How to Preach a Bad Sermon
Good preaching is overrated. There is a ton of advice out there on how to preach a good sermon. But what if you want to preach a bad sermon?
Well, don’t worry. If you want to be a bad preacher, if you want to slack off on one of the most important duties as a pastor, you have come to the right place.
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Here are 7 guaranteed ideas how to preach a stinker:
1. Start with your ideas.
The best way to ensure your sermons are awful is to start with your own idea. Why consult God on this one? Put your Bible away. You have plenty uninspired ideas. Pick your favorite and just go with it. I’m sure you will be able to find some scripture you can spin to justify it.
2. Rip off someone else’s sermon.
Why reinvent the wheel? There are plenty of other pastors doing the hard work of sermon prep. Why not let them work for you?
Just listen to the latest Mark Driscoll or Andy Stanley sermon and preach it word-for-word. Better yet, follow the next idea and just read a transcript of their sermon.
Want to make it worse? Pretend you wrote it.
3. Avoid eye contact.
Don’t look at me! Look away! Stare at your notes. Hide behind your pulpit.
Some have said that the eyes are the window to the soul. Don’t bare your soul. That is way too scary. Keep your eyes to yourself.
4. Never practice.
You already put in the hard work of writing the sermon (or copying what someone else said). Why waste extra time rehearsing when you could be checking email, updating your Facebook status, or watching TV reruns?
Not practicing will help you ramble more, and use lots of filler words. Who doesn’t love a good filler word every 10 seconds.
5. Preach to fill time.
You have a 35-minute time slot to fill in your service every week. You better fill it. Don’t preach because you actually have something to say. And, most importantly, do not end the message early if you run out of things to say.
The time slot must be filled! Expand your message to fill the gap at all costs.
6. Bottle your enthusiasm.
Contain yourself. Don’t get excited. In fact, bore yourself with your own message. If your sermon puts even you to sleep, you know you are reaching the very pinnacle of bad preaching.
Why not make a game out of it? How many people can you put to sleep? Track your score and push yourself to beat your personal best. Your audience will appreciate the extra nap time.
7. Preach for your professors.
Don’t worry about the people sitting in front of you. Craft a message that would make your seminary professors proud. Use as many big words as possible. Try using a thesaurus for every word and choosing the biggest word possible. You will get that elusive A+ this time for sure.
(In case you were not born with a sense of humor, I am joking. Please do the opposite of this.)
Lets have some fun with this. What are some others bad ways to preach?
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I enjoyed this.
I feel a lot of pressure to Preach (or teach) to fill time. Once I was asked to speak at another Church’s summer series. They brought in different speakers every Wednesday for a 45 min slot. I spoke for on a great subject, and my message was spot on, but it was only 20 min. I said what I came to say and I had nothing else to say. There was still 25 min until church let out. I sat down awkwardly among the congregation. The preacher who invited me to speak jumped up and franticly looked for someone to lead some singing for the remaining time. I felt like a disaster.
Thanks Steven!
I can see how that would be awkward. I have been in a similar situation before. But at least you didn’t just ramble for another 25 minutes to fill the gap! I wouldn’t call that a failure, but definitely a good learning experience to time your next message and give the host church a heads up that you may not go the full 45 🙂
I used to get so excited and intense in preaching that most of it was loud and verged on yelling and looked somewhat angry. I was sincere and zealous and not angry, but I suspect it got “old” and was hard to listen to. I have made progress with this, but I still have to pray and be careful about it. So, here’s how to preach a bad sermon: Be loud most of the sermon and look angry–even if you’re not!
May we serve in the strength that God provides.
Hey George, thanks for sharing. Yeah, I think it can be easy for a fiery passion to be miscommunicated as anger. That’s a great lesson to learn!