I’m a professor who doesn’t like course evaluations and a preacher who doesn’t enjoy sermon critiques. So, I’m leery of telling others how to improve their preaching or teaching. Nevertheless, here are 15 ways (some that are perhaps surprising) to improve your communicating the gospel:
- Assume you need to improve. If you genuinely believe you have no room for improvement, ask others until you find someone who’s honest enough to help you (in fact, that person might tell you that you sometimes come across as arrogant).
- Consider the last time you intentionally improved your approach. If your last intentional improvement occurred years ago, or if you can’t remember when it was, you may have become stagnant as a communicator.
- Read the Bible and pray every day. This suggestion is basic, but it matters. Preachers and teachers who read the Scriptures only to prepare a lesson have reduced the Bible to a textbook for others. Those who communicate without praying regularly are operating in their own power.
- Forsake sin in your life. Again, it’s foundational yet imperative. Sin drains our passion for God and robs us of our power for communicating the gospel. Open the Scriptures with a clean heart, though, and it’s pure joy.
- Spend more time with your congregation. Your job is to teach the Word, but it’s more than that: it’s to teach people the Word. In fact, it’s a particular people: your class or your congregation. Know them so well that you can help them apply the Word to their lives.
- Enlist a prayer team. Don’t assume others are praying regularly for you as you preach or teach. Enlist prayer warriors who will intercede specifically for your holiness, your preparation, and your teaching. Know you will be proclaiming the Word under the power of God.
- Study preaching and teaching. Search for online preaching or teaching classes. Read books about preaching and teaching (e.g., http://goo.gl/s4KAGH). Even veteran preachers and teachers can usually learn from reviewing these materials.
- Listen to other preachers. If you think you preach or teach too long, listen to someone who is more concise. Learn the value of stories and illustrations by considering what you remember from a sermon. Take note of good introductions and conclusions. Absorb from others without trying to become somebody else.
- Invite others to help you prepare. Enlist others to walk with you as you put together your sermon or lesson. Invite them to critique your exegesis and your proposed outline. Preach the sermon to them first. If time won’t allow you to take this approach each week, try it at least once a month.
- Simply and clearly answer the “what,” “so what,” and “now what” questions. What does the biblical text say? Why does that truth matter? As a listener, what am I to do with this teaching? If you as the preacher or teacher can’t answer these questions, neither will your hearers.
- Practice. Read your manuscript or outline again and again. Teach it in your head – or to the wall . . . or your infant . . . or your dog . . . or to the air – multiple times. Know the material so well that you can connect easily with your audience when teaching it.
- Do immediate reflection. As soon as possible after teaching or preaching, jot down some notes. What worked well? What needs to be changed? Make notes while your teaching is hot in your mind.
- Listen to and watch your own sermons or lessons. For the sake of communicating the gospel better, become the audience for your own teaching or preaching. And, if you discover no room for improvement, go back to suggestion #1 above and invite others to listen to your message with you.
- Invite unchurched folks to listen to your sermons or lessons. Ask an unchurched friend or unbeliever to critique your teaching. Find out if he or she understands your points. Determine how often you use Christian jargon. See if your friend sees your teaching as applicable. Give it a try – your friend might even turn to Jesus!
- Take care of yourself physically. Eat properly. Sleep well. Take your days off. Go on your vacation. An exhausted, out of shape preacher or teacher is not a good witness for the transforming power of the gospel.
What other suggestions would you make?
Chuck Lawless currently serves as Professor of Evangelism and Missions and Dean of Graduate Studies at Southeastern Seminary. You can connect with Dr. Lawless on both Twitter and Facebook.
Posted on June 11, 2015
Dr. Chuck Lawless is a leading expert in spiritual consultation, discipleship and mentoring. As a former pastor, he understands the challenges ministry presents and works with Church Answers to provide advice and counsel for church leaders.
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79 Comments
Dear,
I have seen and read your material in English. I wish to translate your same material into other languages like, Swedish, Danish, and German,French, Russian,Turkish Hindi,Arabic,Yiddish, have a huge network of translators in different countries.
If you need any assistance in that please let me know about it. I will wait for your answer please. Thank you.
In Christ,
Greetings Chuck Lawless : Could use your help how do you help Elders better understand
that evangelism should be a normal way of a believers daily life not just having a class on
evangelism.
As we pray and start our day God will bring lost people into our lives there are many ways
to engage with lost people showing them Compassion and Love and share the Gospel
truthfully and for God’s Glory.
love & prayers In Christ jake jacobson
It is a great one , am blessed
Lead a trustworthy life. One’s congregants will listen even more attentively when the pastor/teacher does what he says he will do. When he doesn’t an apology is in order. Learn from it and move forward.
Preaching is both an art and a responsibility. I have always believed that if I can preach a message that is understood and listened to by your average 5th grader then chances are that the adults will listen too! Our sermons must be internalized – that is the message is not something we preach to the people but that we preach to ourselves. When I look at the powerful preaching in the early church I notice that the pro claimers of the gospel never stood in a pulpit after having done a full blown exegesis; they never went to seminary and preached what they both believed and lived.
Thanks for the article and thanks to everyone who commented! Even though I enjoy listening to (and learning from) other pastors and watching how they preach in their churches — periodically glancing around to see the congregation’s response and attentiveness — especially on my 2 vacation Sundays each year — I sometimes wonder if it is worth it. I have no clue if I am getting thru to my congregation as only a few people have ever given me a positive comment. The negative comments abound, though. Generally, the only positive comments I get come from our visitors (and my wife and family, of course). I am pastoring at a very divided and unforgiving church. Most everyone is upset with everyone else about something, including the faction that is and has been trying to get rid of my wife and me, and has been undermining my ministry since I was installed here. After 6 years, I’m about at my mental limit. There is nothing I’ve ever done right, according to some. Oh well, one never knows what sinks in or what I may say that someone will remember down the road or on their death bed so I pray that I preach the Law and Gospel in the Word of God accurately and to the best of my ability.
Your article was a bit of a slap in the face.
Thanks. I needed that…