50 Ways To Tweak Your Preaching

Peter Mead has put together a collection of 50 ways in which preaching might helpfully be tweaked. Here’s a summary, in a mixture of his words and mine:-
- Be mastered by one book of the Bible.
- Invite others into the preparation process.
- Use notes less.
- Focus more on the passage you are expositing; use fewer cross-references.
- Craft the main idea a bit more.
- Target relevance in your introduction.
- Use REF (review, encourage, finish) to conclude.
- Make sure your transitions are slow enough and clear enough so people can follow you.
- Read a book about preaching.
- Get some helpful feedback.
- Watch yourself on video.
- Go somewhere in the Bible that is outside your comfort zone.
- Avoid moralising; point to Christ.
- Add vocal variety.
- Get rid of that distracting mannerism.
- Smile.
- Use your preaching space more effectively.
- Step outside your usual preaching mode in order to communicate more effectively.
- Show, as appropriate, your own vulnerability.
- Try preaching in the first person (i.e. from the perspective of a character in the text).
- Stop counting sermon prep as your personal Bible reading.
- Turn your points into sentences.
- Print and annotate your Bible text.
- Adjust your preaching space.
- Mix up your illustrations.
- Go on a one-week illustration hunt.
- Evaluate a master-communicator.
- Rehearse your message out loud.
- Pray for the people – individual by individual, family by family.
- Try preaching a biblical theme rather than a biblical passage.
- Teach your hearers how to handle the Bible for themselves.
- Increase expectations and encouragement.
- Learn the local dialect (this includes using the dialect of John, of Luke, and so on).
- Keep your message simple.
- Don’t simply outline your message, map it.
- Preach a whole book in one go.
- Preach a tiny text in context.
- Increase your eye contact.
- Prepare your hearers for a future evangelistic message.
- Evaluate your visuals.
- Come out from behind the furniture – communicate with your whole body.
- Make your gestures bigger.
- Discover which aspect of your delivery is weak or faulty (voice? gesture? eye contact?).
- Make sure your gestures are the right way round (for your audience)
- Practice storytelling at home.
- Read some descriptive writing.
- Pray about improving your preaching.
- Nail your ending
- Have a break
- Make a list of your prayer needs concerning preaching