I love good preaching. Powerful preaching is one of the most important aspects of any life transforming ministry. After all, the Gospel is “… the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16).
And for the record, when I say “powerful preaching” I’m not talking about style; I’m talking about “serious-substance.” The kind of stuff that pricks the heart, renews the mind, and revives the soul. That’s why in this post, I’ve listed “The 6 Facets of Powerful Preaching.”
1. Consecration
You’ve GOT TO set time aside to set yourself apart.
Preacher, at some point you’ve got to stop cooking and start eating. If you only read your bible to find the next sermon than you’re always in the kitchen preparing food to feed others; in the mean time your starving yourself to death. You need to find a place at the table where YOU TOO can taste and see that the Lord is good. Consecration includes prayer, fasting, bible study, and meditation. It’s your time alone with God where you cultivate your ability to hear His voice. After all, your ability to hear God’s voice will determine the willingness of others to listen to your own.
2. Investigation
Do you know what season your community/congregation is in right now?
If you collect connection cards on a weekly basis from your congregation you need to take some time each week to read/pray through them. You’ll often be surprised to discover a common theme running through the church. Some prayer requests will almost read like duplicates.This will help you discern the season you’re church is in which helps you to prayerfully identify real life applications in your sermon.
3. Preparation
Powerful preaching doesn’t happen on accident.
If you don’t already have one, I strongly recommend that you create an annual sermon calendar. For me, the best time to do this is in the month of May. Typically it’s the quietest month of the year as far as ministry activity is concerned. I personally lay out my sermon calendar from September through August and the advantages are many, but here’s just a few:
- A sermon calendar ensures a balanced diet for the people God’s called you to lead and feed with His Word.
- A sermon calendar enables you to plan ahead and be more creative with sermon illustrations, videos, dramas, testimonies, etc that could help enhance the message.
- A sermon calendar gives the preacher “prayer direction” from week to week and eliminates the stress of not knowing what’s next.
4. Organization
You can’t wait until Saturday night to have a powerful Sunday morning.
To maximize the message you need to build sermon prep time into your weekly calendar. If you don’t, you’ll end up allowing the urgent things to take you away from the necessary things (like getting ready for Sunday). Personally I’ve discovered that I have the most creative energy in the morning, so I carve out 2 hour blocks of time every morning Tuesday – Friday to work on the message for the upcoming Sunday ( I’ll also use Saturday mornings to iron out any wrinkles if I need to). With the exception of a genuine emergency, you shouldn’t allow any distractions take you away from this time. Mute your cell phone, ignore text messages and focus on THE MESSAGE.
5. Presentation
Practice your presentation.
After you’ve put the sermon on paper you need to practice your presentation. It helps to engrave the truth of that message just a little bit deeper into your own heart. How do you practice? Preach it to an empty auditorium/sanctuary on Saturday night. Not only will y0u be surprised at how much revelation you’ll get by preaching it one time all the way through, but this will also help you to think through the message with more clarity. Football players practice their plays in private before they run them in public. The worship team rehearses their songs in private before they present them in public. Why wouldn’t the preacher practice preaching the message in private before he preaches it publicly – especially when eternity is on the line!
6. Evaluation
Becoming a powerful preacher requires self evaluation.
After all the prayer, study, and preparation you put into delivering the last sermon, there’s a very real temptation to set the sermon down and move on to whatever’s next. Don’t do it! This is where we can miss the most valuable facet of becoming a powerful preacher: Self Evaluation. You need to go back over your outline one last time. Write down all of the new revelations you received “while” you were preaching (while they’re still fresh on your mind) or you run the risk of forgetting them later. And though I know it’s painful, you need to have someone record you so you can watch yourself deliver the message and make intentional improvements on your delivery.
To recap, the 6 Facets of Powerful Preaching are:
- Consecration
- Investigation
- Preparation
- Organization
- Presentation
- Evaluation
[shareable cite=”@PastorTHall”]6 Facets of Powerful Preaching: Consecration, Investigation, Preparation, Organization, Presentation, Evaluation[/shareable]
What are some ways that you’ve discovered are helpful in your own preaching preparation time? I’d love to hear them in the comments below.
