Being boring is the last thing any leader or communicator wants. The sinking feeling of losing your audience is a common experience for anyone who communicates, preaches, or attempts to persuade others. But how can you avoid this?
Having worked in communication since the age of 16, from radio and law to preaching and public speaking for the last two decades, I’ve studied the art of engagement. World-class communicators share two key characteristics:
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A well-defined preparation system: Effective preachers have a structured approach to writing sermons and preparing for Sunday, enhancing the message’s quality and impact, and fostering deeper connections with their audience.
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Continuous learning and skill development: Top speakers consistently invest time and resources to improve their communication skills daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually.
While some may have a natural gift for communication, consistent development and experience are usually the driving forces behind success.
Are you ready to elevate your preaching and develop communication skills used by the best speakers? (And avoid delivering a boring sermon.)
If so, keep reading!
How to Write a Great Sermon
After several years, I developed a process of outlining entire sermon series before delivering the first message. This involves selecting Biblical texts, identifying the angle, crafting the first few messages, and outlining the remaining ones.
I also distill each message into a single sentence, the “bottom line,” to ensure clarity.
Clarity takes time and practice.
The following outlines the process I’ve developed over time. By following this method (or a variation), you’ll discover clarity in your preaching.
1. Collect Sermon and Series Ideas
Maintain a simple note on your laptop or phone to store all your sermon and series ideas. This will be your archive to store Scripture, thoughts, links, media, and angles for future reference.
If you don’t have a system like this, create one. It doesn’t need to be complex; simplicity is key.
This is a repository for anything you might use in the future, so meticulous formatting isn’t necessary.
My archive is a simple note shared across all my devices (phone, tablet, and laptop), with headings for each topic and a list of related ideas and materials underneath.
Now that you have a place to store your ideas, you can leverage it when it’s time to create a message or series.
Person using a laptop, presumably working on sermon preparation
2. Start with a Broad Concept
When considering a series or talk, begin with a ‘general ballpark’ idea.
For example, let’s say you’re planning a sermon series on worshipping idols later this year.
For now, that’s all you need to know.
Sometimes, you might start with a text you want to teach, rather than an idea. In recent years, I’ve created sermon series on Esther and Psalm 101. I didn’t have a specific direction, but I knew I wanted to preach them.
Begin with a subject.
Keep a note on your phone and laptop for sermon and bottom-line ideas.
When you reach the series development stage, create a new working file for that specific series. Copy and paste any relevant materials from the original file into this working file.
3. Research and Choose Your Angle
Is it possible to preach to both churched and unchurched people simultaneously with the same message and help them all take a step forward in their faith?
Absolutely.
But it depends on the angle you take to approach the topic.
The issue with most message series is that they focus on what the speaker wants to say, rather than what the listener wants to hear. This is where the angle is critical.
During this stage, every preacher faces a tension between:
- What people want to know. This can easily drive topical series on issues like suffering, relationships, or building a better life.
- What people need to know, such as specific teachings, doctrines, and even sections of Scripture.
Use this tension to your advantage by creating an angle that addresses both factors.
The key to crafting a compelling sermon angle is to take what people want to know and use it to lead them to what they need to know.
How to Select a Sermon Angle
Where can you find ideas for your angle?
Talk to unchurched people, but also use these five resources to stay informed about what people in your culture and community are thinking about:
- The Amazon Top 100 Book List
- Movies
- Social media and media coverage
- Google Trends
- Pew, YouGov, and Barna Research
4. Let It Simmer
This process takes time; it doesn’t happen in a week. If you’re still deciding what to say on Sunday morning on Thursday, your preaching might be true, but it won’t be clear.
Great preaching is like a stew. The longer it simmers, the better it becomes. Begin your sermon preparation early – weeks or even months in advance.
When you take time to work, pray, study, write, and find clarity, you’ll be amazed by how your messages start to connect.
I’ve never regretted sitting on an idea longer than I needed to.
5. Decide on a Bottom Line
Communicating can be challenging, but communicating effectively is even harder.
One way to do this is to develop a killer bottom line.
The bottom line is the main point of your talk, summarized in a single, memorable sentence.
Crafting a great bottom line will:
- Make you a better thinker.
- Help you understand your talk more deeply.
- Force you to simplify complex subjects.
- Make your talk more memorable for your audience.
How do you create it?
Make Your First Attempt at a Bottom Line
My first attempts rarely make it to the final iteration.
Don’t be discouraged. Return to step 3 and let it simmer. Because you have a month before the series begins, you have time to wait a week and try again.
I can’t write the outline for the talk until I have the bottom line, so I often begin there.
C.R.E.A.M. Your Bottom Line
Rework your bottom line using the tools in the C.R.E.A.M. acrostic:
C – CONTRAST
Combine two contrasting ideas into your bottom line:
- The past and the future
- The light and the dark
- The rich and the poor
- Truth and lies
- Laughter and sorrow
In a sermon series I taught several years ago profiling Haman (a politician from the book of Esther), I used contrast to create the bottom line: “A life devoted to self ultimately leaves you alone.”
R – RHYME
This is an age-old memory trick, as shown in Benjamin Franklin’s quote: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
The bottom line for Andy Stanley’s Comparison Trap series was “There’s no win in comparison.” Catchy.
E – ECHO
Repeating a word or phrase is a powerful way to help people remember.
In a recent series on the messages that play in our minds, I used this bottom line: “Fixing your mind on Christ fixes your mind.”
A – ALLITERATION
Alliteration might be overused by preachers, but don’t abandon this technique altogether – it’s effective.
“Your boldest moments are your best moments.” (from my Bold series) is memorable because of the double b. Simple, but it works.
M – METAPHOR
Metaphors engage people’s imaginations, making them more likely to remember. The Bible is full of metaphors (like a ring in a pig’s snout).
In a series on the Supernatural, I preached on miracles with this bottom line: “Miracles are signs that point beyond themselves to something greater.”
We built road signs that pointed to the beach, to Disney, etc., explaining that the sign is not the destination; it points to something greater, just as miracles point to the power of Christ.
Avoid Cheese and Superficiality
Bottom lines are not your goal. Effectively communicating God’s word is.
I’ve seen many bottom lines recently that follow the C.R.E.A.M. method but are cheesy, simplistic, or superficial.
An example of a cheesy bottom line? “God loves prayer because He cares?”
It doesn’t mean anything, turns God into a teddy bear, and is too schmaltzy to repeat to your friends (if you want them to listen).
It’s better to have a slightly less memorable bottom line than a cheesy one just because it rhymes.
6. Outline the Sermon
Once you’ve chosen the Biblical text, picked an angle, and decided on your bottom line, you’re more than halfway to a complete sermon. The next step is fleshing out an outline and “filling in the gaps.”
A sermon outline template provides the skeletal framework of your content. Don’t feel restricted to an “intro, three points, conclusion” outline, but every effective sermon tends to adhere to a similar structure:
- Introduction
- Teaching (Body)
- Application
- Conclusion
After creating a broad outline, fill it in with all the information you’ve gathered. You might have too much to fit into one sermon – and that’s okay.
Sprinkle in a few good sermon illustrations on faith to bridge what you’re trying to convey with everyday experiences.
When finalizing my sermon outline – contextualizing everything through the lens of the angle and bottom line – I use four questions from Andy Stanley and Lane Jones’s book Communicating for a Change to decide what to keep and what to discard.
The questions are:
- What do they need to know?
- Why do they need to know it?
- What do they need to do?
- Why do they need to do it?
These questions guide me through the writing process of each key part of my sermon.
7. Write the Sermon
It’s time to turn that outline into a sermon ready to be memorized and delivered.
Remember the structure and questions I shared? Here’s how each informs my writing:
Introduction (5 – 10 minutes)
Decide how to introduce your topic. Often, I paint a problem, introduce tension, tell a story, or find common ground to draw everyone into the message. It lasts five–ten minutes max, and it’s easy to remember the problem, tension, story, or common ground because the introduction answers the critical question: Why do they need to know this?
That’s all I try to do in the introduction. If I can answer that, it becomes easy to do the introduction without notes, because you’re communicating common ground (drawing everyone in), what’s at stake, why it matters, and why anyone should care.
Teaching (10 minutes)
Dig into the heart of the issue, the problem, the tension, and its relationship to the Biblical text or main subject.
I usually jump between the Biblical text and people’s lives today, trying to identify key life issues, point out surprises, highlight tension, and drill down on the main point. The teaching section answers the question: What do they need to know?
Get a Bible commentary that dives deep into the historical and cultural context of those “setting the scene” details, which are often appreciated by the audience and can provide fresh angles on familiar passages.
Application (5-10 minutes)
Application doesn’t start here. If you’ve done the introduction well, you’ve already shown people why this matters and how it can improve their lives.
But this is where I drill down, get specific, and tell more stories. Focus on remembering the key application points and your stories. The application section answers the question: What do they need to do?
Conclusion (5 minutes)
You’ve got to land this plane. Too often, communicators crash because they don’t think clearly about how to finish.
I finish by reiterating the key point and showing people what happens when they apply it in their lives. I help people imagine a different and better future when they put what they’ve heard into practice. The conclusion answers the question: Why do they need to do it?
8. Understand Your Sermon
You read that correctly: I want you to understand your sermon.
When studying your sermon, the best advice I can give is: Don’t memorize your sermon. Understand it.
Freeing yourself from using notes will make you a more confident speaker. And, because you won’t constantly look down at a paper or iPad on the pulpit, you’ll make eye contact and engage with the audience more naturally and authentically.
If you’ve followed the format, your sermon should follow a natural, logical progression that makes it easy to deliver without notes.
I know it sounds difficult, but it’s not. If you can remember:
- How you’re introducing the subject
- What you’re teaching
- How you’re applying it
- How you’re wrapping up
That’s it. You’ve learned your talk.
9. Test It With a Team
Have a core team (3-4 people) test out your sermon in the days before you deliver it. These people should give you honest feedback and represent a cross-section of your audience (not all seminary graduates). This tells you whether your ideas are resonating and if your bottom line is landing.
I also read my message a few times on Saturday night before bed and then again early on Sunday morning.
Before I finish, I ensure I’m familiar with the key points in each part of the talk.
10. Deliver Your Sermon
Speak from your heart. If you forget a point, move on. No one knew you were going to make it anyway, so just move on. They’ll thank you for being two minutes shorter.
If you have a total meltdown seconds before the big moment, answer four questions on your way to the platform:
- What do they need to know?
- Why do they need to know it?
- What do they need to do?
- Why do they need to do it?
And then start talking. It’ll be a great talk.
