Seasoned preachers looking to improve your preaching, let me congratulate you for your heart to communicate God’s message in the most effective way possible.
In this post, I’m going to give you some clear and easy steps you can take to preach better sermons.
Newbie preachers might like to take a look at:
7 Top Tips: How to Preach a Sermon (The Beginner’s Guide)
Every preacher wants to get better (or at least we should).
You want to give the Word of God the best chance to change people’s lives.
You want to communicate its life-giving truths in the most effective way possible.
We are all clawing forward amid the windstorm of our own inability. I don’t pretend to be a preaching expert, but I’m with you in trying to get there.
Which is why I decided to find the best preaching courses.
“A great sermon doesn’t just happen by accident.”
Today let’s take a look at the 17 steps you can take action on today to spice up your preaching and keep your listeners listening.
1. Determine To Grow
The first step to preaching better sermons is determining that you will be the best preacher that you can be.
It’s about making the conscious decision to change, adapt, try new things and invest in yourself.
Good leaders are always growing leaders and great preachers have growing churches.
Decide to improve your preaching and your people will thank you.
As your messages become more engaging, step back and watch God start to transform lives, families and marriages as people begin to connect with God’s Word on a whole new level.
Elevate Your Preaching With Killer Sermons Academy 🎙️
2. Feed Yourself Before Feeding Others
A great sermon comes from a man or woman who has experience in wielding the sword of God’s Word in the secret place.
Preachers who only open the Bible in preparing for a sermon are at risk of burnout.
Never forget that before you are a preacher, you are a child of God first and foremost.
This second step may seem obvious but research carried out by Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development reveals a dangerous pandemic amongst pastors:
Only 38% read the Bible for daily devotions and personal study.
Don’t be a statistic.
Your congregation know the difference between someone preparing lessons from a textbook and someone who is passionately sharing from a place of intimacy with the Word.
Don’t just preach it; live it.
3. Study Preaching
Have a healthy appetite for life-long learning.
Today more than ever, we have 24/7 access to a vast array of books and online resources that are only a click away.
Here’s my list of top 5 must-reads for preaching better sermons. and the preaching blogs I follow.
A brilliant communicator and pastor of a large church I used to work for once told me his philosophy on reading:
“You should read at least one hour every day. If not, that is a day you have completely wasted.”
He then went on to explain why;
“It takes an author 2-5 years of their life to learn the lessons they write in a book. Every book you read is 2-5 years of life experience you get to learn from.”
And there are a lot of solid preaching courses out there.
Here are the ones we’ve reviewed so far…
🏆 Best Preaching Courses 🏆
4. Listen To Great Preachers
How much preaching are you listening to?
One of the best ways to improve your preaching is to listen to great communicators and learn from them.
It’s never been easier: in the past, this would mean flying out to conferences or travelling hundreds of miles to visit different churches, but the internet is a wonderful thing.
Now you can attend churches around the world anytime, anywhere, on your phone, iPod, computer or tablet.
Podcasts are amazing and best of all – they’re free.
When I first discovered podcasts, my life changed. I searched and found as many good preachers as I could and devoured every sermon I could.
On the first day, I probably listened to 20 sermons.
In the first week, about 100.
The more I listened, the more I learned.
Here’s who I’m listening to right now.
5. Plan Your Sermons A Year In Advance
Most pastors limp from Sunday to Sunday and wonder why they don’t see an improvement in their sermons.
One of the best ways to improve your sermons is by planning your messages in monthly sermon series.
Why not plan them a year in advance?
Use this free preaching calendar to break up the year into bite-size chunks and come up with a topical preaching sermon series for each month.
I don’t have to struggle from Sunday to Sunday scratching my head for new inspiration.
Read Looking For Sermon Series Ideas? A Year’s Preaching for inspiration.
I promise you, once you try this, your people will see a significant upward change in the quality of your messages.
6. Always Tell Stories
Everybody loves a good story. Jesus knew this and always used stories in His preaching.
He was great at telling stories and you can also learn how to become a better storyteller.
Matthew 13:34 says that Jesus never preached without telling a story:
“Jesus used stories when he spoke to the people. In fact, he did not tell them anything without using stories.” (CEV)
Stories hold people’s attention.
Keeping people listening is vital because life change will only happen when people are engaged.
Stories are memorable, and memorable is portable.
People always remember a good story and will probably go on sharing that story with others.
People might not remember your scripture references or sermon outline, but they will remember your stories.
Here are 7 remarkable stories you can use in your sermons.
7. Know Your Flock
Spending more time with your congregation empowers you to preach better.
Knowing your people means you have a pulse on the trials they’re going through, the challenges they’re facing, the aspirations they hold and the dreams that drive them.
This empowers you to speak God’s Word with laser focus and in a way they can receive it.
In a sense, preaching is the easy part; actually helping your people to apply the Word in their lives takes time and patience.
People will care what you know when they know you care.
Your job is to teach the Word, but it’s more than that: it’s to teach people the Word. In fact, it’s a particular people; it’s your congregation.
Know them so well that you can help them apply the Word to their lives. Ultimately, the best preachers are those most involved in the up-close shepherding of their flocks.
8. Get Feedback From Others
Pastors who have seen a massive improvement in their preaching are the ones who ask for feedback.
Not only do they watch themselves back and make notes to make the next sermon better, they ask trusted friends to provide honest and constructive feedback.
If you’re like most preachers, the only feedback you’ll get is the casual “I really enjoyed your sermon today” from some well-meaning church member as you’re waving them off.
What worked well? What needs to be changed?
A sermon evaluation form provides you with an intentional and structured process of getting feedback, a way of evaluating both your sermon content and delivery.
Here are the sermon evaluation forms I use.
9. It’s All In The Prep
The difference between a mediocre and a great sermon is sermon prep.
The best preachers are the ones who know how long they’re going to preach for, plan their time well and write their sermon outlines in advance.
A great sermon doesn’t just happen – it’s cultivated and developed through careful and thoughtful sermon preparation.
Having the right sermon prep system in place will take out the stress of sermon planning.
For some more tips on sermon prep, click here for a breakdown of how 3 different pastors write and prepare their sermons during the week.
10. Use Creative Sermon Illustrations
A great sermon illustration can take a person from “I think I sort of get it” to the “Ah, I see exactly what you mean!” light bulb moment.
Using sermon illustrations reaches out and grabs your listeners, pulling them into your content.
They reach people on an emotional and heart level; it makes them care.
The lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son…
Vine branches, house builders, catching fish, sowing seeds, sheep and goats…
Treasure and pearls – Jesus always used analogies to illustrate and enhance his point.
Here are some of my favourite sermon illustrations I’ve seen on YouTube.
Coming up with good illustrations is easy, the trick most preachers miss is using them in the best possible way to make the most impact.
Make sure the illustrations you use flow well within your sermon outline and only serve to enhance your main point.
If an illustration takes away or muddies your point in any way, you don’t need it.
You can find more guidance and tweaks on how to get the most out of your sermon illustrations here.
Be creative and think outside of the box with sermon illustrations and they will go a long way drastically improve your Sunday morning messages.
A good illustration, if interesting, relevant and used at the right time, puts flesh on the truth you’re trying to convey and flesh out the bones of your sermon.
11. Preach About Everyday Life
If you know your flock (see step 7) you can speak directly into their lives.
Jesus always spoke about the things that mattered the most to people. The Bible is a very practical book, full of how-to’s.
Good preaching is when you speak to the most pressing needs in the lives of your people.
Just look at how Jesus preached; one of His most famous sermons is known as the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus doesn’t start comparing the different eschatological worldviews and theories, He talked about the stuff that really matters in people’s everyday lives.
He preached about money and finances, marriage, sex and relationships and how to overcome worry and fear.
Large crowds crowded around Jesus when He spoke.
Likewise, people will lean forward and listen to you preach when your sermons are relevant and you start talking about the things people care about the most.
12. Preach Life Application
“A sermon fails, though it be well presented, biblical and inspiring, if it has no call to action.”
Sometimes sermons from fresh preachers right out of Bible school can be long on biblical commentary but lacking in life application.
The danger here is to get lost and stay in abstract and theological bubbles.
Our homiletics classes teach us how to reach the heart of the text, but how then do we reach out to the hearts of our people?
It took me a while to get my head around this one…
Bring the Bible to life: when you are preparing your sermon outline, always start with the end in mind.
What do you want your listeners to take away with them? Remember we want our people to be doers of the Word, and not just hearers only.
Here’s a powerful story that John Maxwell shares in his book Everyone Communicates; Few Connect:
“President Abraham Lincoln, an incredible communicator, was known during the Civil War to attend a church not far from the White House on Wednesday nights.
The preacher, Dr. Gurley, allowed the president to sit in the pastor’s study with the door open to the chancel so he could listen to the sermon without having to interact with the crowd.
One Wednesday evening as Lincoln and a companion walked back to the White House after the sermon, the president’s companion asked, “What did you think of tonight’s sermon?”
“Well,” Lincoln responded, “it was brilliantly conceived, biblical, relevant, and well presented.”
“So, it was a great sermon?”
“No,” Lincoln replied. “It failed. It failed because Dr. Gurley did not ask us to do something great.” Inspiring communicators always expect a lot from their listeners.”
13. Cut The Jargon
It’s good to understand what your Bible school professors say, but you don’t have to talk like them.
Talk like the people in your church and cut the jargon.
Don’t water down or dumb down your preaching – make sure people understand it.
Preach the great theological truths from the Word…but please explain them.
If you’re going to talk about the atoning penal propitiation of Christ then, rather than impressing people with your wide-ranging vocab, explain what these precious words mean.
14. Live Out Your Preaching
Bruce Lee once famously said, “Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.”
How true this is for preachers!
St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words.“
And finally, D.L. Moody is quoted for saying, “The preaching that this world needs the most is sermons in shoes that are walking with Jesus Christ.“
Preaching is so much more powerful when it’s spoken through the power of the Holy Spirit and a surrendered life.
It breaks my heart to think of the countless preachers out there who are pressured to perform week after week while on the inside, they are crumbling.
Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t contradict yourself.
People know when you’re not really living out what you’re saying. This is for me too.
We all know character and integrity to be of vital importance in ministry.
Let our foundation be right, and let us stand firm. Let our roots be grounded in God. Remember He’s the reason we’re doing what we’re doing in the first place.
This is something we all need to be reminded of regularly.
15. Preach Shorter Sermons
Do you remember when Twitter first came out with their 140-character limit for tweets?
Everyone said it would never take off…
How wrong they were.
What people thought was a minus actually turned out to be a plus:
With a limited number of words, we were forced to think about what we wanted to say, clarify and refine it until we could write it out succinctly and precisely.
The same is true for sermons.
You can dramatically improve your preaching by limiting your time to just 30 minutes. Yes, I said 30 minutes. I promise your people will not complain.
We’ve all listened to rambling preachers, (I was one myself once!) and it’s not fun is it?
They take us down rabbit trails and meander from one thought or verse to the next, without any clear structure or direction.
Is this good preaching? People can just tend to drift off while trying hard to look like they’re paying attention…
By limiting your time you are forcing yourself to cut out the unnecessary and really stick to your main point.
It will make you a better communicator.
If you have too much to say, don’t try and cram it, save it for next week.
In step 5 we talked about monthly sermon series – why not take a 4-point sermon and make it into a 4-week sermon series?
One point a week – more than that and people won’t remember a thing you’ve said.
16. Prepare Sermons In A Team
Do you really want to improve your preaching?
How do you do sermon prep?
All cooped up by yourself and isolated?
I used to prepare my sermons alone…
I would read commentaries, watch sermons on YouTube and research articles, but it was mostly just me, by myself.
Planning and preparing sermons as a group improved my preaching significantly.
Everybody noticed.
I saw a huge surge in my preaching as people started connecting with the messages in a whole new way.
Working and bouncing ideas around with people who are not like you is a good thing.
Having the ideas and creativity of different kinds of people means you are far more likely to connect with different kinds of people in your congregation.
I always learn new ways of seeing things, new angles to approach God’s truth and fresh ideas when I collaborate with people who are not like me.
Enlist others to walk with you as you put together your sermon or lesson. Invite them to critique your exegesis and your proposed outline. Preach the sermon to them first.
17. Keep Yourself Full
The last step in our ultimate guide to improving your preaching is by far the most important. In that sense, we’ve saved the best ’til last.
In a recent article: 6 Proven Ways to Avoid Pastoral Burnout we took a look at the shocking stats, the creeping causes, symptoms and solutions for ministry burnout.
If you want to be preaching for the long term then take care of yourself; spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.
Eat properly. Sleep well. Take your days off. Go on your vacation.
An exhausted, out-of-shape preacher is not a good witness for the transforming power of the gospel.
“For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.“
A child rushes into the kitchen to tell his mother something going on in his life, he’s so excited he’s about to explode. His words gush out in torrents, as he can’t wait to tell his mum what has happened.
Something similar happens when a pastor preaches out of the overflow.
Instead of inflicting some kind of dead monologue over your dozing flocks, speak from a place of intimacy with the Father.
Allow God’s love and compassion for the people to exude from you as you passionately express the truth of God’s word.
Let your excitement for God’s Word be contagious – no one will be bored.
Keep yourself in good preaching shape. Preach out of the overflow.
Well done for reading down this far!
You really CAN improve your preach messages more effectively.
Start by taking one or two steps in this list and implement them this week.
Try and experiment with some of the suggestions in your next sermon and see what a difference it will make.
Ready To Preach Better?
When you invest in yourself as a preacher it’s a win-win.
You benefit by having a proven sermon system that takes the stress and long hours out of your sermon prep and the whole church benefits because you preach better.
So if you want to completely revolutionise the way you preach and reclaim your Saturdays then check out these top preaching courses.
🏆 Best Preaching Courses 🏆
What About You?
What practical preaching tips do you have for someone looking to improve their preaching?
What tweaks have you made in your sermon prep and presentation that have made the biggest difference?
Let us know in the comments! 🤗
I love the tips you gave on improving your preaching. I’ll take the tips and put them into use and see how it affects the flock and their understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thanks for your explanations, am a preacher and have learnt alot
Thank you for your input. I desire to improve my preaching so people can be transformed.
I like the point you made about talking to your audience and cutting the jargon.
I think that sermons are always more interesting when they are understandable and relate-able. My dad is a preacher and I think he would really benefit from learning more about how to be successful and draw in his audience.
Absolutely.
If your purpose is to impress your audience with your knowledge and wide-ranging vocabulary then you’ll want to squeeze in as much jargon as possible.
If your purpose is to get your message across in the best way however, then make your message easy to understand, compelling, memorable and most of all, make the application as obvious as possible.
Hi Simon, Thank you for sharing this information, wealth of ideas and experience. I read your article at a time when I needed it most. I have been practicing a couple of the points raised but never articulated them them this way. I’ll keep in touch as someone rightly said ” the largest room in the world is the room for improvement.”
I really like that Peter! It’s so true too, we’ve all got room to improve and I think that’s kind of the fun part of preaching, the fact that you never get ‘there’ but are always improving and getting better.
Glad this helped, see you around the blog : )
Excellent points all the way through! A message built in a mind reaches a mind, but a message built in the heart reaches a heart. You’ve nailed it! One of the best places for training for preachers is the Stephen Olford Institute (https://www.gmfonline.org/soc/institutes/). Your article sums up a lot of Dr. Olford’s teaching.
Dr. Olford is a brilliant preacher, teacher and speaker. I totally agree – we preach because we want to see them set free, for God’s will to be done in their lives – and the best way to do this is by not just talking at them, but connecting with them on a heart to heart level. Appreciate you popping by!
Simon,
Thanks for the practical tips.
My experience tells me that the best preachers are those who preach in the pulpit and out of the pulpit (by living out their preaching).
God bless.
Absolutely Jeff 100%. Our preaching and our living can not be separated. Our words and actions must be consistent, if not then our congregations will not give us any room to speak into their lives (and maybe rightfully so).
This scripture springs to mind from James 1:22,
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
It could as easily read – do not merely preach the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
Wow thank you so much for sharing this wonderful information. This was exactly what I’ve been looking for.
I have to say that I’ve never really thought about going online to watch other preachers giving sermons. This seems like such an obvious idea but for whatever reason, I haven’t thought about it until reading this article today. So thanks for that, I’ll be heading over to Youtube right away to see what I can find.
My biggest challenge is finding people who can give me constructive feedback. Most of the people I talk to tell me that I’m doing a wonderful job and that i don’t need to improve a thing. I know they are just trying to be supportive and I really appreciate it but I’d love someone to tell me what I could improve on.
I guess I’ll just keep asking more people. Do you have any recommendations for finding good, constructive feedback?
Thanks,
Robert
Thanks Robert, I’m thrilled you found this helpful in improving your preaching. I appreciate you taking the time to invest in yourself as a preacher to better your craft.
YouTube can be a great way to watch and learn from other preachers. I would never copy a sermon online or try to imitate another preacher’s style but there’s nothing wrong with gleaming a few tips and techniques from some of the best preachers of our time.
Yeah I think the key to getting good honest sermon feedback is by asking the right people and being humble enough to accept it without getting defensive. If you haven’t already – feel free to download the free Sermon Evaluation Form here. I hope this helps!
If you serious about getting the most honest feedback you can get, try teaching in the children’s ministry one Sunday. Kids don’t worry about saying it as it is. This could be a great lesson in being creative to engage your listeners!
Thanks for comments Robert, appreciate it.