I sliced my drive from the second tee, and the ball landed behind a group of oaks-not uncommon for a weekend golfer. My next shot had to cover at least 160 yards and land on the fairway to give me a chance at par. But there stood all those oaks, with few openings to the fairway.
On more than one occasion I had seen Jack Nicklaus hit through closely knit trees. I reasoned that if a pro hits through the trees, it must be the way to do it. I aimed at an opening and swung. My ball hit a tree and bounced back, landing a yard behind where it had originated.
Undaunted, I set up and aimed for that opening again. After all, that’s the way a professional would play it. This time the ball hit a branch and careened to the right. Now it was surrounded by oaks. After a few more desperation shots, I finally sank a putt that gave me a nine, not very good for a par four. But I was thankful to walk away with that.
I could have fared much better, however, had I not insisted on modeling my game after one of the best. Had I accepted my limitations as a weekend golfer, I could have chipped from the oaks onto the fairway just a few yards to my left. I would have sacrificed a stroke, but then my ball would have been in the clear, and I would have had a far better chance of completing the hole respectably.
In much the same way, “weekend preachers”-those of us who are not superbly gifted in preaching-can often preach better if we stop trying to model ourselves after the best.
High Hopes
I didn’t come by that realization easily. I entered the ministry with typical visions of grandeur. I had already anticipated how I would handle my success-giving all the glory to God, of course. But the more I preached, the more it became apparent that, to put it mildly, I was not superbly gifted. One pastoral evaluation, in fact, indicated the church elders thought I was a below-average preacher. That was no small shock for a man with glorious visions of himself. But it was accurate.
So I set out to change that evaluation. I attended a preaching seminar in which the virtues of storytelling in preaching were extolled. Preachers with national reputations were lifted up as models of storytelling preaching. By the end, I was thoroughly persuaded. After all, that was Jesus’ main method, and he certainly ranks as one of the best.
As I drove home I challenged myself, Well, if that’s how the best do it, that’s what I’ll do.
The next two weeks I preached extended stories based on the changing of water into wine and Nicodemus’s visit in the night. The third week, however, I couldn’t devote sufficient time to create another such story. I regretted having to deliver nothing but a typical sermon: introduction, point one, point two, point three, conclusion, with appropriate illustrations for each.
Yet as people filed out of the service, most spoke well of the sermon. One member, as she shook my hand, commented, “I’m glad we didn’t hear another cute story.”
Granted, two weeks is hardly sufficient to polish storytelling skills. Yet, that comment prodded me to reflect on the general course of my preaching. I quickly realized a storyteller I am not. The best preachers today may be great storytellers, but modeling myself after them was only going to make my preaching worse.
There are a number of other things the great preachers of our day practice-and teach-which, if followed by the average pastor, will put him or her even deeper into the woods. Perhaps we are better off sometimes to ignore or revise portions of their well-meaning advice.
Of course, some of their advice can be followed by any preacher with great benefit. Many recommend, for instance, spending an hour in the study for every minute in the pulpit. But then, many professional golfers recommend hitting four hundred balls a day on the practice tee. Most of us don’t think a lower golf score is worth forsaking our families (although sometimes one wonders . . .).
It’s relatively easy to improve your golf score from 115 to 110, but it’s incredibly difficult to shave the same five strokes from a 75. In most cases, it’s simply not worth the time and energy required. There is more to life than golf (I think).
And there is more to ministry than preaching. Most of us have little interest in becoming great preachers if it means giving up such things as hospital calling or performing funerals. Certainly many congregations would prefer having a loving pastor to having a polished preacher. Even if they want a pulpit star, not all of us are capable. But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve.
So, I proceeded to rebuild my preaching from the ground up. I ignored the advice on how to be great and simply learned to preach well within my limits. One year later the pastoral evaluation showed that the church considered my preaching above average.
This, then, is not a rags-to-riches story, but more like rags-to-Sears-Roebuck. I will never be noted or even footnoted in The History of Preaching in the Twentieth Century, but I have moved from being a fair-to-middling preacher to one whose congregation thinks he’s “pretty good.” Here are some of the ideas that helped me.
Pretty-Good Ideas
 Planning. Some planning is required, but let’s not overdo it. One West Coast preacher describes in his preaching seminars how he begins work on sermons three years in advance. I cannot imagine what my congregation will need to hear 156 weeks hence. Nor does my busy schedule permit such speculation.
However, I do save a great deal of time and worry with a little planning. Those who use the lectionary have their texts laid out well in advance. Those who don’t must lay them out. With a little planning, I can at least ward off Tuesday-morning panic: What passage this week?
I plan my preaching in a general way one year in advance. I choose an Old Testament book for the fall, a Gospel for the winter, and an epistle for the spring (my own version of the lectionary!). The summer is reserved for Psalms and Proverbs and sermon ideas that don’t fit neatly any other time.
Two to three months before I begin a series, I read through the biblical book once, then through two commentary introductions. Next, I list the texts and the general theme of each sermon. This prevents me from repeating themes, a common temptation in preaching straight through a book.
All this is general. I do not begin detailed work on a sermon until the week the sermon is to be preached. But this planning, which takes maybe four or five hours stretched over a couple of days, saves me ten to fifteen hours of decision making in the course of a series. It’s not as much planning as the best do, but it’s enough for pretty-good preaching.
 Time. Some sermon-preparation time is required, but, again, I don’t have the luxury to spend an hour in the study for every minute in the pulpit. Yet, we still can’t get around the fact that the more time invested in the sermon, the better it will be.
I have little patience with the idea of “quality time.” Certainly we can misuse time, but time only comes to us in quantities, and it takes quantities to exegete, outline, illustrate, write, revise, and practice a sermon. I don’t see how I can do all that in fewer than eight hours. However, I don’t see why I need spend more than twelve. I do have other pastoral duties.
 Exegesis. I gain time by not overdoing exegesis. Excess exegesis is often the particular temptation of recent seminary graduates. Perhaps they want to demonstrate facility with Greek and Hebrew, or with the latest scholarly conclusions. But more often than not, they are probably trying to follow the example of some of the great preachers of the day, many of whom dig exhaustively into each verse.
Whatever the motive, detailed exegesis can undermine a sermon. As a new minister, I vowed to translate the text and parse the verbs, to read widely on the passage and come to a thoughtful understanding of it. That meant I often spent close to eight hours in exegesis alone, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why my sermons came across so scholarly and abstract.
Most of my people don’t want a textual critique or a brilliant insight as much as they want the plain meaning of the text applied to their daily lives. After a brief study of the text in English, and the reading of two commentaries to check one’s biases, most preachers ought to be able to pick out the main thrust of the text. Lay people certainly can.
I try not to let that process take more than an hour and a half. Any more will steal time from outlining, illustrating, and writing-elements of preparation that make the sermon real to people.
 Expectations. I’ve decided to be satisfied with the satisfactory; I probably won’t reach the spectacular. As I write out my outline and reflect on illustrations, most often I am troubled. The outline isn’t as creative as it could be. I can’t seem to get point two to begin with another T! And often the illustrations seem a little worn, or simply fail in dramatic effect.
At such points I am tempted to rework the whole sermon, no matter what the cost. One week when preparing a sermon on the misuse of power, I devoted hours to reading Paul Tournier’s The Violence Within to give me that creative outline and powerful quote. I ended up with neither-and a sermon that fell far short in other areas as well.
Not every sermon can be church shattering. Not every illustration has to move the congregation to tears. As a “pretty-good” preacher, I must remain satisfied with the satisfactory.
 A manuscript. For some time I have believed that truly great preachers never preach from a manuscript. They’re so familiar with their sermon they can speak from notes, or even from memory. That gives them more freedom of expression and movement. It allows for steady eye contact and an intensity and immediacy not possible with a manuscript.
But when I preach without a manuscript, I spend most of my energy desperately thinking about what I am going to say next. My transitions are halting, and my ideas become increasingly blurry as I ramble on and on trying to say what is really quite simple.
Because of this weakness, I write out my sermons and preach from the manuscript. The writing process forces me to clarify ideas and smooth transitions.
The greatest advantage, however, is the revising. The longer I have been preaching, the more time I leave for revision. When I rewrite a sermon, many so-so illustrations become pretty good, and flat outlines take on life.
Recently, I preached a sermon that tried to bring home the meaning of covenant. In my first draft, and second and third, I sensed something was wrong. Only after my fourth revision did I notice the word covenant had been left out entirely, except for the introduction and conclusion. When I corrected it, the sermon became more focused, and therefore more forceful.
I felt free to use the manuscript in the pulpit once I admitted my limitations as a preacher. Now I don’t ramble. My transitions are smooth. My ideas remain clear. And the sermon doesn’t prattle on.
Yes, eye contact suffers, as does intensity. No, I’ll never have people raving about how I never use a note in the pulpit. But a manuscript does enable me to be a pretty-good preacher, which is better than the poor preacher I was.
 Practice. I’ve heard all sorts of advice about practicing in front of a mirror, but it has never worked for me. I find it hard to look at myself when I’m trying to preach. Besides, I have too much dignity to practice in the lavatory.
But I have found it extremely helpful to practice the sermon at least once from the pulpit. I still feel a little silly, especially when the janitor walks in, but in the pulpit I can try out when and where I will look and gesture. Then the next day it comes more easily.
I imagine great preachers probably don’t need to bother with something so contrived. They have a feel for the pregnant pause and the penetrating look. But I have a feeling most of us don’t have that sense and must resort to less-natural methods to improve.
 Evaluation. When the idea of having congregational members evaluate my preaching was first suggested, I bristled: “What do they know about preaching? They’ve not taken homiletics. They’ve not struggled with the text. Besides, the sermon is a Word from God, not a speech to be critiqued.” I could hardly imagine Charles Spurgeon soliciting advice from his congregation.
All of those objections were undermined, however, by one simple truth: I was not a very good preacher. Homiletics hadn’t cured me, and neither had experience. And I wasn’t the reincarnation of Charles Spurgeon. I needed to hear comments from the people I was addressing week by week.
So I asked a member to evaluate my sermons in any form she wanted, focusing on both style and content, and to do so for one month. In successive months I asked others to do the same. The process was invaluable. For example, I had been spending a great deal of energy and time making sure the sermon was absolutely clear, that it moved logically through the points and on to a conclusion. One of my evaluators, however, told me my sermons were “too clear,” meaning too rigid. From that point on, I was less anxious about sermon unity and more able to focus on the creative elements of the sermon.
 Experimentation. One of the characteristics of great preachers is their unique style. In reading through Spurgeon’s sermons, for example, I rarely find one that is not Spurgeonesque: penetrating exposition, filled with word images, forceful.
It seems the greats find their style early on, and once they find it, stick to it. My temptation along this line is twofold.
First, I tend to want to adopt a great’s style, and that just won’t work. Dietrich Bonhoeffer certainly was a forceful writer. Once I gave a sermon which, I see in retrospect, was modeled on his writing style. I considered it powerful and dramatic. I wondered why people didn’t pump my hand with gratitude after the service. When I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm or curiosity any longer, I walked up to a close friend and asked, “Well, how did it go?”
She replied, “I couldn’t keep my mind on your sermon,” and then to soften the blow added, “but your benediction really struck me.” Thanks a lot.
Second, I tend to adopt a safe style. But that safe style may not be my best form. The only way to discover my style, the one that will allow me to express my preaching gifts to their fullest, is to experiment from time to time. That’s why I don’t regret my attempt at storytelling, and why from time to time I return to it. As I try various styles, I come to grips with who I am not, and, more important, who I am as a preacher. That cannot help but make me a better preacher, if I am prepared to learn from the duds along with the winners.
 Breaks. Great preachers preach great sermons week after week. Great preachers can sustain interest through an extended sermon series. In fact, their congregations don’t take well to substitutes in the pulpit.
When I first began preaching, I was jealous for every Sunday. I even insisted on preaching the day of the Christmas cantata. I wanted to sustain the series I was building and demonstrate my ability to preach meaningfully week by week. Isn’t that what the pulpit giants do?
I have discovered, however, that weariness sets in when I am called to preach six or eight Sundays in a row. I struggle to form outlines, illustrations fail me, and I don’t have the energy to revise the sermon sufficiently. Consequently, many sermons suffer.
As much as I’d like to, I can’t take a vacation that often, but I can do other things that give me a break from preaching. Many congregational activities help: choral cantatas, youth Sunday, and the like. Christian drama groups can perform a sermon. Visiting missionaries can fill the pulpit from time to time. I’ve used occasional pulpit exchanges to interject variety into my Sunday morning routine.
Because of their wonderful gift, great preachers should rarely vacate the pulpit. Pretty-good preachers should do so regularly. It allows the congregation to hear others who may also be pretty good, and it gives the pretty-good preacher a much needed rest.
Staying Out of the Woods
To put all this another way, it may not be best always to follow the advice of the gifted, nor always to follow the supreme example. Whether playing golf or preaching, doing so may only put us deeper into the woods. If we are not superbly gifted, let’s simply take advice commensurate with our gifts. And that will be enough.
We need great preachers, and some preachers ought to be great. Some need to pursue the special talent God has given them, to make their preaching a fine art. Let those great preachers dazzle and move crowds to tears. If we fair-to-middling preachers can simply present the gospel clearly, even “pretty good” can fulfill the Lord’s purposes.
-Mark J. Galli is pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Sacramento, California.
THE POWER OF PLAIN PREACHING
There are preachers who fill their sermons with things that give the impression they are learned men, although the hearers understand nothing of it. Often foreign languages are quoted, although probably not one person in the church understands a word of them.
Many preachers are more concerned to have the introduction shape up well and the transitions be effective, to have an outline that is artful and yet sufficiently concealed, and to have all the parts handled precisely according to the rules of oratory and suitably embellished, than they are concerned that the materials be chosen, and by God’s grace developed, in such a way that the hearers may profit from the sermon in life and death. This ought not to be so.
The pulpit is not the place for ostentatious display of one’s skill. It is rather the place to preach the Word of the Lord plainly but powerfully. Preaching should be the divine means to save people, and so it is proper that everything be directed to this end. Ordinary people, who make up the largest part of a congregation, are always to be kept in view more than the few learned people, insofar as such are present at all.
-Philipp Jakob Spener in Pious Desires (1675)
Leadership Summer 1987 p. 124-9
Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
