If you’re a preacher of God’s word, what’s the best preaching lesson you’ve ever learned? See if you can jot down your answer before you read on, and then perhaps share it in the comments section.
It was Russell Moore’s absolutely excellent post a few weeks ago that caused me to reflect on this question:
Your first few sermons are always terrible, no matter who you are.
If you think your first few sermons are great, you’re probably self-deceived. If the folks in your home church think your first few sermons are great, it’s probably because they love you and they’re proud of you. If it’s a good, supportive church there’s as much objectivity there as a grandparent evaluating the “I Love You Grandma” artwork handed to them by the five year-old in their family.
(That may be so, but I thank God that people in my home church gave me a go!)
Moore goes on to explain that any young preacher should want his sermons critiqued—not harshly by a congregation with a critical spirit, but critiqued nevertheless:
Great preachers are the ones who preach really bad sermons. The difference is that they preach really bad sermons when they’re young, and are sharpened for life by critique.
So I return to my opening question: what’s the best lesson you’ve received from a sermon critique, or otherwise?
For me, the answer to that question is a tribute to John ‘Chappo’ Chapman who, under God’s good hand, is arguably Australia’s greatest ever evangelist. Here are five lessons I learned from him about preaching through critique and reflection:
1. Read the text of Scripture from which you’re making your point
As a student at Moore College, I argued with Chapman that all that was needed was an allusion or summary of what the Bible was saying. As I returned to my quarters, I realized how right Chappo was to insist that people see that the authority lies with God’s word, not with the preacher.
So show us which verse(s) you get your point from. And leave enough time for us to read it ourselves, before rushing onto to your next thought.
But better still, since some won’t be following along in a Bible, read the verse(s) aloud. Then they can hear for themselves and check that whether what you’re saying matches up with the Bible.
2. Highlight where this passage of the Bible hits you “in the guts”
John Gray, the Senior Minister who trained me as a fresh new theology graduate, rammed this home to me. Study and analyze the passage by all means. But make sure you feel the force of God’s word personally. We don’t just want an information download; we need to know where this hits home—for you, and for us.
Gray would then point to my guts and explain that this was a key part of being passionate in preaching, rather than just earnest!
3. Expect to be critiqued
Once again, I return to Chappo for my third lesson. More than anyone else, he established the norm among younger preachers, both at Moore College and Sydney Missionary Bible College, of rigorous sermon critique.
John supplied feedback forms—detailed ones to use with trained colleagues. But just as importantly, he also provided a simple one for obtaining feedback from regular congregation members.
From memory, the latter had just three questions:
- What did you hear God saying to you from this sermon?
- How did the preacher achieve this?
- What detracted from the effect of this sermon?
The first question was most important because John always insisted that asking what God said to you through a sermon was not the same as listing the main points made by the preacher. In other words, he wanted to ensure that anyone offering a sermon critique sat under the word preached, before sitting over the preacher, as it were. Because God speaks through his word, preaching is not just something to be analyzed, but obeyed.
4. Write your outline before the sermon
I stumbled over the next lesson myself. Despite Chappo’s normal preferences with young preachers, I’m a full-text preacher (otherwise I waffle). But I used to write the sermon and then figure out some clever headings for the sermon outline. However, these headings did not always reflect the key points of the sermon since, by then, I was just looking for something snappy.
One day, I realized it should be the other way around: I needed to work out my headings and then write the sermon. Sometimes further writing of the text would lead to a revision of the headings as it unfolded. But the headings needed to reflect the key points that would advance the overall thrust of the sermon.
This seems obvious. But overall, I think writing the headings before the full text led to a real improvement in my preaching.
5. Raise the issue the passage addresses in your introduction
The last lesson I picked up from multiple sources—both in receiving and giving feedback. It’s to do with introductions, and it says that an okay introduction grabs people’s attention. But the best introductions grab their attention by raising the issue the sermon passage will address.
Too many sermon introductions are really just interesting stories that illustrate something you want to say (hopefully from the passage) before you’ve actually got to the point. This dissolves the tension. But why are you illustrating something before you’ve said it?
For this reason, Chappo always said that the introduction might be the first thing you say in delivery, but it’s the last thing you write in preparation.
However, it’s Tony Payne, our fellow Panellist, who has best expressed what I’m getting at here. This article is one that I insist all our trainee preachers read.
So thank you Chappo and others for critiquing us younger preachers.
I cannot do better than to close by recommending that all young preachers buy a copy of Chappo’s Setting Hearts on Fire. Chappo focuses on teaching evangelistic preaching, but his methods and advice are sound for all preaching that takes the Bible seriously.
Over to you: what are the best preaching lessons you’ve learned?
The red pen is your best friend.
Hear, hear, Michael. To take Michael’s point further: you’ll need to write your sermon before Saturday if you’re going to have time to use a red pen on it.
On the matter of taking a red pen to your sermon, people might find this article by Tony Payne on Editing Sermons (from The Briefing in 2005) interesting.
Thanks Sandy,
very helpful
without seeing your post I’ve written 10 steps to being a dull preacher http://thatgreatcity.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/how-to-be-a-dull-preacher/
on critique – the most neglected tool is the discipline of hearing or watching yourself afterwards
on full text – I think its an evil we should move away from
Hi Michael,
I agree about critique. But I would take it one step further. Early on in my preaching, I used to make myself preach the sermon onto tape (okay, so it was another millenium) and then listen to myself back, so that I could critique and edit before I preached. I found that just the process of speaking the sermon out loud alerted me to weaknesses in my argument or parts where the logic fell apart or where it was too dense to listen to etc.
On the full text – I’d like to hear more from you about that. I always use full text. not that I actually preach what I’ve written, but I find that writing out the full text disciplines my thinking and forces me to understand and articulate the logic of what I’m saying before I get up to say it.
What are the problems with full text as you see it.
Grimmo.
Hey Grimmo:
The problems with using a written script are:
1. you look @ it not the bible or people. Others can’t see it so what makes sense to you may not for them
2. only the very very best writing sounds like speech
3. in preparing you inevitably work on producing a written script & what works on paper won’t (usually) work when spoken
There is a place for notes – as aide memoir – but most preachers are far too reliant on them. How many teachers would take full notes into a classroom? Think about the ammount of speaking/teaching/word stuff u do in a week that doesn’t need you to commit to text. Why do it here?
I think its fear factor. I wouldn’t have done it by choice except as a student I was forced off notes. Now I wouldn’t go back.
John ‘Chappo’ Chapman who, under God’s good hand, is arguably Australia’s greatest ever evangelist
Sorry Sandy – I’m a bit naive about John’s history and the history of evangelism in Australia – but on what evidence do you base this statement?
Unless I’m missing something the links to the Briefing articles provided in the main post and Ian’s comment don’t work – is there any way of getting the articles? (they look helpful)
@Sam
I think those links work ok. I suspect you were just unlucky in that we were changing over our domain to new servers around the time you tried. Our new web site has finally launched, and if you try again, I think you’ll find the article this time. Sorry about that. Ian
Thanks Sandy for the posting and others for the comments. Very helpful.
Regarding the comments on full text, I personally much prefer to speak from points and not from full text because I feel I can engage the congregation much better and speak from the heart in a more natural way. However, now that I minister in Japan, my sermons are given in English with about 1/3 pre-translated into Japanese and projected onto a screen. This is the best way for us to reach our Japanese congregants with our current resources so I’ve been ‘forced’ into full text preaching. At first I felt quite uncomfortable with it but I’ve learned to make it work (I think). Paul’s comment on disciplining one’s thinking applies. Also, I try to avoid reading at all if I can. I find it’s not too difficult to memorise large sections of text that I’ve written myself (paraphrased is fine). I also colour code the translated text so that I can (and often do) go ‘off script’ and come back to the points of translation without getting too lost. It’s an on-going process but I’m learning to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit even with full text sermons. It’s not as easy for me as following points but it can be done.
Howie, sorry for the delay.
In regards to my claim that Chappo was Australia’s greatest evangelist, I did say ‘arguably’, but uncharacteristically, I was forgetting to qualify myself and giving in to hyperbole!
It is an unprovable claim. You can read brief comments at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chapman (click on “John Chapman (evangelist)”).
However …
Under God, as a much younger man, John was responsible with Clive Keerle and Ray Smith in turning the Anglican Diocese of Armidale in a much more evangelical direction than previously, so that the gospel of Jesus rang out more clearly.
He served as an itinerant evangelist for the Anglican Diocese of Sydney for roughly a quarter of a decade, and preached thousands of evangelistic sermons, throughout Australia and the UK and elsewhere, through which, by God’s grace, many found Christ.
Likewise hundreds, probably more, have been helped to Christ through reading his excellent evangelistic book A Fresh Start.
He trained others in personal evangelism and evangelistic preaching. His books on those respective topics – Know and Tell the Gospel (personal evangelism) and Setting Hearts on Fire (evangelistic preaching) are both modern classics.
As mentioned above, over many years, he has trained a generation or two of students in preaching, and evangelism at two key theological colleges in Sydney.
I and others could go on. We thank God for John’s life and ministry.
Regards,
Sandy
P.S. A polite reminder that on this blog, we ask people to use their full name.
On Michael’s comment and subsequent discussions:
This is good hyperbole, with more than a grain of truth. Reading from a full text can be dull. It can lead you into lecturing rather than preaching.
Mind you, Dick Lucas pretty much just looked at his notes and held forth in fairly steady but stentorian tones, without much vivid eye contact etc. But of course, he is also pretty unique.
Chappo himself said that Ray Galea changed his mind about saying never use a full text in the pulpit. Ray was an exception who broke Chappo’s rule and made him realise some personalities could carry it off.
If I can be permitted a self-reflection, I think it works OK for me, because I have what I would call very good eye-page coordination. That is, I can glance down at the page and very quickly see where I was up to and take in the next sentence or two. So even though I am reading text, I am not head down all the time.
Also I agree with Paul, I also taped myself early on and listened to it and learned what worked in spoken text. These days I can hear it in my head.
Lastly, Chappo said it was always best to prepare a full text in the study before to work very hard on your content. Just that it was also best for most preachers to reduce it to notes before the pulpit, having refined the material and practised it well.
Really only two suggestions, critique (before is best) and don’t read from a manuscript in a stilted fashion.
I was hoping for a little red pill that would fix my preaching (and taste nice)
In the interest of introducing a new preaching lesson let me share the one I am struggling with at present.
“Fish has bones, a sermon has a skeleton.”
God Bless,
Michael Hutton
G’day guys.. the Wikipedia article on Chappo is missing.
@Steve Grose: Thanks for bringing that to our attention. It’s a problem with URL encoding brackets. Because the URL for the John Chapman article includes brackets, I can’t link to it directly. I’ve fiddled and fiddled with it, and short of installing a plugin (which I don’t have time to do at the moment), the best solution is to go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chapman and click on “John Chapman (evangelist)”.
As a law student I used to work for a barrister who trained other barristers in advocacy skills. He did almost all of it with video. Participants had to do 2 minute 5 minute and 10 minute speeches – all taped, all instantly reviewed. Watching the tape was enough feedback for almost everyone to instantly have things to work on and improve that they had been unaware of.
Simple. Cheap. Painful. Effective.
At my church we’ve just finished a Teaching preaching program that is in its second year. A group of guys (6-7) prepare 1 talk on a book each getting section. This year we went through Matt 5. Following the talk we each face the music of one another’s critique good point and bad points in light of the book that we have all been studying. That being Setting hearts on fire by John Chapman. A guide to giving evanelistic talks. It was so helpful!
One thing that Chappo stresses is the need to make sure that the main theme and its supporting ideas are founded by studying the bible passage selected for the talk and that each supporting idea is
a. stated
b. identified in the bible passage
c. explained
d. illustrated and
e. applied
Drew, thanks for that excellent concise summary of the Chappo method.
As he himself says, it’s not the only way to preach. But young (and not so young) preachers get better than average results faster than average if they stick by it!
Sandy
Thanks for your response. Having read John’s books and really appreciated his wisdom on preaching, it’s encouraging to hear about his background.
Sandy
Thanks for providing some background details about Chappo – some of those should go onto the Wiki. Having read his books and benefitted from them greatly, it’s ecouraging to hear more about the man himself…
Sorry for the double comment! The best preaching lesson I’ve had is to ask the question “So What?”. From Bryan Chappell’s Christ-Centred Preaching:
“The message remains uncooked without thoughtful, true-to-the text application…a grammar lesson is not a sermon. A sermon is not a textual summary, a systematics discourse, or a history lesson…Preachers who cannot answer a ‘So What?’ will preach to a ‘Who cares?’… We are not ministers of information, we are ministers of Christ’s transformation.”
I’ve found this helps get to the main point of the passage – like Chappo’s “Big Idea” – but with the focus moving directly into application.