15 Ways to Improve Your Preaching or Teaching

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:

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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!
  15. 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.

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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

  • O my GOD am missing out in ministry i have not even started am only reading Bible GOD help me

  • princewill says on

    Thank you sir for this wonderful write-up, i have benefited a lot from this. i am praying that God will help me to behold the wondrous things in the scripture and have deeper understanding of the knowledge of God word to preach his word to all humanity.

  • Yusuf Faruq says on

    I have read everything you wrote here sir, may the lord continue to strengthen you more in spirit and in body also,right now i am learning how to preach and teach the words of God to every believers and unbelievers too……..Thank you.

  • everyone need repentance because CHRIST is coming soon.

  • Oyebanji Taiwo Gold says on

    Great work to all worker’s of God,no stopping Christ is coming soon.

  • James Okureje says on

    As soldiers of God we need to be equipped well at all times,ready for fight so we preaching. thank you brother for giving us such wonderful advice God bless you

  • Pls how can I improve my bible teaching , and which course am I surpose to read in higher education to upgrade myself

  • lovely post you have here, i have learned new way of approaching the churched and inviting others to hear sermon. thank you.

  • thank you so much for good advise, may God bless. I am praying to be a faithful witness of the gospel of Christ. i need really such advise. please pray for me

  • keith bowman says on

    I am trying to get ready to start ministry college

  • Emily Nelima Makokha says on

    Halo Sir, I am really inspired with your message. I am a young pastors who has started ministering under my Senior Pastor. Point 5 may be very tricky because these other days I am working. After Sunday if I don’t get time to go for midweek fellowship, we will see each other on Sunday. Allow me to ask this question. Do I really qualify to be a servant? What I am seeing is that you need to be a full time servant.

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