The latest installment can be found here.
Introduction1
I first wrote these maxims on the social media platform Formerly Known as Twitter as they came to me, in no particular order. I was in a great deal of pain for a number of weeks with a chronic illness and in no condition to write long and sustained arguments, nor even to sit quietly and read. In my weakness, I spent my time churning these out as both a distraction from pain and in the hope of still being some use. To my surprise, some of my readers suggested that I try to publish them, and so for better or worse, here they are, fifty at a time.
My advice is to take them as they come with no special expectation, in the same manner one might read Pascal’s Pensées. Some pensées are timeless and profound, while others are merely local and even annoyingly idiosyncratic. For the most part I have left these maxims unedited and informal, including some rather loose grammar.
My thoughts are based on more than thirty years of preaching experience in a variety of churches, with the bulk delivered as the pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, Virginia for the past twenty years. With a few exceptions, I did not try to quote Scripture in these maxims, nor are my thoughts meant to take the place of a preaching textbook. When I have explicitly borrowed an idea, I tried to give attribution. But I am likewise sure that I have absorbed many ideas without remembering where I picked them up.
The maxims rotate between the heart of Christ-centered preaching and the whimsical. I do not expect anyone to agree with all them. That is precisely the point. They are meant to provoke thought. If one reads through all of these and three or four stick, I count that as a success, much as with any book. We might remember chapter titles and topics, but more likely than not, it will be just one or two quotes that stick with us. That is how wisdom is accumulated.
If there is a central thesis to these maxims, it is that sermons are fundamentally a spiritual exercise, more art than science, more gift than craft. When centered on faith in the Son of God, who gave Himself for us, they are nothing less than an encounter with the living God.
If one asks why I stopped at 850 maxims, that is simply when they ran out.
(1)
Preaching is dangerous. You are there to try to speak for God Himself. You dare not rely on your own wisdom. You must enter the pulpit with fear and trembling.
(2)
Sermons are not Ted Talks. Don’t rehearse every sentence perfectly, and don’t you dare plan your arm motions ahead of time. They should flow naturally out of the words, as they come.
(3)
Sermons are to a particular people in a particular place at a particular time. That’s why Radio Preachers are some of the worst models to listen to. They are excellent speakers, giving a generic message fit for all places. Truth is truth, but sermons are not lectures.
(4)
Look your people in the eye. You are there to speak to them. But don’t plan it. Don’t stare any particular person down. That’s creepy. But do look at them when you mean to particularly encourage them in grief. You are their pastor.
(5)
There are times when it’s just you and God up there. You are preaching to yourself, and you need to look up to the heavens, raging against the sin, misery and injustice of this world, pleading for mercy. Preach faith to yourself above all else.
(6)
Your job is not to fix people’s lives but to bring them to Christ, believer and unbeliever unlike. Preach about God’s love for them in Jesus, and let God sort it out.
(7)
Your model here is Pastor Kruppenbach from Run Rabbit Run, not Rev. Eccles with his earnest intentions. Don’t fiddle around with “seven practical steps of how to survive your children’s toddler years.” Souls are at stake at here.
(8)
This does not mean humor is out of place. Find the cracks and crevices of God’s love in the mundane places of life. This helps people keep going, that there is a place of Joy on the way if they can hang on.
(9)
Preaching should be tactile. Your hand motions should reflect that which you are thinking of. How do you motion “grace?” You can’t. But you can draw a pear being plucked from a tree – and then the plucker forgiven.
(10)
If your preaching is tactile, you will have no need for Powerpoints. Faith comes by hearing. Sermons are not lectures, nor information downloads. They are an experience with the living God. Preach, don’t chart.
(11)
A particular danger I’ve fallen into is to talk about the church too much. That’s easy to do, because it’s what we know – and also because it’s the subject of most of the Epistles. But folks need to know how to follow Christ each day. Not everything is about the church.
(12)
Try to learn the delicate art of imitating those you’ve sat under while still learning to be yourself. Under no circumstances, appropriate preaching styles that are not from your own culture. Don’t affect a fake Scottish accent.
(13)
When I started preaching at a prison, the one piece of advice I got from a seasoned minister was “be yourself. They can spot a fake from a mile away.”
(14)
I contend that prison preaching was where I learned to truly preach. Those men needed to hear about Jesus. They knew they were sinners in need of grace. They did not need more Law. Then I thought, if them, why not my own congregation? We are all in the same boat. Preach Christ.
(15)
If you are Reformed in theology, keep in mind that many of us major in “ideas.” I majored in intellectual history so am particularly prone to this. But the Gospel came in a Person, not a thesis. Sola Gracia is true, but by itself, it does not save. Let them see Jesus.
(16)
Don’t practice your gestures. But I think it is OK to mark in your notes what points you want to most emphasize, perhaps in volume. But also, to mark when you should slow down to drive a point home. Vary your pacing and volume. It’s not a lecture.
(17)
Usually, people pay the most attention when you slow down and talk quietly after a sermon full of vim and vinegar. Make the most important points the quiet ones.
(18)
Your points should be taken from the text of Scripture before you. Don’t be shy to show your work – a little – not to highlight your scholarship but to show folks that these are God’s ideas, not yours. And to model for them how to study the Bible.
(19)
I’m with Mark Twain, or whoever said, “Never use a fifty-cent word when a nickle word will do.” I once heard a minister use the word “masticate” during the Lord’s Supper instead of “chew.” Don’t do that.
(20)
While it is helpful to tell people where you are headed in the sermon, in most cases you should absolutely not “tell them what you are going to tell them” as part of the introduction, not unless it’s a very short sermon. Otherwise, why keep them there for another 30 minutes?
(21)
Speaking of length, one of my mentors said most of us should aim for 25 minutes, only the exceptional for 30, and only the very exceptional any longer. I usually preach for 35-40 minutes, despite my best intentions. Make of that what you will.
(22)
Truth is, when I am tired, I tend to preach longer. I can sometimes feel the energy leave the room as I drone thru my prepared remarks, daring not leave a sub-point unsaid. Other times, though, I’m looking at my watch, but feel swept along by the Spirit, and dare not stop.
(23)
We’re not Norman Vincent Peale. That said, for the most part, people should leave glad they came to worship and encouraged by the Sermon. Aim to lift them up in Christ, not burden them with more Law or your implacable vision for the church. Make people glad in Christ!
(24)
Do your best to avoid canned illustrations. Have you not lived a life of sin and redemption? Has not God guided and protected you? Tell stories from your life as much as possible – not to clutter people’s view of Christ, but as a display of His grace to you.
(25)
If you must use an oft-repeated illustration, make sure it is actually true. That guy who got swallowed by a whale off of Argentina at the turn of the century? Never happened. He made it up to get drinks at the tavern. You know what, though? Jonah happened anyway.
(26)
Life is unbearably hard for many of the people who will show up. Remember that. You are not the Christ. But you do represent Jesus to them. For that 30 minutes, you are their lifeline to a God who loves them. Be bold, but be gentle – yes, all at once.
(27)
It matters not one wit how many people show up to hear you. You preach to God’s glory and to feel His pleasure! I’ve always enjoyed preaching at a nursing home with ten people, looking them each in the eye, more than a full sanctuary. Most of Jesus’s sermons were to 12 men.
(28)
When you do tell stories about yourself, you should not be the hero of the story, or show how you got something right. Use them to show your folks how much you need Jesus’ strength, wisdom and forgiveness. You are not the Christ.
(29)
Your stories should vary, and when you do talk about getting something right, show how you learned to do that from the Scriptures. That you are also a pilgrim on the Way. This helps give confidence to your folks that they can also grow and learn. We’re all in the same boat.
(30)
When it comes to interpreting the text before you, I’m with the traditionalists: Context is King.
(31)
How much time you spend on immediate context, literary context & historical-redemptive context is a matter of wisdom. Meditations may leave that work out; not most sermons.
(32)
In a small room or with a smaller crowd, the preacher should be at the same level as his people. Use a music stand if you need to. Don’t come at them from above, but as a fellow sinner tasked to teach God’s Word. In the early church, the pastor often sat as he preached.
(33)
In a larger room, it is best to have a pulpit slightly higher than the congregation, and please not a plexiglass one. The pulpit’s job is to hide the preacher, same as any Geneva robe.
(34)
Contrary to the historic church I was baptized in, pulpits should not be so high above the congregation so that you tower over them. You could be the humblest of men, you will still come across as camel-nosing the Word of God to them.
(35)
Keep growing in your preaching ability! You can stop growing when you rest easy in the grave. There is grace enough for our failures, but the day you’ve “arrived” is the day you stop bringing that grace.
(36)
The occasional hand-held prop is no violation of “faith, not sight.” That said, the Argument of the Beard fallacy applies. Don’t be like some megachurches which drive literal cars on stage. Be sober, for God’s sake. Treat people as mature enough to listen without gimmicks.
(37)
I think it’s best to organize the sermon – after you have done your exegesis – around a question. Let your people know why they need to hear what is in the text. But don’t give them the answer until the middle – or better yet if you can pull it off, until near the end.
(38)
The answer should be, one way or the other, Christ.
(39)
If you have kept up both the original languages, you are to be praised above all preachers. But don’t let it get to your head. Your people will see that. If you learned Aramaic on top of that, you are a legend. That you can let go to your head, because there’s like 3 of you.
(40)
Remember that sermons are not supposed to do all things. There is Sunday School, Bible Studies and Family Worship for that. Some things - especially specific applications – are best left for when there can be discussion with give and take.
(41)
Matters of Christian Freedom should be approached with special care from the pulpit. If you intend to give very specific suggestions – say on Sabbath observance - perhaps meditate on Romans 14 as part of your preparation.
(42)
You should have enough confidence and freedom in the Gospel to leave your written notes as the Spirit leads. If He is impressing on you to press home a specific point of God’s Good News, by all means, do so! You can always get to your later points at another time.
(43)
When approaching delicate or controversial matters – particularly on social issues – it is best to carefully write these out beforehand, and to make your points soberly. That is not the time to go off the cuff.
(44)
Remember, if you are feeling particularly weak and unworthy on any given Sunday, that is likely when the Spirit will use you most. Enter the pulpit with that confidence. You are just the messenger, not the Message. You can do this.
(45)
A pulpit ties a preacher to the Scripture. The bigger the pulpit Bible the better. Let it anchor him to the text. If you are prone to wander a bit, do so moderately. Draw people in by the Word, not by the force of your personality.
(46)
Remember that your hands are your friends. You can only make your mouth so large. But hands can show the gulf between God and man, the expansiveness of God’s love, and point to the eternity of heaven. Pockets are there for the (rare) finer points of grammar.
(47)
Figure out your best water strategy. It’s best to stay hydrated, but you know what happens if you drink too much. Coffee and tea dehydrates and dries out the mouth. As to when to sip, Reagan in the ‘84 debate is your model. After you’ve made a zinger.
(48)
There are times I need to drink but just can’t stop for the point that needs making. So, the cup comes up into the hand and then stays there for a while as I preach. I don’t plan this. This is part of what it means to be Spirit-led. You don’t drink until He lets you.
(49)
Depending on your context, skinny jeans and sneakers may be appropriate – if that is what you were going to wear to church anyway. But by God, do not wear skinny jeans just because you are the preacher. People can spot a showman, even the casual kind.
(50)
Please don’t worry about that church down the road that is getting more people. Let God sort that out. You just be faithful with what God has entrusted to you. A small family well-loved is worth a thousand times more than the adulation of strangers.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
to be continued….
Incredibly, out of the blue, my friend Jonathan Mususa, @mususawrites, translated these all into French.
Here is the Introduction, and here are the first 50 Maxims.
Merci beaucoup to Jonathan for his labor of love.
How do we access the other 800?
These are excellent. Each one could be topic of a separate essay. In case you were looking for something to keep you busy!