The length of the average sermon has changed over the past century. Even 4 decades ago it was not unusual for a sermon to last over one hour. Today if you preach over an hour your congregation will grow restless and a lot of people will even get up an leave. What has changed?
Two main factors have changed in our culture that effect the length of time people are willing to sit in church and listen to a sermon. First of all I believe that people have become more impatient. We live in an instant world. We have instant grits (I am from the South) instant potatoes, instant coffee, instant tea, instant cameras, fast food restaurants, fast lanes and now people need fast sermons. We have become accustomed to having our news condensed from a multipage newspaper to the Headline News chanel where you get 'all the news' every 10 minutes. I am not surprised that our congregations are impatient with long sermons.
The second factor is that we are bombarded with an overload of intensly stimulating entertainment. Almost everyone is addicted to TV and its hyper-stimulation of our senses. For a show to become top rated is must be bigger, louder, more action packed than its competition. As a result we have become numb to the more subtile values of speech and personal relationships. A sermon doesn't have the sensory impact of a TV show. As a result the modern, over stimulated, listner soon loses interest in a sermon. So, what are we to do about it.
First of all we need NOT to try to compete with the worldly entertainment industry. Bigger, louder, more exciting and more 'show biz', is not the answer. Preaching and sermons are not to be entertaining. However, they don't have to be boring.
Sermons need to be interesting and they CAN be if the preacher will spend the time and energy to properly develop them and relate them to the congregation. The biggest problem with sermons today is that they are delivered to the wrong part of the human body. In general sermons should be aimed at the heart, not the head. They should be delivered from the heart of the preacher not his head. This means that he needs to be intense and intensely believe in the message he is delivering. Sermons are boring because the preacher is bored. The same preacher who will scream and holler at his son's football game comes to the pulpit cold and without passion. A sermon delivered without passion is just a speech (a boring one).
If we are to overcome the short attention span of the modern listener it will be because we grab his attention with our passion. Be passionate, catch fire, and preach an organized message with fervor.
Of course it takes more than wildfire to win men to the Lord and it takes more than unbridled enthusiasm to build a church. I will speak more about this next week. Until then, I suggest you check out the sermon and preaching course called Preaching with Power. It will teach you the techniques that allow your passion and enthusiam to be harnessed and applied to the sermon.
Sermon Length
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The second reason is that you need to be in touch with God's message for you and your congregation. The sermon you get from the internet was written by some other preacher for some other congregation. In fact many of the outlines you get from the internet or from the books of sermon outlines have never been preached. A lot of these were written just for publication. Your congregation and your situation are unique in many ways and God can inspire your mind with a unique message for that particular time. Many times you feel the inspiration and instead of studying, praying and seeking your own sermon you begin a search for some other preacher's sermon, in hope that you will find one that 'almost' fits. This is like going to the trash dump to find a pair of shoes. There may be some that are usable, that almost fit, but they are not precisely what you need. They don't feel right, they hinder your stride and are not comfortable. Preach your own sermons because you need to be in touch with God's message for your congregation.
The third reason you need to preach your own sermons is that through the process of studying and developing a sermon you gain new insight into God and God's word. Preaching is a dynamic interaction between the man of God, and the Lord. You owe it to yourself to grow in the knowledge of God. When you take the short cut of preaching another preacher's sermons you miss out on the interaction with God's word and you miss any new insights God might give to you.
The reason I wrote the preaching with power course was to help preachers develop their own sermons. My purpose is to give the essential elements of sermon preparation without a lot of complex theory. It isn't difficult to learn. I believe in putting the cookies on the bottom shelf so the kids can get them. Preaching with Power is written in an easy to understand style. The exercises are designed to allow you to practice the skills you learn so you can apply them to your ministry.
After completing the course I guarantee that you will be preaching powerful sermons that your people will appreciate. If God is giving you a message, the preaching with power course will enable you to get it into the heart of your people in an interesting powerful way.
Sermons can be powerful. However, most sermons are not. Instead of powerful, they are lukewarm thirty-minute talks that do not accomplish much. This is not surprising considering the fact that most preachers have to deliver at least 2 sermons per week to the same congregation. Think about it for a moment. This is the equivalent of writing 3 or 4 books per year! All to be read by the same people! So the preacher has a gigantic challenge to be creative week after week. There are few authors or newspaper columnists who could produce at this level. There is little wonder that the average sermon is lukewarm. But there is a cure for lukewarm sermons.
Have you ever noticed that when a person has an important message they can deliver it with convincing power? I don't mean to say that the message is grammatically correct or well organized, but only that it is enthusiastically delivered. Why? Because the speaker has a purpose.
Lack of purpose is the main cause of lukewarm boring sermons. A sermon that is written and delivered just because it is Sunday at 11am will not be powerful. The preacher needs a purpose for that sermon. When I say the sermon needs a purpose I mean that the preacher needs to have a goal in mind for what he wants to accomplish with the sermon. What does he want the listeners to do because they heard his sermon? This is the key to powerful preaching. The preacher needs to understand that having a definite purpose in mind gives direction and force to his message. He knows where he is going and he knows what result he wants.
One of the problems preachers have is creating a sermon based on a subject, or based on a theme. Subjects and themes can give structure to a sermon but they cannot give power to a sermon. When a preacher creates a sermon based on a subject, without a purpose, you may have a pleasant speech, but you will not have a powerful sermon. Power comes from purpose.
Where do you get this purpose? First of all, Christian preachers should have the underlying purpose of spreading the Gospel. In fact the very word, Gospel, translates from the Greek word euaggelion, meaning, good news. If the preacher understands that he is the bearer of good news this can begin to empower his sermons with purpose. The second place to find purpose is in the need of the people to whom he is preaching. What areas of life do they need help? What are their struggles? Let your sermons have a purpose to help them in whatever area they need. The third area to find purpose in your sermon is from the scripture. Many scriptures give strong admonitions or commandments. Your purpose should be to have the congregation submit to these admonitions.
Sermons are not only a speech to fill thirty minutes on Sunday morning. They are speech driven by purpose. Sermons are speech designed to cause change in those who hear. Plan your sermons from the standpoint of its purpose and your sermons will be powerful. Power comes from purpose.
Click here to read more about how to make powerful sermons POWERFUL SERMONS
