Sunday-Sermon: Conclusion
Congratulations! If you have completed the tasks described in the previous articles you will have done much to present effectively the message God has given you from His Word. You will have accomplished your main objective and reached not only Sunday’s goal, but the goal of this entire preparation process!
- Objective: To preach the message with all the natural authority of the biblical text!
- Goal (Mile-Marker 7): To arrive at the pulpit fully prepared and relaxed, but with the intensity that befits someone who brings a message from God and wants to see people touched by that message.
Additional Ideas
Incorporate preaching into a broader discipleship framework.
- The process we have followed in these articles and tutorials has necessarily focused on the rigorous study of the biblical passage to be preached, along with the presentation of that message to a contemporary audience. What we all know well, however, is that the preaching of the Word is only part of the ministry we do with people. It is an extremely important part because, without a good biblical foundation, the rest can easily be built on a shaky foundation and falter.
- Therefore, I encourage each pastor to think of ways to integrate, as best as possible, the exposition of the Word into the overall discipleship of the people in his or her congregation. It might be worth spending a couple of hours thinking about how to integrate biblical exposition with the overall spiritual growth of individual people. I list a few ideas below that can serve as a starting point for this kind of reflection and planning
- Give the option at the end of the sermon for people to respond in some private or public way.
- Encourage them to pray afterwards with the pastor or one of the elders, if they wish.
- Prepare study guides to encourage people to study the passage personally, either (1) as a pre-study in preparation for Sunday, (2) as notes they can take during the sermon, or (3) as a personal reflection guide in response to the sermon.
- Small group study guides can also be prepared as a complement to the sermon. These can be more specific, expressly interacting with what the pastor preaches, or they can be more general, encouraging inductive study of the same or a related biblical passage.
- Does a personal discipleship program exist in your church?
- Are opportunities promoted (inside or outside the church) to attend formal or informal classes on biblical, theological, or ministerial topics? There are many options today that can even be done remotely via the internet or in the Logos Bible software itself (two such options would be the EET, the Evangelical School of Theology of the FIEIDE with which I have been associated over the years or the FLET program, which is now incorporated in Logos).
- What options for service and mission exist for members of the congregation? Healthy personal development requires not only nutrition, but also exercise.
Periodically evaluate your sermons.
- Preaching well requires a lot of personal investment. Because of this, we often feel very emotionally tied to our sermon and its content. And very defensive if someone criticizes us! But constructive criticism is good for us (Proverbs 9:9). Especially in teachable moments.
- Therefore, from time to time it is good to take advantage of a sermon to see if there are areas that can be improved. There are several different ways to evaluate your preaching skills.
- Self-evaluations.
- For example, you can make a video recording. Get someone to help you with this. Have everything set up and ready to record before you preach.
- If you do not have the video option, you can make an audio recording. That said, video would be best because you will get more out of the experience if you can also evaluate the visual aspects, such as gestures and other nonverbal communication.
- Then, find a good moment to watch the video and leisurely sit down to conduct a self-assessment.
- Note possible points for improvement in the future.
- Evaluations from others.
- Before preaching, enlist the help of two trusted people from your church who have objective criteria.
- Give each of them a copy of a sermon evaluation document and ask them to fill it out and give it to you after the service.
- When they have filled it out, review what they have written to see what aspects of the sermon or your style of preaching would merit reflection and possible future work.
- Imagine if every month you were to do such an evaluation, and as a result you were able to improve each month in one additional area. Over the course of two or three years, this could have a huge impact on your ministry of teaching the Word.
Diagnose the health of your church.
- At the risk of being misunderstood, I think we sometimes fall into the error of thinking that if we just preach the unadulterated word and preach it with clarity and power, the congregation should – automatically – grow and be healthy in all areas. I have my doubts that the reality is that simple. Furthermore, this idea is dangerous in that we put ourselves, as preachers, under a lot of pressure. We think that just by trying hard enough in our study and in the pulpit, the Lord will have to bless us and our ministry. Perhaps a more balanced perspective would be that the Lord is unlikely to bless if we don’t put forth effort in the study and teaching of the Word, but there are other factors and ministries that are also important to the overall health of the congregation.
- For about eight years, in fact, I was involved as a National Partner in Spain for a ministry known as Natural Church Development, and I can attest to the fact, even with statistical data, that there are many factors that influence the overall health of the church. Interestingly, people may even think worse of the preaching if things are not going well in the rest of congregational life. I have even had the personal experience that the same sermon went better and had a greater impact in a healthy church than in a church that was not in good health. How can that be? Well, for example, imagine that there are grudges among the members, or that people don’t “like” the services… When you get into the pulpit, the audience will not be as receptive as they might be in a healthy church. They will even laugh less at your jokes!
- There would be much more that could be said on this point, but what I want to convey with all this is simply the following: Healthy, dynamic preaching is vitally important to the health of a church. However, it is not the only thing that matters. Therefore, I would encourage every congregation not only to be vigilant about the integrity of its ministry of the Word, but also to be studious about everything that has to do with its health and ministry. Perhaps you could even use a diagnostic survey such as those done by Natural Church Development.
Download: 7. Quick Summary Guide: Sunday-Sermon
Congratulations! You have completed the Weekly Process.