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Some happy personal news: 25 years ago today—on April 18, 1999—I preached my first sermon. I was 16 years old and a member of Baptist Temple Church in Edna, Texas, my hometown and home church.
Here’s how it happened. Our pastor’s wife wanted to organize a youth-led Sunday morning service, and they asked me if I’d prepare the sermon. Gulp. I was the oldest kid in the youth group, but I didn’t enjoy public speaking, and I wasn’t looking for opportunities to grow in it. I also had no desire to serve in vocational ministry.
I’d grown up in this church, so I knew the people very well. We were a small Southern Baptist church in south Texas.
In the days leading up to the Sunday morning service, I prepared a sermon on the famous Four Spiritual Laws. Here’s a snapshot of my notes from that day 25 years ago.
I was very nervous, so I practiced a lot beforehand. My parents had keys to the church, so I drove up to the church—which was only a couple minutes from our home—and stood in the pulpit to preach through the material. I did this for days, until I had basically internalized the sermon.
After April 18, 1999, the church was encouraging and supportive in their feedback, and my pastor gave me further opportunities to prepare messages and preach them.
During my college years at Houston Christian University (formerly Houston Baptist University), I took as many opportunities as I could to preach. These years solidified my direction toward some kind of vocational ministry. I knew I wanted to go to seminary next.
My wife Stacie and I moved to Fort Worth in 2006 to attend the main campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, after I’d already begun some seminary courses at an extension campus. During my education at Southwestern, I went through their MDiv and ThM programs and pastored for four years west of Fort Worth (from 2006 to 2010).
In 2010 our little family (now with a 1-year-old son) moved to Louisville, Kentucky so that I could enter the PhD program at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I returned to vocational ministry in 2012 to be the Preaching Pastor at Kosmosdale Baptist Church, and I’ve been there ever since (almost 12 years now).
I was thrilled to hit a particular milestone on May 22, 2022. On that Sunday morning I completed an exposition of the entire New Testament, an exposition which took place over 1,106 sermons in fourteen years (2006-2010, 2012-2022) at the two churches I’ve pastored.
I always look forward to delivering the Word of God to the people of God on the Lord’s Day. These many years later, I count preaching to be a immense privilege and a sacred responsibility. To mark 25 years of preaching the Scripture, here are 25 lessons I’ve learned in no particular order—and sometimes the hard way!
The whole Bible is important for the whole Christian, so preach from both the Old and New Testaments.
The Bible is not boring, so neither should the preacher be.
You can’t preach everything you’ve studied about a text, so a vital part of sermon preparation is determining what to exclude.
Your personal sorrows are part of your sermon preparation.
Some days you may not feel like preaching, but you preach anyway because the power of God works through his Word.
Preaching must not be a regurgitation of commentaries.
Don’t clog up your sermon with lengthy illustrations; simple and concise illustrations are helpful and sufficient.
Growing in the craft of preaching is important, so read resources and learn from listeners (especially from other preachers) about ways you can improve your own presentation and method.
Write a lot, either in a journal or in a document (or on Substack), because writing will fine-tune your thinking and your use of words.
Make appeals and applications at points during your sermon, not only at the end.
Don’t assume a faithful sermon equals a long sermon; instead, seek to treat the text faithfully and helpfully for your people, and that goal probably means the length will vary.
Experiment whether notes-free, some notes, bare outline, detailed outline, or a manuscript works best for you, but don’t think you have to adopt the method that works best for others.
Engage the imagination of the listeners; that will help them stay engaged with you.
First and last words matter, so spend time thinking about your sermon’s introduction and conclusion.
Preach your own sermons, not somebody’s sermon that you’ve found online or in a book somewhere.
Don’t avoid preaching difficult passages or difficult books in the Bible.
Whenever you think, “That sermon didn’t go the way I’d hoped,” thank God for the power of his Word, acknowledge that he uses his Word in ways we’ll never know, and then take a nap.
Preaching through sections of Scripture (whether chapters or entire books) is the best homiletical practice.
Listen to a variety of preachers so that your own style and manner of delivery develop over time—and, by listening to a variety of voices, you’ll avoid becoming a parrot of a particular preacher.
Plan several months (or longer) of a preaching schedule, in order to establish a vision for your study and to be deliberate about what Scripture the congregation is exposed to and for how long.
Engage in doctrinal reflection as you exposit texts, because listeners need to understand both what a passage means and the theological reasoning at play in a given passage.
Be clear about which biblical issues are primary doctrines and which are secondary or tertiary matters.
Pray that God will help you exult in his Word as you are preaching it.
With the authoritative and inspired Word of God that is sharper than a two-edged sword, you don’t need gimmicks.
Be doers of the Word and not just preachers only, for you need the sermon that you are preparing for others.
I will post these lessons for my church speech club! Thanks!