? Because they know from experience that a dry run
helps them get ready to do what they’re about to do.
Maybe we can learn something from the guys in the majors.
You never get too good for a practice swing.
Preparation includes practice, every sermon you preach.
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Thanks for reviewing this back-to-basics guide to preaching!
To find out more about Steve’s preaching resources
visit
stevemay.com