An Open Letter to Pastors Whose Sermons Always Sound the Same
This article is part of the Open Letters series.
Those who study denominations such as the one I serve (evangelical, largely Anglo, suburban, and middle class) say that the sermons of our preachers most commonly address the “3M” concerns of church culture: morals, marriage, and money. When we break from those themes, the most common subjects (often related to the 3Ms) are the 3Ps: politics, pro-life, and propagation (the last often addressed under the headings of mission, discipleship, and evangelism). These subjects are certainly worthy of scriptural address, but they obviously don’t cover the scope of Scripture’s subjects or the concerns of Christian brothers and sisters across our nation and world with different demographics, circumstances, and priorities.
If familiar themes are constantly preached—and they will vary from church to church—the pastor may be addressing issues most relevant to his people. But he also might be unwittingly serving the perceived priorities of his people rather than the priorities of Scripture. Long ago, thoughtful reformers taught that the preacher’s goal is to address “the necessities and capacities” of hearers.1 We must not settle for addressing only subjects that our people have a ready capacity to hear (or that we find easy to address); biblical preachers are also obligated to preach what God’s people need to hear to be conformed to Christ in all of life.
How do we break the preoccupations of our preaching that not only dull hearers to our messages but also blind them to the implications of the lordship of Christ over the whole of life? Here we expand our subject zones when we understand that variety in preaching is more than a marketing gimmick; it’s a pastoral and biblical necessity for those who won’t hesitate to preach the whole counsel of God.
Faithful Endurance
Collin Hansen, Jeff Robinson Sr.
Written by a team of long-serving pastors, this book explores 11 issues that could threaten to undermine a pastor's ministry, encouraging young pastors to press on in the midst of the unique challenges that come with leading a church.
Expand Structure Variety
Genre Sensitivity
Many years ago, I gave a series of messages on the life of David at a friend’s church. When I finished, he asked, “How do you do that?” “Do what?” I asked. He continued, “How do you preach from the historical biographies of the Bible? I only preach from the Epistles of the New Testament and the Psalms of the Old Testament, because I was never taught how to preach expository sermons from Bible stories.”
He had rightly been taught that an expository sermon gets its topic, main points, and subpoints from the text, but he had only been taught how to do so from didactic passages. In such passages, paragraphs of thought and theology readily divide into a logical outline of major and subordinate ideas. Such traditional exposition comes naturally to our Western linear thinking. However, my friend hadn’t been prepared to see how truth principles are related through plot or character development in biblical narratives, through literary devices or image echoes in biblical poetry, through theme developments across biblical books and history, or through prophetic nuance and utterance across time and eternity.
His tools of academic outlining were a confining cookie cutter for the many varieties of biblical literature. His texts, subjects, and sermons became more varied as he learned not only to fit the biblical contents into an academic outline but also to structure his messages to reflect the development of the text. A biblical plot often moves from situation to complication to gospel resolution— with the ending frequently unexpected. A biblical character’s development may move from naiveté to maturity, from godlessness to godliness, from misunderstanding to wisdom, or in the reverse order of any of these tandems. Biblical poetry may communicate truth by word repetition, literary echoes, ironic twists, or structural cues. Prophetic literature can address issues or events in the past, present, or future and can run back and forth through vast epochs.
Our goal in discerning the way each passage or genre of Scripture communicates biblical truth is to be able to proclaim, “This is the truth this passage teaches,” and, “This is how I know the biblical writer is communicating that truth.” The more our sermon structure allows the thought and structure of the text to show and have the effect the original author intended, the more variety will be in our sermons, and the more they will conform to the text’s purposes.2
Sensitivity to the text’s nature may mean that the sermon will develop more through mention of events with chronological development, through moves of plot with ironic or surprise development, or through echoes of words and threads of themes in poetic development than through traditionally worded main points. The truths of the text must eventually be made plain, but they may be stated or illustrated at the end of a section of the sermon’s development (which is an inductive approach more typical of story development and ordinary conversation), rather than at the beginning of each main point (which is a deductive approach more suited to didactic passages and academic presentation).
Variety in preaching is more than a marketing gimmick; it’s a pastoral and biblical necessity for those who won’t hesitate to preach the whole counsel of God.
Congregation Sensitivity
Once we become open to moving beyond a cookie-cutter structure for every message, we may begin to recognize why so many of our sermons sound the same even though their points and explanations vary. The traditional deductive structure lends itself to stating a problem and then identifying or proving a solution. The problem-to-solution approach appeals to the academic mind, but it sets up an unfortunate dynamic with listeners if it’s a preacher’s only style. Week-in-and-week-out declarations of “You have a problem, and I have a solution” not only can seem like the same old song but also can set up a patronizing or even antagonistic dynamic between preacher and listeners. The more time and energy the preacher spends in pressing or proving the problem each week, the likelier it is that negative dynamics will develop. Spiritual conviction is a necessary feature of biblical preaching; a steady drumbeat of pulpit condemnation is not.
We can vary overall approaches and impressions by recognizing that many texts (and the overall gospel message) are more about declaring a solution than proving a problem. We move toward a more edifying stance and more structural possibilities when we specify a problem or need that our people can identify with early in the message (usually in the introduction) and then use the bulk of the message to show how the text identifies either a plan for handling the problem or the advantages of implementing such a plan.3 Not only do these need-plan and plan-advantage approaches add variety to our structural tool kit, they create more of a “good news” atmosphere in the sermon ecology created by the pastor. Here are four ways I’d suggest that you can be sensitive to your congregation.
Determine Significance as Well as Meaning
Commitment to communicating a text’s inspired purpose requires that we determine a text’s significance before preaching its content. Sadly, those who think of themselves as expositors are often experts at preaching truths without reasons.
Preaching effectiveness grows when preachers recognize that our people don’t really know the meaning of a text if they don’t know its significance for their lives. Bare cognitive registration of biblical facts and theological truths is not the goal of preaching designed to enable God’s people to love him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27) so that whether they eat or drink or whatever they do, they will do all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).
Discern Burden as Well as Facts
We determine the burden of the text by first determining the reason it was written to the original audience (e.g., were they sad, lonely, rebellious, fearful, doubting, distracted in worship, distant in affection, or grieving over affliction?). Then we need to identify how our people share that fallen condition (in heart or circumstance or both). We do this because Scripture itself tells us that its contents are not random or merely descriptive but are intended to be applied to our present situations (Rom. 15:4).
Once we identify that mutual fallen condition, then we’re prepared to show the significance of the text to our people’s lives. The more insightful and specific the preacher is about the mutual condition of the original scriptural audience and the modern-day church listeners, the more the Bible will come alive with contemporary significance. Further, the more specific and personal our focus on the fallen condition is, the more pointed and powerful our application will be.4
Identify Specifics as Well as Principles
It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of identifying the fallen condition being addressed by the hope of the biblical text. The reason people are sitting in church is that they hope the preacher can explain how the gospel has significance for their needs and hurts. When we demonstrate that we understand that hope and that Scripture addresses it, boredom turns into anticipation, and calloused commitment to endure another sermon becomes eagerness to hear God’s Word.
Eagerness will wane, however, if the application remains abstract or merely theoretical. Generic applications of “go and do likewise” or “read your Bible more, pray more, and go to church more” are another cause of sermons that sound too similar to inspire. Variety worthy of the significance of our texts identifies the situations to which they apply today. This requires more than regurgitating a commentary and calling it a sermon. The text supplies the truth we are to apply, but our pastoral interaction with God’s people provides the situational relevance that makes those truths real and applicable.
We shouldn’t be ashamed to acknowledge that new preachers are at a disadvantage in applying texts to the struggles, pains, and challenges of messy lives that dominate congregations. Longer experience will add depth, variety, and reality to our applications. Still, we should not resign ourselves to clichéd applications at any stage of ministry. The fastest way to move sermons into the crucibles of life is first to discern the significance of the truth a biblical text teaches and then to enter congregational lives through the “who door.” In your study ask, Who needs to hear this? Then in the sermon, do not identify those people, but identify their situations as addressed by this passage.5
This approach not only keeps sermons from ending with legalistic lists (mis)labeled as application but also actually enables people to see how Scripture applies to their situations and demonstrates how it helps them in their difficulties. Then we truly shepherd people in our sermons, rather than burdening them with greater loads of performance-driven duties.
Preach the Fullness of the Gospel
Burdens will remain, however, if we don’t demonstrate from the text how God enables his people to know his love and to do what he requires. The antidote to tired legalisms is not weekly repetition of “This is what God requires, but you can’t do it, so trust his grace of forgiveness.” The gospel is more than a message of forgiveness; it’s the promise that “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4 KJV). We must be clear that the grace pervading all Scripture culminates in the Christ who now indwells his people to ignite love for him and to enable their victories over sin (John 14:4–6; Rom. 6:6, 14; 2 Cor. 4:14). Complaints that gospel-centered preaching is the same every week are only true when preachers have not discovered the varieties of ways God provides for people who cannot provide for themselves to enable their victories over the world, the flesh, and the devil.6
Few critics of Christ-centered messages say, “Every week I preach the same message: law, law, law.” They recognize that there are too many aspects of the law of God for such a charge to stand. Sadly, they fail to see that the grace of God is as rich and varied. If we will take care to disclose the specific burden of each biblical text we preach and the specific aspect of grace that relieves that burden, then we will preach with the variety and power that the gospel of God intends.
Be encouraged, dear brother. Ask God to give you an awareness that the mercies of his Word are new each day (and each week) for both you and your congregation.
Notes:
- Westminster Larger Catechism, q. 159.
- Jeffrey D. Arthurs, Preaching with Variety: How to Re-create the Dynamics of Biblical Genres (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2007), 16–28, 86–95.
- See Bryan Chapell, “Alternative Models,” in Handbook of Contemporary Preaching, ed. Michael Duduit (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 117–31. Tony Merida lists ten organizational patterns in Faithful Preaching: Declaring Scripture with Responsibility, Passion, and Authenticity (Nashville: B&H, 2009), 92–92; Barbara Tucker and Brenda Buckley Hunter list eleven organizational patterns in Introductory Speech Communication: Overcoming Obstacles, Reaching Goals (Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt, 1988), 31–32. More possibilities abound; cf. Donald R. Sunukjian, Invitation to Biblical Preaching: Proclaiming Truth with Clarity and Relevance, Invitation to Theological Studies Series 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2007), 27–41, 143–55; Kenton C. Anderson, Choosing to Preach: A Comprehensive Introduction to Sermon Options and Structures (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 65, 70, 85. Standard structural alternatives include problem to solution, proof of contention, cause to effect, effect to cause, explanation and application, story with moral, elimination of wrong alternatives (called the “chase outline” because a preacher chases down wrong leads to find a right answer), answers to a provocative question, and unfolding dimensions of a controlling image or story or biographical sequence
- Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018), 28–32.
- See Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, 196, to identify how the following categories of common concern can help preachers consider situational specifics in their congregation that need application of the principles in a text: • Building proper relationships (with God, family, friends, coworkers, church people, etc.) • Reconciling conflicts (in marriage, family, work, church, etc.) • Handling difficult situations (stress, debt, unemployment, grief, fatigue, etc.) • Overcoming weakness and sin (dishonesty, anger, addiction, lust, doubt, lack of discipline, etc.) • Lacking or improperly using resources (time, treasures, talents, etc.) • Meeting challenges and using opportunities (education, work in or out of church, witnessing, missions, etc.) • Taking responsibility (home, church, work, finances, future, etc.) • Honoring God (worship, confession, prayer, devotions, not compartmentalizing life, etc.) • Addressing social or world problems (poverty, racism, abortion, education, injustice, war, creation, etc.)
- Timothy Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism(New York: Viking, 2015), 39–41., 20–22, 56–69.
This article is by Bryan Chapell and is adapted from Faithful Endurance: The Joy of Shepherding People for a Lifetime edited by Collin Hansen and Jeff Robinson.
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