Streamlining your sermon: what to keep, what to ditch

'Friends, I’m sure you’ll agree that once a robust postmillennial eschatology is established, the implications for ecclesial and missional praxis become self-evident'... said no preacher ever – hopefully!

One of the challenges for many preachers is how we package up all the stuff we’ve learned into digestible communication. It’s easy for an excited preacher to forget that most of the people in front of us haven’t read Calvin’s Institutes and (weird I know) probably don’t want to!

So, while our reading always helps us to clarify and shape our own thinking, one of the greatest challenges is working out what to leave on the desk. As one of my former teachers, David Jackman, used to say, ‘you need to learn to kill your babies.’

Privilege of the preacher

One of the privileges of being a preacher is that we will always take more from our preparation than we’re able to give in a 30-minute sermon. Much of this groundwork will be a great personal blessing, and some will be useful for another day.

However, we must resist the temptation to scatter gun the congregation with all the things we’ve learned in our reading. We would not be loving or serving them well as hearers to try to do so. Our job is to consider what the most important messages are, and to craft those into engaging and effective communication.

Preacher Charles Spurgeon once said to his students, 'However excellent your matter, if a man does not comprehend it, it can be of no use to him... It is wise to walk in a path where your auditors can accompany you, and not to mount the high horse and ride over their heads.'^[1]

So here are a few things that may be helpful to think about in moving from hermeneutics to homiletics:

1. Clarifying your big idea: if your hearers leave with one thing ringing in their ears, what would that one thing be? That’s not to say you can’t use multiple points, or introduce extra ideas, but asking yourself this question helps you to get a more focused sense of what you’re aiming for.
2. Crafting your points (if you use them) into applications: again, as with the previous point, this forces you to really work out what you’re actually trying to get across.
3. Check your notes for jargon: are the technical theological terms really helpful or necessary? Ask a few trusted friends at church to help you spot language like this when they’re listening.
4. Check your pride: ask yourself why you’re using that long word, quoting that author, or citing the meanings of Greek and Hebrew words. Is it really contributing to the message or are you just showing off!?
5. Use lay-byes from time-to-time: these provide a clear signal to people that you’re about to offer something that might require a bit more concentration and attention (just don’t allow the pit-stop to go on too long).

Finally, if you’re a pastor, then remind yourself you’re in it for the long haul. You don’t need to say everything you wish you could at every opportunity. You will walk alongside these people, God-willing, for a long time. So, week in week out love them and serve them by communicating in ways that are digestible, practical and edifying. Then come back and do it all again next week!

^{[1] Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (repr. Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 1998), 148.}