Five Questions I Ask of Every Sermon - Church Leader Insights

Today’s guest post comes to us from Scott Slayton for Patheos.com.

One of my life’s greatest privileges is preaching God’s word week in and week out. I have been doing this for over fifteen years now and steadily look for ways to grow in my skill as a preacher. One of the unfortunate things I have discovered is that I can fall into lazy habits and practices if I do not think carefully about my sermon preparation.

Last year I developed a set of questions to ask myself about every sermon before I preach it. This helps me to evaluate its tone, content, and application. All of this presupposes that I finish the first draft of my sermon by at least Thursday at noon so that I can have time to look over it, reflect on it, and make necessary changes before I stand up to preach on Sunday morning at 10:30.

Here are five questions I ask of every sermon before I stand up to preach.

Is this sermon faithful to the biblical text? The text sets the agenda for the sermon, so before I preach, I look over my sermon notes and ask if what I plan to say is faithful to the biblical text under consideration. Is my sermon’s main point the passage’s main point? Am I accurately explaining what the text says? If the answer to this question is “no,” I rewrite the sermon until the answer is “yes.”
Does this sermon contain grace for hurting people? The Bible offers real hope for people walking through overwhelming pain, difficulty, and sadness. As a pastor, if I preach as if hurting people are not in the room, I am denying them access to the grace the Scripture holds out to them. When a pastor knows the people he preaches to every week, he knows how many of them are walking through stress, pain, anxiety, fear, and sadness. The world offers them countless options for dulling their pain or dealing with it in destructive, self-centered ways. The Bible calm for our stress, healing for out pain, peace for our anxiety, hope for our fear, and joy for our sadness. Every week, I look to make sure I offer the Bible’s solutions so they know how to go to the word instead of the world.

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Your partner in ministry,

Nelson

About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.