5 Questions I should answer before preaching my next sermon.
Every weekend in houses of worship and online, messages are delivered by the thousands. Youth, children’s, and every age in between have people in positions to deliver the talk or, in some circles, the sermon. While there are many important tools the church uses to impact people, from local community engagement to group life, the weekly message might be one of the most invested-in efforts.
These messages deliver timely truths to those in desperate need due to life circumstances.
These messages unpack Biblical texts so that another generation may know God and His truth.
These messages rally the congregants around the gospel mission of the church in the local community.
These messages proclaim the Gospel of the cross and power of the resurrection, giving people the opportunity to respond.
Preparing for these messages, requires our time, our prayers, and dependance on the Spirit to lead us through our words to His words. It can be a daunting task.
One of the routines that is part of my regular preparation process is to answer some basic questions. Over the years, these questions have come from encounters with some of the best communicators I have had the privilege of learning from, and from regular experiences of being a communicator over the past two decades.
Here are five questions you should answer before giving your next sermon.
1. Why does this message exist?
The answer to this question can come from a number of places, from your church’s mission to a felt need in your congregation. This message might be a response to a crisis you are seeing rise up or a reinforcement of Biblical values the church seeks to uphold. Working through the why, meaning your message’s reason for existence, will root your prayer around the message and give others around you the opportunity to rally around the message. Lastly and most importantly, this might be the moment where the Holy Spirit does His work to either keep us on course or move us in a different direction.
2.What is one sentence that explains the takeaway of your message?
Having just one sentence that gives the big idea not only helps the room hearing the message, but also everyone who is supporting the message. Great takeaway sentences should be clear and memorable. Consider these benefits:
The takeaway helps you land your message instead of just circling endlessly.
The takeaway helps worship service planners build content that supports the message.
The takeaway helps you get rid of excess in the message that might muddy the clarity.
The takeaway helps explain why this message matters.
Here are some examples of takeaways I have come across:
Words have power when lived out louder.
The Holy Spirit lives in us, so He can work through us.
When in the inside doesn’t match the outside, our life is out of rhythm.
3.What is one practical action step you see the message mobilizing?
This action step can move us from the clouds to the runway in our messages. It gives further focus for our prayers leading into the message delivery, and opens the door for practical application as part of the message so this action can be lived out. If we want our people to learn how to pray continually, then launch a 7-day prayer journey out of the message. If we want them to get courage to share their faith, have one simple method available online that they get trained on. If we want them to learn how to confess sin, give them the opportunity in the service to write it down and leave it in the room. Whatever the action, identifying it in this step allows for more to happen with it and for the larger team to play a role in the message.
Life change is in the hands of the Holy Spirit; preparation by those behind the message opens the door even wider for that life change.
4. Are there any obvious creative ways to make the message visual and sticky?
Making a message more visual and sticky isn’t reserved for the most creative person in the room. A good friend of mine who programmed a major middle school conference for over ten years gave me a simple line when it came to making things more visual and sticky: Sometimes the best choice is the most obvious choice. When you are working through your Biblical text, are there any natural visuals it spells out with the words? Are there any objects that can be placed in the hands of the listeners to further echo the message? Does the text offer any illustrations we can bring to life as part our message? We owe it to our listeners to consider their learning styles and simple ways to help our message stick so that it doesn’t die at the door.
5. Who have you asked to pray both during the preparation and the delivery of the message?
Prayer is the work behind the movements and messages that aligns our hearts with God’s. Inviting others to pray with you in the preparation process challenges the idea that messages are products of isolation and surrounds the communicator with added protection. Is anyone praying for the work of the Spirit while you deliver the message? Do you have a small group available by text that you can alert right before, so they can actively pray? Prayer keeps our hearts centered on the idea that it is God who works in us and through us.
How can you make prayer more of a priority in your message process?
Ask a few faithful friends to be part of a prayer group thread you keep active on your phone.
Text them to stop and pray for specific things around your message preparation process.
Ask if they would be willing to pray in the moment when you remind them with a text before you deliver the messages.
Follow up in those threads with honest feelings, stories of impact, and how their prayers mattered.
There have been a number of effective books that help address some of the ideas these questions bring up, such as Andy Stanley’s Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication. There are even some incredible new innovative tools like sermonary.com , a new sermon planning web tool. I highly recommend both of those in your development as a regular communicator.
