"Where did this come from?" he asked, amazed.
"Well, honey, every time you preached a sermon that was, as the expression goes, 'laying an egg', I put an egg in the carton."
Seeing only 5 eggs the preacher was relieved. "But what of the two thousand dollars?"
"Well," his wife replied, "Every time I had a dozen eggs I sold them and kept the cash."
Every preacher knows the pain of having preached poorly. The reasons are many, for preachers are human to be sure. One seasoned preacher once told me, "If the congregation knows you love them it doesn't matter what you say in your sermon." I think this must surely be right and there seems to be a corollary truth: "The better you love your congregation, the more your preaching will have effect."
Be that as it may, every preacher wants to do well, likely worries too much about it, and feels deeply pained when the message falls flat.
So what to do? It is tempting to leave off, for no one needs platitudes and weary analysis.
But daring to believe this could be helpful, if only to me, I will offer a few brief solutions to poor preaching.
- First things first: if you have not prayed, forget it. Pray for your people, pray regularly and at length, pray for wisdom and insight, effectiveness, anointing, unction, humility, brevity. Read Bounds for motivation. It will work if you are breathing. But pray.
- Spend time with your people. Nothing helps you relate better to others than really knowing them. Nothing. This is a central natural means we must use to help our preaching. You need to know their perspectives, the things on their mind, their worries, ideas, concepts of God and the spiritual life. This will humble you, and will shut your mouth on half the pontificating to which you may be prone. There is no substitute for personal time with the folks who listen to you on Sunday morning.
- Study. Of course. Widely, regularly, grounded in Scripture. Listening to other preachers must be part of this. Learn through trial and error what study methods work best, how best to shape the message and delivery. And there is no substitute for going over the sermon multiple times while standing in the pulpit. Or at least do it once before you preach it for the congregation.
- Stay with the task -- few preachers get really good without years of practice. It is easy to want to give up for any number of reason. The struggle is real. But few things are more important than perseverance. God will help you. Quitting short-circuits that process, painful as it is.
I could go on with ideas perhaps, but that is enough. Discipline is required, as in any task. A preacher must submit to the disciplines of the calling if he would avoid laying the woeful egg.
That's all for now. I want to be better, and this encourages me. I hope it may help you, too.
