How to Preach: An Epic Guide to Everything You Need to Know

Preaching is hard, and learning how to preach can be scary.

Very few people are excited by the idea of standing before a crowd of people, with all eyes on them, to deliver a thirty-minute talk.

Public speaking was always on the top of my list of greatest fears—just below death, spiders, and talking to girls. It’s just not something that comes naturally to most of us.

Where do you even start?

After a decade of ministry experience, studying preaching, teaching preaching, and writing a few books on the subject, I’m convinced that all great preaching involves three phases.

Phase 1: Preparation (Write the Sermon)

The first phase to preach a sermon is to prepare the message. You can’t preach if you haven’t prepared.

Sure, you might be able to wing a sermon or two, but that’s not sustainable, and it won’t be your best work.

There are seven steps for good sermon prep.

1. Pray

Prayer is the way we tap into God—the source of power for our sermons.

Do you want to preach a message backed by the power of God? Do you want the Holy Spirit to show up and change lives? You better pray.

You may be thinking, “Duh.” But don’t skip this!

Get on your knees before God and beg him for inspiration.

Pray before you ever sit down and stare at the blank page and blinking cursor on your computer screen. Pray before you ever crack your Bible. And don’t stop there.

However, you do it, beg God to show up. Ask the Holy Spirit to speak through you. Ask for direction and guidance for your message. Ask God to reveal to you what He wants you to say. Plead for hearts to be softened. Beg for lives to be changed.

You want no part in preaching apart from God. He alone has the power to use an imperfect messenger to deliver his perfect message.

2. Study

Good preaching begins with God’s Word as the foundation and pulls all of the ideas for the sermon out of Scripture.

Think of it as if you are excavating a section of the Bible. You start with the passage of Scripture and dig, and dig, and dig until you find all the treasures it contains. All of your illustrations, topics, titles, and creative ideas should flow out of what the Bible already says.

Pick the text you will preach. Read it over and over (at least seven times). Make sure you also read at least the chapter before and the chapter after the text, so you understand it in its proper context.

Write down all your observations and questions. Then, break out the commentaries and reference tools.

Your goal before you ever write a word of your sermon is to become an expert on the text you preach. This will make writing the sermon easier, and guard you against preaching anything that the Bible does not say.

The Bible must be the foundation of our message. It should underly everything we say and do. It isn’t just something we throw in to make our self-help talk a sermon.

The Bible is the very Word of God that molds and shapes human hearts in supernatural ways that no other book in human history ever has or ever will.

3. Focus

Find the one idea that God wants your congregation to hear from His Word. Then hit it with all you got.

What’s the one thing, based on the passage of Scripture, that your listeners need to remember when you are done preaching?

To get to the big idea, summarize the passage. Then, refine it as best as you can into a single, clear, memorable sentence.

Focusing on the big idea of the text will keep your sermon from rambling about a dozen different topics.

Great preaching stays laser-focused on a single big idea from the Bible.

4. Illustrate

Here comes the flavor for your sermon recipe. Gather stories, videos, music, pictures, props, quotes, or any other creative ideas that might fit your message. Collect more than you need. The best illustrations will rise to the top.

A good illustration compliments the sermon. It is a beautiful work of art that provides clarity, inspires action, or brings the message to life.

A bad illustration clashes with the sermon. It is an eyesore that confuses, distracts, or lessens the impact of the message.

The best sermon illustrations share common ground with the speaker and the audience. When you speak about something you have experienced and your audience has also experienced the same thing, you connect with them on the deepest level.

The key is knowing your audience. When you know your audience, you’ll know which illustrations will connect.

If you need an illustration in a pinch, check out my sermon illustration library.

5. Outline

Take your Scripture, notes, big idea, and illustrations and piece it together into a full outline or manuscript.

Think of it like a puzzle. Each element is a piece that you move around until you find the right fit.

A clear outline is essential to a clear message.

However you structure your sermon, like all stories, every sermon has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The beginning needs to grab your attention. The middle needs to hold your interest. The end needs to resolve the story (or the message) memorably.

Generally, you want to introduce the problem in the introduction, reveal the solution of the Bible in the middle, and then drive home the big idea at the end.

6. Edit

Although you may feel like the sermon is finished, editing is crucial. I guarantee that there are problems you overlooked.

There will be sections you wrote that looked good at the time, but upon further inspection, don’t fit. There will be illustrations you used that are too long, or unnecessary. There will also be plenty of typos, punctuation, and spelling mistakes.

Walk away for a bit to get a fresh perspective. Then, take a pen to your message and mark it up. Cut anything that doesn’t fit. Kill whatever strays from the big idea. Get feedback.

Move things around. Fix mistakes. Refine your sermon until it’s just right.

Editing will make your sermon clearer, sharper, shorter, more memorable, and all around better.

7. Practice

Practicing is like a warranty; it lets you fix problems before you pay.

Many pastors are tempted to skip practice because it takes time and can be repetitive. Don’t get lazy!

Practicing your sermon is one of the greatest difference makers between being an ordinary preacher and an extraordinary one.

Internalize and rehearse your message. Read it aloud. Practice with notes. Practice without notes. Make changes as needed. Don’t stop until you are comfortable with the material.

The better you know your message, the more confident you will be delivering it

Remember: Every time you practice, you are becoming a better preacher for every future sermon—not just this one.

Practice won’t make perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect sermon. But practice will make you better.

If you want to learn more about these seven steps, I go much deeper in my book Preaching Nuts & Bolts.

Phase 2: Delivery (Preach the Sermon)

Once your sermon is ready, the next phase is to deliver it.

Sermon delivery is an art form that takes years to master. So don’t be surprised if you first sermons are rough.

However, there are some tips and tricks you need to learn that will help you preach more effectively.

Here are twelve basic communication principles you need to know.

1. Use less notes.

Many preachers are tied to their podium by their notes. They think their notes are a tool to help them, but in reality, it’s holding them back from reaching their full potential.

Reducing your notes or eliminating them will force you to internalize the message, improving your delivery.

This doesn’t mean you prepare any less. Preaching without notes takes more preparation because you have no safety net.

I still write a full sermon manuscript to clarify my thoughts, because I often don’t know what I think about something until I write it down. But I only allow myself to bring a single page of notes with me on stage.

2. Vary your voice.

If you preach at the same pace for the entire sermon, your audience will lose focus.

If you speak too fast, your audience may hear all your words, but their brains may not be able to keep up to understand all your ideas.

If you speak too slow, their minds will think much faster than you talk, and their thoughts will move ahead to other matters.

Variety grips our interest. Sameness, like the sound of a babbling brook, lulls us to sleep.

Speak at a solid pace, then slow down or speed up for emphasis. Don’t be afraid to raise your voice for excitement, make sound effects when telling a story, or whisper in a tender moment.

3. Pause to punctuate your sentences.

Many of us are afraid of silence. We think we have to fill every second with words.

Silence feels awkward. So where a pause should be, we add filler words like “umm…” and “uhh…”

Pauses are the punctuation marks of sermons. Sometimes you need commas—brief pauses. Sometimes you need periods—full stops. And sometimes you need ellipses—long breaks for suspense.

If you know you have a good line or a powerful statement, pause for a moment before and after the delivery. Allow the audience to savor that sentence.

You have to learn to embrace the awkwardness of silence because it isn’t awkward for the audience. What’s awkward is a preacher who never stops to take a breath.

4. Speak clear and simple.

Pastors know too much. Many of us have years of college-level Bible study under our belts. A lot of us have even studied at a master’s or even doctoral level.

If we are not careful, we will preach with the illusion that the audience understands us. In our mind, the point of our sermon is clear. We allude to Bible characters, speak in Christian terminology, and expect everyone in the audience to understand like we do.

But your listeners do not have the same knowledge you do. Biblical literacy in America is at an all-time low.

To communicate well, our words need to be clear and simple. But preaching simply is not so simple. It requires hard work.

Simple preaching doesn’t mean you have to water down the message. It means you have to teach as if those listening to your message know nothing about God, Christianity, or the Bible.

You can take the message deep, but you need to start with the people in the kiddie pool and ease them into the deep end.

5. Argue with yourself.

Don’t assume everyone is the audience agrees with you.

If your church is trying to reach your community, as it should, then you must assume that skeptics are in the room. You may not know who it is. It could be a first-time guest, or a longtime member wrestling with doubt.

We have an obligation to defend our beliefs both to challenge the doubts of skeptics and to build the faith of believers.

Speaking to skeptics reaches skeptics by addressing their objections. It encourages people to invite skeptical friends, because they’ll know their questions will get answered. It teaches people how to talk to skeptics. Plus, it strengthens the faith of your church by squashing their doubts.

One of the best ways to do this is to argue with yourself.

After you make a point, ask yourself a critical question that some people in the audience are probably thinking.

Say things like:

• “OK, come on. You don’t really believe that do you?”
• “Hold on. How can you say that when…?”
• “But what about…?”

Object to controversial elements in your sermon before they do. Then, give a thoughtful response to their objections.

6. Look at people.

People are more likely to trust you when you look them in the eyes. Steady eye contact builds trust and improves communication.

If you don’t hold eye contact when making bold claims, people will question your sincerity. The power of your preaching will suffer.

Eye contact is also a natural sign of confidence. When you look your audience in the eye, you show them that you believe in the value of what you are saying.

Your eyes are a powerful tool. When you look at people, they look at you. It makes the message personal. You aren’t just speaking into the abyss; you are speaking to them.

Don’t just stare at your notes, the floor, or the back of the room.

7. Speak with your body.

Every movement of the body communicates something whether you are aware of it or not.

The best gestures are natural. They flow out of the content of your message.

Think about the last time you sat around the dinner table with old friends telling stories. You relaxed. Your hands flowed with the conversation.

• When the story got exciting, your hands moved faster. When it was calm, your hands moved slower.
• When you talked about the shape of something, you formed it with your hands.
• When you spoke about an action, your hands (maybe your whole body) performed the action.

That’s how gestures in your preaching should be, natural, like a great conversation among the best of friends. But most people are not naturals at gestures on stage. Nerves and overthinking get in the way.

The biggest enemies of your body are the nervous ticks and habits that conflict your message, lessen your effectiveness, and distract the listener. All preachers have them. You need to fight them.

8. Laughter brings people together.

There are some who argue that there’s no place in a sermon for humor—that the message is too serious to be trivialized by jokes.

I agree if the pastor isn’t funny, or the sermon becomes a standup comedy routine with no biblical teaching. But God created laughter. It was his idea, and it’s good for the soul.

Humor can kill boredom, grab attention, disarm skeptics, humanize you, or soften hard truth.

Try to find one moment in the sermon that you can get a good laugh. You don’t have to be a comedian. You shouldn’t try to be. You don’t have to have the best jokes or any jokes at all. Just have fun, and allow your natural sense of humor to show.

Laughter is good for the sermon and good for the soul.

9. Dress similar to your audience.

Like it or not, before you ever say a word, your appearance says something to the audience.

People relate more to people who dress like they do. So if you were a missionary in a foreign land, you would try to dress more like the people you are trying to reach.

Who are the people you are trying to reach, and how do they tend to dress?

This doesn’t mean you should go overboard. You don’t have to start reading fashion magazines and follow every latest trend. Don’t be a fake. And never dress in a way that compromises your morals.

But if you preach in a culture where everyone shows up in a suit and tie, you should wear something formal. And if you preach in a culture where everyone wears flip-flops and t-shirts, you should wear something casual.

Don’t obsess over your looks. Don’t get caught in the snare of vanity. But be intentional about everything you communicate from the stage both to your audience’s ears and their eyes.

10. Use technology to gain clarity without distractions.

Technology should add clarity, not distraction.

When technology is at its best, it’s invisible, because it’s merely a tool to help deliver a clear message. But when technology is bad, it’s obvious. It distracts the audience and derails a good sermon.

Do everything you can to present a clear message using the technology available to you, but do not allow it to become a distraction.

Think ahead about all the things that could go wrong with your technology and have safeguards and backup procedures in place for when it fails you.

Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by all the lights and buttons of the latest gizmo. At the end of the day, technology is simply a tool to help you present the gospel more clearly.

11. Don’t tell them, show them with illustrations.

Illustrations illuminate your sermon. They are more than stories or mere entertainment.

The purpose of an illustration is to help the listener see the point of the message with clarity so that they can apply it to their life.

An illustration without an application is a contradiction.

So think about your listeners and the spiritual condition of their lives. Then, in your sermon application, describe their situation and how the biblical principle of the text should affect them.

However you do it, be a storyteller like Jesus. Prepare people for biblical responses to real-life situations.

Don’t just tell people what to do; show them how they can do it.

12. Be authentic—the same on stage and off.

Nobody wants to listen to a preacher who feels like a used car salesperson, trying to push them to do or buy something. People are longing for a leader who is authentic—someone who lives, sleeps, and breathes what they preach.

Authenticity is not something that you can teach. It’s not a tactic. It’s not a trick. Authenticity is not something you do; it’s who you are.

Authentic preachers live their sermons. They stand on the stage, rip open their chest, and reveal their heart to the congregation. Everything they say and do comes from deep within them.

It’s not an act. It’s not a show. It’s not a presentation. Authentic preachers bleed their soul.

If you want to learn more about these 12 principles of sermon delivery and more, I go much further in-depth in my book Preach and Deliver.

Phase 3: Improvement (Evaluate the Sermon)

After you preach, your job isn’t finished. The third and final phase of preaching is to evaluate your sermon.

How did it go? What was good? What could be better?

A lot of people stop before this step, but the best preachers go the extra mile to get better.

While honest evaluation can be painful, it’s crucial if you want to improve.

There are three simple things you should do to evaluate your preaching.

1. Watch Yourself on Video

All professional athletes all watch game film to see where they can improve, even when they win. Pastors should do the same.

While preaching, you are in the zone. You can’t see from your audience’s perspective, and you won’t notice your nervous habits.

But when you watch yourself on video, your room for improvement is painfully obvious. And as much as it hurts, you won’t get much better if you don’t know what to work on.

So get a video camera. Any camera will do. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Set up the camera and record yourself preaching.

Wait a day or two and then review your footage. Be on the lookout for things like filler words, distracting movements, poor eye contact, speaking too fast, rambling without getting to the point, and anything else that you need to work on.

Pick your most glaring problem, and focus hard on improving it in your next message.

Don’t panic if it’s worse than you thought it was. Your game tape will get better with practice.

2. Use an Evaluation Sheet

It’s helpful to set standards for your preaching, but standards are meaningless if you aren’t held to them. So create an evaluation sheet or use my sermon evaluation form.

Fill out your evaluation sheet when you are reviewing your video. It’ll help you focus on what you need to be looking for to improve.

Even better, give the evaluation sheet to a few other people you trust and ask them to evaluate you too.

The feedback you get from other perspectives will be priceless. They may not care about some of the things you think are a big deal, and they may point out a weakness you were blind to.

It takes thick skin and a whole lot of humility, but I promise you it will accelerate your growth as a preacher.

3. Study Good Preaching

Last but not least, continue to study preaching. No matter how experienced you are, stay hungry to keep learning all that you can because there are no perfect preachers.

• Read as many books and articles as you can from multiple sources.
• Watch online videos of good preaching.
• Listen to podcasts of great preachers so you can learn from them.
• Take a preaching course, attend a conference, or enroll in a speech class.
• Study the great sermons in the Bible, and all the times God’s Word mentions preaching.

Don’t be so prideful as to think you can do it on your own. Take advantage of the many incredible resources available to you today.

Never stop learning how to preach.

If you don’t know where to start, I’m a bit biased, but I think you would get a great start with my preaching books or my online preaching course.