Eight Observations About Preaching

I’ve been blessed to have preached and taught, full and part-time, for nearly 25 years. Countless hours have I listened to lecture style teachers, revival style preachers, expository, topical, and indefinable sermons. I’ve read numerous books on sermon preparation and delivery. Spent days upon days in preparing sermons, talks, and devotionals. The painful experience of listening to audio recordings of my sermons has not been overlooked either, though they have produced an equal measure of squirming and sighing.

Recently I was in a discussion about expository preaching. One participant advocated for “more expository preaching. Not less.” This is a common response in my denominational tradition. Many seminarians in various denominations are led to believe that expository preaching (verse-by-verse through books of the Bible) is the only right way to preach. Others, including myself, see value in various ways of preaching including narrative, thematic, and topical. I would also add textual as a type of sermon in which a single passage is exegeted, but not the entire book.

I tend toward expository sermons—though I have preached thematically, topically, and textually throughout my ministry. Each can be done well, and each can be done poorly. The most important issue is that truth is communicated clearly to the listeners gathered to hear. With these things in mind, here are eight things I have observed about preaching. Keep reading