4. Don’t Overload Us.
A pastor friend told me recently that when he tackles a subject for a sermon, he wants to know everything about it, find every Scripture that pertains and not preach it until he has mastered it. The problem, he admitted, is he often gives the congregation the benefit of every last detail. He overloads his people.
Too many statistics will tax the minds of your congregation and cause most to tune out.
Too many scriptures muddy the subject, overload the minds of the hearers and burden note-takers.
Too many points will discourage the hearers from trying to retain the message. There is a good reason most pastors try to limit their points to three or four. You are preaching to a people who are beset by limits: a limit to their time, their attention, their endurance and their good will. Try not to exceed the limit, pastor.
A sermon should give the congregation digestible servings of information.
5. Don’t Entertain Us.
In a noble attempt to connect with the congregation and establish a rapport, some preachers resort to telling jokes and humorous stories, one after another. And since the congregation responds as the preacher was hoping—they laugh—he goes home that day feeling he succeeeded. However, the laughter was deceptive.
After a 30-minute sermon filled with funny stories at which the congregation laughed, they will walk outside the church frustrated. “Where was the worship?” they will wonder. “Why weren’t we lifted to the Lord?” “Why did he do that? Why doesn’t he preach the Word?”
They will laugh at your stories and hate you for it later.
If God calls you to a ministry of entertainment—He can do this if He pleases, and I am not saying He does or does not—then, you may tell your funny stories and jokes and such. But not in the Sunday morning worship time. That is the most sacred time of the week for God’s people, an hour when they expect to hear God’s Word read and preached.
A sermon may have entertaining aspects, but its purpose is to deliver God’s message to His people.
6. Don’t Manipulate Us.
I once knew an evangelist who had a most unusual method for the invitation. After a 15-minute sermon, he spent the same period of time leading people through a series of steps which were intended to get them “down the aisle” and to the pastor at the altar.
First, at the end of the sermon, he would ask everyone to bow their heads in prayer. He would lead them in a prayer of commitment or recommitment. Then, he would ask, “If you prayed that prayer, I want you to raise your hand.” After a suitable period for responses, he said, “Now, if you raised your hand, I want you to look up at me.” Finally, he asked these who had prayed, had raised their hands and had looked at him to get up and walk to the front where a counselor would be waiting to help them make their decisions.
The first night of the revival, I thought that was rather unusual, to devote a full 15 minutes to this invitation. The second night, I was surprised he did the same thing. Then, it became apparent this was his modus operandi. Every service of the revival, this was his technique. He was determined to get people down the aisle one way or the other.
Is this manipulation? To me, it is. The evangelist was pressuring the unwary listener to make public a decision they had made in the privacy of their own hearts.
Sermons should respect the congregation, never “use” them.
7. Don’t Underestimate Us.
A sermon should challenge its hearers to great things. That’s why the old messages (from nearly a century ago) on “short hair, makeup and skirt length” just didn’t get it. They turned the congregation into legalists, reducing the will of God to a set of rules, most of which were set by the preacher. Furthermore, the sermon was directed just at the women. It was unworthy from beginning to end.
A good pastor is also a teacher of his people. If his congregation is made up of thoughtful, growing believers, they will be receptive to learning godly principles of living, the background to the parables Jesus taught, and even the occasional insight from the Hebrew or Greek language. (Hearing insights from the Greek when I was in college is what drove me to study the languages in seminary.)
Now, it’s possible to overdo the teaching business and go over the heads of the hearers. As a friend of mine once told his pastor, “The Lord did not tell you to feed his giraffes!”
A sermon should be uplifting and even educational.
