Why I DON'T preach my best sermon every week

I believe in preaching!

I'm convinced it’s critical to the mission of Christ and to the health of his people.

I'm convicted that Christian ministers are called to work hard at preaching; expounding the scriptures faithfully and relevantly.

However, I have a confession: I don’t preach my best sermon every week.

I don’t just mean that I sometimes “miss the mark” or have a “bad day”.

No, most weeks, I deliberately don't preach as well as I'd like and I've stopped expecting others to either.

Heres' a few reasons why.

# there’s more to ministry than just preaching

While careful exegesis, engaging communication and incisive application from the pulpit are important they aren’t the only tasks a gospel worker has to do. In fact, in many weeks, preaching isn’t even the most important task.

Think about the various things the average pastor has on their plate…

• Pastoral visits to sick or struggling saints

• Unbelievers or young Christians to disciple

• Staff or lay leaders to encourage & train

• All sorts of administrative, ministry or denominational meetings to attend

• People and needs to pray for

• Sunday services to plan

• Even blog posts to write

The last one aside, each of these are worth a pastor’s time. So to give the 20+ hours it takes to preach a "cracker” every Sunday, requires neglecting a bunch of other important things.

# the more you work on a sermon the worse it gets

Well, perhaps that’s not quite true.

But the law of diminishing returns is. It states that:

‘...benefits gained from something will represent a proportionally smaller gain as more money or energy is invested in it.' [1]

This has certainly been my experience of sermon preparation.

The time it takes to prepare a sermon has a habit of expanding to fill the time you’re willing to give it. There’s always exegetical loose-ends to tie up, another commentary to read, unclear paragraphs to re-write and application to drill deeper into.

But there comes a point where the extra hours don’t warrant the small improvement they bring. In fact, sometimes, the only real benefit of the extra work is the satisfaction it gives to our perfectionist tendencies.

Don’t mishear me – I’m not advocating for lazy or half-baked preparation.

What I’m suggesting is that preachers discipline themselves to sufficient preparation to preach faithfully, but not so exhaustive that we neglect everything else.

There’s no rule for this. For me, it's somewhere around 10-12hours divided across three blocks of time each week. Obviously some topics or occasions demand more, but in general 12hours is more than enough for a sermon that might not be perfect but faithfully serves those I shepherd.

# time with people improves your preaching

The last reason I don't preach my best sermon each week is because often time doing other ministry – particularly time with people – actually makes your preaching better.

I drafted this post before Tim Keller's sad passing yesterday, but I love the modern day "prince of preachers" advice for young pastors:

“I Pastor a large church and have a large staff, so I give special prominence to preparing the sermon. I give it 15-18 hours a week. I would not advise younger ministers to spend that much time on sermon preparation, however. The main way to become a good preacher is to preach a lot, and to spend tons of time in people work. That's how you become something more than a Bible commentator; you become a flesh-and-blood preacher.”[2]

His point is that time spent outside the study with people is essential to good preaching. It’s as you rub shoulders with those you serve that you are able to see their issues and concerns and apply the scriptures relevantly and incisively to them.

Temperamentally I’m disinclined to believe this.

I’d much prefer to stay holed up at my desk reading books and crafting perfect words and illustrations. Experience, however, has proven to me over and over that Tim Keller is right on the money. The sermons that tend to “land” most powerfully for people frequently bear the fingerprints of time spent with them.

Embracing imperfect sermons!

So for those of us who preach regularly, let me encourage you. It’s okay not to preach the perfect sermon each week. In fact it’s likely evidence you've been investing in other worthwhile things.

And for those of us who benefit from those who preach – be encouraged when they occasionally don’t quite "nail" the sermon. It might just be that they've been faithfully serving you and your church in other ways that week.

[1] https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/ [2] See full article at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/advice-to-young-pastors-from-david-dockery-danny-akin-tim-keller/