Blunt truth about church growth
Preaching for growth
A few simple (but often overlooked) ideas for creating a sermon that connects with your congregation
by David R. Collins
What makes for good preaching? It depends on whom you ask.
Some people feel like they’ve heard a good sermon if they leave church feeling really guilty or fearing the fires of hell. Presbyterians feel like they’ve heard a good sermon if they leave worship feeling like they almost understood what the preacher was talking about.
What is it about us Presbys that has us ranking understandability so low on our preaching priority list?
Maybe it’s our self-identification as intellectuals; maybe it’s laziness on the part of preachers and hearers; maybe it’s the hurt from that one comment once-upon-a-time that made the preacher second-guess everything. Whatever it is, it’s keeping our churches from growing.
Because whether we want to believe it or not, preaching that connects grows churches, numerically and spiritually. And if we want our churches to swell and to be swell, it’s something that we need to put a much bigger priority on.
Last month on this blog, I wrote that a church that wants to grow should put the lectionary on the shelf and do a sermon series with a catchy title instead. Joshua Bower and First Presbyterian of Albany, Georgia, took up the challenge and are into week three of their series, “Does Christianity Make Sense?” Next month, we will hear more from Joshua Bower about how that series went and look at what makes for a good sermon series.
Today I want to share a couple of tried and true insights about how to craft individual sermons that connect. Those of us who went to Presbyterian seminaries received good instruction on how to preach in a way that might make Karl Barth smile or John Calvin sternly nod his head in agreement. But so far as I can tell, preachers who connect with non-theologians are largely self-taught in their methods.
So what makes for a sermon that connects?
First, sermons that connect are about one thing.
They have one point. One thesis. One take away. This is why sermon series are such a good idea. Because instead of trying to cram everything into one sermon, you can space it out and let the points breathe and develop. Preaching sermons with just one point also forces us as preachers to avoid the late-Saturday-night strategy of just throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks. When you commit to saying just one thing, you make sure that one thing is worth saying.
Second, sermons that connect are crafted to be heard.
I’m sure that people from different cultures and language backgrounds hear differently than most Western English speakers. But those of us in the West, who were raised on our particular brand of TV and movies, hear spoken communication pretty similarly. (There’s a reason that most Hollywood movies follow the same three-act plot line.)
So in addition to preaching sermons about one thing, preaching to be heard connects best when the preacher earns the right to be heard every week. Before we can hear anything a person has to say, we have to trust the person who is speaking. A personal story out of the gate helps establish trust and, if chosen carefully, prepares the hearer for the one point about to be persuasively made. Not all stories work. Opening stories need to be relatable to most everyone present, lead logically into the one point, not make clergy into the hero, and never make fun of anyone. But when they are told effectively, they draw the hearer in and help the sermon connect.
In his book, Communicating for a Change, Andy Stanley shares his sermon frame, which he follows every week (I do, too), because it structures the sermon in the way that people best hear. His frame is “Me, We, God, You, We.”
Every sermon starts with a “Me” story, which naturally leads into a statement like, “We’ve all been there, haven’t we?” (That’s the “We” which leads to the God section.)
The God section’s purpose is to convey the one point of the sermon. The more succinct the point, the better. It’s a thesis statement. It’s the point of the sermon in 10 or fewer words. After fleshing it out, by unfolding Scripture, the next section is a natural consequence.
That’s the “You” section, where contrary to what many Presbyterian preaching professors teach, the preacher helps apply the point to the hearer’s life with a series of applications that begin, “Maybe you . . . .” It’s a time to name the situations and struggles that people find themselves in and to help them see how God is working in their lives around this particular point.
The final “We” section is about how we as a community can live out the point, ideally concluding with one of those stories that moves everyone, including the preacher, to tears and conviction. But those are hard to come by every week and should never be forced because they feel phony if they’re, well, phony.
If this method piques your interest, get the book. One word of advice on it: Start with the second half. Part two is gold and is where Stanley shares just about every tip you could need to make this method work for you.
Another word of caution if you just decided to get the book for your pastor. Please be nice. Preaching is an incredibly personal endeavor, and if you hand the book to your pastor along with a snarky note or comment, you may as well just burn it for all the good it will do anyone. So instead of saying to your pastor, “Your sermons are when I catch a power nap or make my grocery list. Here’s a book!” Try, “I read this incredible blog about a book that sounds really helpful, and I would love to see what you think about it! Also, here are some cookies!”
Mmmm . . . cookies.
That’s all for now! Be swell!
David R. Collins is the co-pastor of Maitland Presbyterian Church near Orlando, Florida.