6 Qualities of an Effective Sermon

!. Biblical Accuracy cannot stress this one enough don’t know how many messages that we here sometimes that we have to question it Its one thing to take a passage of scripture and to preach it but be sure you know what the context is Be sure you are not imposing your beliefs or your thoughts or a particular situation going on in your life or even in the life of the church upon a passage that really was not speaking to that issue when it was first written or first preached and sometimes People do that and it’s a gross error some sermons are Christian but they are not necessarily biblical (ex)

They don’t come from sound exegesis that comes the text what did the scripture mean then you have to know the then before you can make an application to now

2. Authentic Delivery - the preacher must be real must be spoken to by that message must have a passion to get that word out to the people God has spoken to him or her about that issue has placed that message within the preacher heart and the people can feel it they don’t just hear the word they don’t just see a man/woman standing in the pulpit but they can actually feel the authenticity of that delivery in that God has moved anointed him/her the preachers life and they are moved with compassion and with passion to get that message across to the people that God has placed on his/her heart

3. Appropriate Relevancy- that means that that message is directed to the needs of the people the people don’t care what happened to the Jebusites Hittities unless they know it can make a difference in their lives God’s word is relevant you don’t have to have a lot of gimmicks the bible is your relevancy relevancy has to come across directed to the needs of the people

4. Functional Structure - you must have a rhyme and reason may not be 3 points but must have a structure you may preach a narrative sermon where you preach first person

Example: going into character sharing a monologue in Acts 12 when Peter was in Prison and beginning you can say something like Have you ever had one of those nights when you just couldn’t sleep you had a hard day you couldn’t get off your mind what was going to happen tomorrow Maybe you just had too much on your mind to rest well so you just begin to go on and take on the persona of Peter as he was trying to sleep one night maybe thinking of the many ways that he had denied the Lord facing death threats wondering if he would see the light of another day and then an angel came and broke him out of prison How God moved in the life of Peter and Peter tells us that your can Trust the Lord because He hears your Prayers He sees your predicament and He knows your problems He can deal with them with His Power

And if you start just talking like that it might seem like there is not a lot of structure when you start and you just talking but you do have structure and if you don’t have structure you will get lost and if the people don’t see where you are going they are going to get lost read it read it highlight it read it if it doesn’t make sense to you its not going to all of a sudden make sense when you get in the pulpit

Make the message easy to listen to not watering down God’s word but make it plain be functional in the art of building a sermon that’s what hermeletics is all about

5. Appropriate Style - goes hand in hand with number 4 be familiar with the people you are preaching too if you are talking to young people you may speak differently than you do with adults or senior adults exegete your audience Paul could speak to all audiences be sure that the style your utilize is appropriate

6. Communicative delivery we talked about an authentic delivery where you come across as real to the people but now a communicative delivery and that simply means that you communicate the message You get the message across with both your voice and your body You have the right emphasis You have the right articulation the right intonation with your voice you have the right gestures with your body the right kind of eye contact you working your voice and your body together you are dialoguing with people communication is taking place Pastor Walter Brown calls it a Proclamational Triangle from God to you to the people messager sends the messager to decode the message

Textbook definition it requires at least too people communication is taking place you are with at least one other person but the goal is your are communication with everyone in the room

6 things for a Sermon with IMPACT this is an acrostic IMPACT

1. Interesting

2. Motivating

3. Prepared

4. Authentic

5. Clear

6. Targeted

Just jot that down on your notes outline manuscript does this sermon have impact and if its weak in one of those areas maybe you need to go back an work on it some more make an adjustment

Preparation of the Sermon

6 sounds steps for Biblical Interpretation

1. Have concern for the text - be familiar with the historical setting the context who wrote it who read it if it was proclaimed who heard it what was the culture what was the setting where did it take place all of those things you need to have a great concern for the text - that’s part of the exegetical concern

2. Consideration of Context - this is the literal physical context of a passage of scripture John 3:16 what comes before John 3:16 what is said after what place does it have in that chapter what place does it have in the book what place does it have in the New Testament as well as the bible as a whole have consideration for the context see how that passage fits in the whole and if you don’t do that you will take a passage out of context and impose your thoughts your beliefs your situation upon that passage when that passage is a good passage God passage but you are preaching what you want it to say you are adding to and there is a word for that called Isogesis where instead of reading or pulling out of the text you read into the text error that many times occurs it’s a pulpit crime if you have concern for the text and consideration for the context you will avoid isogesis

3. A concern for literature type - All writings in bible are not comprised of same literature type like when Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life no man comes unto the father but by me that’s literal no other way He’s the only savior but then when Jesus says if your right eye offends you pluck it out well we know that Jesus doesn’t literally mean to go and pluck it out He’s using Hyperbole an exaggerative type of language He’s serious He means it but there is a type of literature we have the parables we have poetry the Psalms Prophetic Wisdom Ecceleatics Proverbs the Epistles the letters of Paul the Gospels the Synoptic Gospels Appocolypitic - Daniel Revelation and you need to be familiar with the type of literature so you can have the proper concern for the text and consideration of the context so that the message that you give to the people is accurate and appropriate and get God’s word across

4. Care for the Lexicall information that means you study the words the phrases the structure the uses with the word Hebrew Greek be familiar with those words

5. Consideration for Gramatical relationships- very similar to number 4 the grammar of the parts of speech verb tenses look into sentence structure

6. Care of following the flow the structure - every passage of scripture has a flow the order of events go with the flow of the scripture if it seems out of order go with the flow of the scripture so you can see why

Developing the Sermon

Preparing a message from Scratch - Prayer Meditate- Listen to the Lord

Now this Homiletics the study of the science of building a sermon the Art of Preaching you may not use this nobody has arrived but this is a starting place and you may come up with your own way or you may add to or change

Always maintain a teachable spirit library books listen to others have opportunity go to conferences I love preaching we need to continually pray God helps us o preach better

Developmental Method of Sermon Preparation

Building Sermons to Meet People’s Needs Harold T. Bryson, James C. Taylor Broadman Press 1980

I’ll give you these and maybe an example

1. ETS- Essence of the text in a Sentence - this is where you start you open up your bible write your best thought then this is 15 words are less in the past tense which gives a summary of that text on simple sentence 15 words are less in the past tense (that important) this is the exegetical dimension the then and it will give a summary of the text remember the text is most of the usually catalyst for the sermon maybe as you are just reading in your devotion and you come across something most of the time the text is what propels you to the sermon and if you have a notebook a tape recorder you are studying systematically and you can write it down that’s a sermon and then go back see it and that text will be the catalyst for the sermon there are many possibilities in any given text because of the dymanic the person reading it God’s word is alive as you develop the sermon most of the time this is where you will start then you may deviate from this after time but this is an easy way

2. ESS-Essence of Sermon in a Sentence- some books call this the proposition I call it sermon in a sentence you ought to be able to give the sermon in a sentence and you give it in the present or future tense you are giving the audience the promise of future development this is something you will develop throughout the message

3. OSS-Obejective of the Sermon in a sentence the OSS is one simple sentence in 15 words or less which states what the preacher what the people to do the big idea the so what as a result of the sermon what do you want the people to do with this message once you have found out what the text said then in the ETS, and what you want to say now the ESS the essence of your sermon in a sentence what you want to do what you plan to develop and then the OSS what do you want people to do with it

And that’s one of the things that we miss it as preachers sometimes when we have given all the facts here is what the bible says it is relevant but you have to give them what you want them to do with what you gave them proper application the OSS needs to be in the Psycho Moto demain you don’t just want them to understand or feel a certain way you want them to do something Do something with it they don’t just say whew that was a good word but what are you going to do with it Do something that’s the purpose of the OSS

4. PQ (probing question) Probing Question asked to the ESS and answered by the points of the sermon we do that in our exercise it’s a question asked to the ESS and be answered by the points of sermon as you asked this question you are going to be probing your proposition probing you ESS and every point need to be an answer to your probing question and that answer should be on to better answer and explain your ESS to your congregation Why Who How Which When to What extent

5. UW- (Unifying word) key word - a plural noun or adjective which characterizes all major divisions or points of the sermon

Example Preacher says lets examine some charactricts of the Christian life let look at three vital steps to effective prayer what is the unifying word (steps) characteristics will be a unifying word they united the points of the sermon helps you stay on target

6. Development - all ideas commonly known as points or the outline the points or the outline of your sermon will be what will make up the development of that message and each point should answer the probing question by way of the unifying word each of your points should enable you to more completely answer your probing question that’s the test of unity within your sermon every points should share these qualities it should be number 1 Complete 2. Parallel 3. Progressive 4. Proportionate and 5. Mutually Exclusive that’s the test of unity in the development of a sermon

In the development the points must be complete before you move on to another point or you don’t need to move on if you have too many points in a sermon its pointless should really only be one point but all the points should point to that one point the OSS

They need to be pararrell in such a way that it makes sense to the congregation it systematic in such a way they can follow you

Should be a natural progression and the quality of proportion – don’t put all your time on number one than they say a sentence about number two and number three but try and balance your information evenly among the points

The need to be mutually exclusive goes back to the points being complete

Expansion- includes contents that go into the major divisions where you subpoints or minor points come into play your development is your outline the expansion is the meat that goes into those major divisions subpoints minor points putting meat onto the bones of the skeleton of your outline

Minor points need to complete parrarell proportionate and mutually exclusive

Introduction - means of beginning the sermon to lead people to a point and it leads to the development 3 segments within the introduction

1. Attention getting segment - begin where people are a quotation a news item current event maybe a question but you want to say something to get there attention right off the bat

2. Texual segment - it takes the audience after getting there attention and its here you will use the ETS you will utilize the ETS within the texual segment of the introduction

3. Relational segment- where you relate the attention getting and the texual segment to the present audience using the ESS the PQ and the UW we utilize the essence of a sermon in a sentence the probing question and the unifying word in the relational segment so you can get the attention getting segment and the texual segment working together relating those to your audience I’ll show you this in a moment

4. Conclusion – a means of leading people from the point to action they have heard your point you have made the point you developed expanded now they need to do something with it

1. Reproduction section – a review of the idea of the points it not just a restating of the points where you say once again number 1 2 3 its reviewing the idea of the sermon reminding them of the ess and

2. Application section of conclusion- you utilize the OSS and maybe us an illustration

3. Invitation section- draws the audience to a response - use the OSS in invitation this is what I want you to do now I’m giving you a chance to do it

Transitions - a means of creating movements within a sermon transition from introduction to proposition to your points to conclusion

This leads the congregation 3 ways to do transition

1. Compound sentence – ex, we have seen one advantage of preserving faith now lest consider another one part of the sentence then the last part of the sentence that moves to the next point

2. Connection word or phrase transition- the connection word like first of all 2ndly thirdly in addition to or not only

3. A Question - ask a question before moving on advantages you have given one and then you say what is another advantage of

Example of the developmental Method of Sermon Preparation

Text: Psalm 51:1-17

ETS David prayed to God in order to experience revival in his heart

ESS Christians can experience revival in their heart

OSS I want hearers to experience revival in their heart

PQ What steps can be taken to experience revival in the heart

UW Steps