AP

How to Present Your Sermon Really Well

The basics of good and bad sermon delivery

Like every skill worth doing, good preaching requires sustained study, effort, practice, self-evaluation, and a determination to improve and master the skill.

Good delivery must come not as a replacement for, but as the culmination of the certain basic convictions about preaching:

That preaching is central to Christian worship, growth, and evangelism;

That preaching must be Christ-focussed;

That the preacher must be a godly Christian growing in Christ;

That the sermon must expository and carefully prepared.

To Hell with PowerPoint

PowerPoint changes a proclamation from the King into a business presentation.

It is rarely used well, in a way that really enhances the sermon.

At best it uselessly reiterates what the preacher is saying, at worst it just distracts.

If you must use it then turn it on and off: on just long enough for people to see the thing you want them to see; then off so they stop staring at it.

(In a screen-saturated society, that is refreshing!)

Demand Attention

There is zero point talking to people who are not listening.

Demand attention: not to listen to you, but to God’s herald proclaiming His Word.

Don’t have anything showing on a screen while you are preaching; it draws eyes.

Don’t start preaching until people are listening.

Don’t keep preaching if people stop listening: stop; wait; get people’s attention back.

Vary Your Voice like a Classical Sonata

Your tone and pitch: from high to low;

Your volume: from loud to soft;

Your pace: from slow to rapid;

Your phrasing: from short to long; uses pauses; stop sometimes.

Adjust the bigness of voice to the size of the audience.

Shout, sometimes. Whisper, sometimes.

Exuberant personalities may have to restrain their exuberance.

Most of us need to work and practice to show energy and liveliness.

Gesture Meaningfully

Natural gestures will enhance your delivery.

Use your eyes, hands, arms, head – your whole body.

Vary between relaxed and urgent gestures.

Watch putting your hands in your pockets or anything too relaxed.

Adjust the bigness of your gestures to the size of the audience.

Shut your mouth when you are not speaking.

Your default stance:

Plant your feet, square your shoulders, poise yourself slightly forward.

Don’t drop a hip, fidget, slump, or squirm.

Walk and talk if you can and if it helps.

Don’t allow nerves to control your body, move your body purposefully.

Controlling your nerves

Nerves are not all bad; they help to focus the mind.

Let them drive you to diligent preparation and prayer.

Breathe! Yes, speakers stop breathing when they’re nervous and become breathless.

Do not speak to the back corner but to the people in front of you. All of them.

Exterminate Ticks:

Too many ums and ahs;

Repeated annoying or off-putting gestures: scratching, poking, and prodding;

Repeated annoying words: e.g. “Incredible” (which literally means not credible and worthy of belief); “let me be clear” (just be clear); “amazing” (just amaze people).

Don’t use “literally” to emphasise: be literal (unmetaphorical) when necessarily.

Don’t say “I think . . .” The church shouldn’t care what you think.

In general, don’t lazily tell people what to feel: make them feel it:

Don’t say “this is amazing”: amaze them!

Don’t say “this is tragic”: bring them to tears.

Repeatedly asking “Do you know what I mean?” is annoying. You are pleading with your listeners to find the clarity and meaning you have failed to give.

If you show things blandly, confusingly, you’ll have to tell them how to respond.

If you show things vividly you will not have to tell people how to respond.

Get a Hold of the Intangibles

Your words are the crucial thing, but your body language will either amplify or detract from your words.

Passion and energy, whether restrained or expressed, is crucial.

This is where your personal holiness makes or breaks everything: a prayerful and godly preacher will communicate with genuine conviction, sincerity, earnestness, and passion, which are essential for effective preaching.

Control your emotions or people will feel uncomfortable, or worry about you.

Produce Helpful Notes

The geography of your notes. I use:

16-point font, double spaced;

One font for the main text; one for Bible passages; one for illustrations;

One sentence per line: this forces me to express one precise thought per line.

I notate with coloured pens and highlighters: orange for Bible references; green for illustrations; yellow for major and important lines.

Underline and highlight meaningfully; to highlight everything is to highlight nothing.

I put my notes in a presentation folder to minimise page handling/turning.

Make sure there’s enough light to see your notes.

Volume of notes:

Full notes contain every word the preacher intends to say.

Advantage: you’ll say exactly what you have prepared to say; you won’t forget things.

Disadvantage: you lose some degree of engagement with your congregation.

Summary notes use headings as prompts.

Advantage: you will be more engaging.

Disadvantage: you may end up extrapolating too much or leaving things out; or you may not be as clearly thought-out on a point as you thought you were.

No notes but the Bible.

Advantage: most engaging (though you can be distracted by the effort of recall).

Disadvantage: saying too much or too little.

Best practice: Prepare a full manuscript; Use short notes and/or notate your Bible.

I publish my full manuscript on Substack and in the church bulletin: this forces me to bring the sermon to completion and a form which I am OK for the world to read.

This also allows the church to read back over the sermon afterward, and to give the sermon to people who cannot get to church.

Remember that speaking and writing are very different forms of communication.

What makes good writing (elegant sentences without superfluous words and repetition) can make for bad speaking.

What makes good speaking (the right use of repetition in particular) makes bad writing.

Starting the Sermon

Not with excuses about your health, lack of preparation, the difficulty of getting to the church, or any other pleas for the sympathy of your congregation.

People will not feel sorry for you, but annoyed that you have not taken greater care.

No one cares about your problems; they want to hear God’s Word.

Don’t start with a joke: preaching God’s Word is serious business.

(Never try to be funny; but if humour arises naturally that is good.)

Begin by asking people to turn to the passage you are going to preach from: this settles everyone down and flags that you intend to exposit God’s Word.

Then say something very interesting to arouse attention in your passage and a thirst to hear more.

During the Sermon

You are not a tape recorder: “Press play and let it run to the end.”

Speak to the people in front of you and read the room, the body language.

Preaching is communication: you send information in order for people receive it;

So, look for signs that the church has received and understood.

Don’t let the church’s immediate response control your sermon, but do adapt what you are doing in order to maintain communication:

You may have to repeat something.

You may have to cut something short.

You may have to explain something again.

You may have to finish your sermon next week.

Finishing the sermon

Finish with an obviously final sentence and then say “Amen”: to show that you have stopped, and to invite agreement with God’s Word.

Pray by all means: but keep it short and don’t turn the prayer into a summary of your sermon, or use the prayer to say things you forgot to say.

Don’t run away but stay and mingle and talk to people.

Don’t fish for compliments.

If someone says “That was good” simply say “Thank you.”

If someone didn’t understand what you meant that is on you: you didn’t explain it clearly enough.

Don’t explain why they should have understood you; you should have explained it properly in the first place.

The Day After

You will feel that you are the worst preacher in Christendom who has just preached the worst sermon ever heard in Christendom to a congregation of people who will obviously never come back to hear such rubbish again.

This is not reality but depression speaking, whether minor or deep.

This is the result of adrenalin letdown and is the brain’s way of recovering from an intense buildup and effort.

Yes, of course you could have done better: so get up, dust yourself off, go for a walk, enjoy some nature, and pray that God will help you again next time.

Take comfort and joy in the fact that just as God spoke through Balaam’s donkey, he has also spoken through you.

– Campbell Markham

Isaiah 55:10–11

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

¹¹so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.