So, my most recent post, Hey Boomer, Stop Making Your Sermon Notes Rhyme Or Alliterate, got some feedback. The biggest question has been, “If not alliterations and rhymes, how do you organize your main points?”
In response, I’m revisiting and updating an article I wrote a few years back that expands on the need to change the way we preach on a regular basis.
Patterns are good. Ruts are bad.
Patterns give us structure. Ruts keep us stuck.
Everyone who speaks in public develops speaking patterns. The danger is to not let those patterns become ruts.
That’s why I have purposely changed the way I preach every few years.
People Hear Differently Now
If you can find a recording of me preaching 30 years ago (or 20, even 10), it will sound very different from the way I preach today.
That is intentional.
People don’t communicate like they did just a few years ago. I speak differently now because people listen differently now.
I also change things up to keep myself fresh.
The message of the gospel matters so much that we need to communicate it in the best possible way for those listening and we need to keep it alive in our hearts, too.
What about Preachers?
A lot of preachers haven’t changed the way they preach since they started. We tend to find a default style, then stick with it. And I get that.
Pastoral life is busy, so if you can find a rhythm that works why would you mess with it? Because we grow from it, the congregation hears more from it, and the importance of the gospel compels it.
The gospel message hasn’t changed in 2,000 years. And it won’t. In fact, the more my style has changed, the more firmly I’ve hung on to the core truths in God’s Word. But the manner in which we communicate it must change.
Here are five major adjustments I’ve made to the way I preach over the last 30 years, plus a bonus one that I love:
1. I Dropped Alliterations and Rhymes (1996)
It’s been almost thirty years since I stopped making my notes rhyme. Why? Because, as I noted in, Hey Boomer, Stop Making Your Sermon Notes Rhyme Or Alliterate, while alliteration used to make a message feel prepared and memorable, today it feels fake.
So, what to do instead?
Here’s an example. On a recent Sunday I spoke on Jesus’ parable of the moneylender in three parts, all dictated by the passage itself, including the title:
Title: The Parable of the Moneylender
- The Setup (Luke 7:36-39): Where was Jesus, who was he with, and why did he tell this story?
- The Parable (Luke 7:40-43): In simple terms, what did this story mean to the original hearers?
- The Follow-up (Luke 7:44-50): What are Jesus’ lessons from this parable for here and now?
Before I made this change in my preaching style, I’d have spent an hour or more of valuable prep time, making the points alliterate the word J.O.Y., or I’d have shoe-horned an extra step to make it spell H.O.P.E., or I’d have awkwardly alliterated it as The Anointing, The Annoying, and The Appointing.
In an era when people had to remember the sermon in their heads that might have made some sense (maybe not even then). But now, with handouts, streaming, podcasts, and other ways to revisit them, a basic outline works much better.
Look at the above options. The direction of the message is obvious from the first one, but you have to guess what the rhymes and alliterations might mean, don’t you?
Unless you’re using a rhyme or acronym to enforce repeatable behavior (like the GIFT acronym I used in the article, 4 Steps To Help Your Church Be Friendlier To Guests), rhymes, acronyms, and alliterations are best left in the dust.
Clear is better than clever.
2. I Started Preaching in Series (2002)
Obviously, this isn’t original with me. None of these ideas are.
Preaching in series has several advantages for the preacher and the congregation.
For the preacher, it means we only have to come up with one big idea every several weeks, instead of a brand-new one every Sunday. Plus, it allows us to plan further in advance and build truth upon truth.
For the congregation, a series gives them something to follow. It builds anticipation and consistency. And, in an age where even regular attenders are at church only two or three out of four Sundays, it gives them a chance to catch up on what they missed without it feeling repetitive for those who missed nothing.
3. I Became More Exegetical (2007)
For several years I took my cue from many of the preachers I admired and spoke topically, using a verse or two from various places in scripture to drive each point home.
Not any more.
Despite what you may have been told, this generation will listen to a sermon that sticks closely to the scripture. And they love hearing the historical context if we don’t make it sound like a classroom lecture.
For instance, in a sermon on the woman at the well, I spent several minutes outlining the history of the Samaritans, including putting a map of Samaria on the screen. People loved the context and richness it added to their understanding of the passage – and how it relates to them today.
4. I Began Preaching Into Worship, not Just From It (2015)
Instead of having all the worship up front, then a closing song at the end, we split the worship in half, so there’s more time to respond in worship to what was spoken from the Word.
This affected my message more than I expected.
Instead of just preaching to give them something to take home, I give them something to hang on to right now as we go into the last set of worship together.
5. We Created a Preaching Team (2018)
In 2018 I stepped aside from being the lead pastor of my home congregation and became a member of the preaching team under our new lead pastor, Gary Garcia.
For most of my four decades in ministry, a rotating preaching lineup was inconceivable. People wanted to hear the lead pastor, and when I wasn’t preaching we had a lot of absences. Plus, in a small church the lead pastor is often the only person capable of preaching well (or at all).
But over the last 20 years our church got better at two things: 1) discipling our leaders to become good communicators, and 2) shifting the expectations of the church members to be more accepting of other preaching voices.
Note that the title of this point isn’t that we hired a preaching team. Small churches can’t afford that. We created it by training our own folks to step up.
6. BONUS: We Designed an Annual Preaching Calendar (2023)
I take no credit for this one.
Because we have a preaching team now, the pastor works with them to create a general outline for the coming year. This allows themes to build, gives everyone more prep time, allows for coordination among the team, and is adaptable as needs change and the Lord leads.
It’s Your Turn
I’m not proposing that any of these ideas are what you should do. They’re my story for my context. You have to make changes according to your context.
But I’ve listed mine here in the hopes that they’ll encourage you that change is possible, even necessary, without compromising the message. Use what works for you. Toss what doesn’t.
But don’t dismiss change as unnecessary just because it’s hard. And it is hard.
The unchanging message of the gospel deserves our best. And that can’t happen when we’re stuck in a rut.
(Photo by Ben Dalton | Flickr)
