If preachers ask me for advice, I always include: a sermon/homily needs
- something to think about
- something to feel
- something to do
Pope Francis has recently said similarly – preachers need to communicate “one idea, one sentiment, and one invitation to action”:
Pope Francis also reiterated what he has said previously: the sermon should not go longer than 8-10 minutes. [To the followers of John Stott’s “Sermonettes make Christianettes”, I would highlight how much is communicated in a 30-second advertisement! As a trained and experienced teacher, I would also underscore the decreasing attention span in our phone-scrolling, reel-watching culture.]
In my weekday sermons to teenage lads as a secondary school chaplain (of quarter of a century experience), I set myself a limit of 5 minutes. But the 8-10 minute frame is not the be-all and end-all. Some 8-10 minute sermons are so dreadful, they feel far longer and are a penance. Some sermons beyond 10 minutes are so riveting, one doesn’t want them to stop so soon.
Preaching brings together a complex set of skills:
- deep knowledge and appreciation of the biblical texts, their language, historical and cultural context
- appreciation of the gathered congregation, their issues, the current situation locally and wider
- having a trusted relationship with the congregation
- public speaking competence, including use of microphones
- healthy theology; liturgical proficiency
- prayerfulness – including praying the biblical texts (Lectio Divina and here and here and other lectio resources on this site)
It takes days (and sometimes weeks) to prepare. There is the theological and biblical grappling with the text(s) – including working with good commentaries and the original languages. There are the connections to the contemporary context (“the Bible in one hand; the newspaper in the other”) and the particular community seeking to hear what the Spirit is saying [this underscores the issue of listening to a sermon addressed to a quite different context to my own; and problems with publishing sermons in some way, including digitally].
Idea(s) need to be shaped into an interesting flow.
Length: if you are working from a written text, preachers speak 100 words a minute (trust me!).
Another hint for those who preach from a written text: in rehearsing, read your last paragraph aloud. Then read the last 2 paragraphs aloud (you’ve now read aloud your last paragraph twice). Read the last 3 paragraphs aloud… all the way until you get to the start of your sermon. This will take you half an hour to an hour of rehearsing. As, after this rehearsing, you preach this sermon to your congregation, you are more and more confident the further into your sermon you progress.
The danger you need to constantly watch out for with a read sermon is that it can simply end up being experienced as the presentation of a theological paper (as one might in a theological conference). Furthermore, the exegesis, the biblical study, the reading in the original languages – these form the skeleton of a sermon. Not the actual sermon. A sermon is not a theological treatise. It is not a demonstration of the preacher’s cleverness. The skeleton needs sinews, organs, flesh – and the breath of Life. You are helping people to hear what the Spirit is saying.
To those who (monotonously) read sermon texts, congregants have said: “if you don’t remember it – how do you expect us to remember it?!” And then there are those who give the impression that they think their unenthusiastic reading of a written text is somehow made into extraordinary oratory by standing in front of a microphone! [Even using a microphone well is a learnt skill; and this varies from microphone to microphone. In any case, once that skill is learnt – it still doesn’t magically turn boring pitch, pace, and volume to exciting oratory!]
How much energy and attention is (nowadays) given to preaching skills in formation for ordination? As far as I know, there is no agreement across the 7 dioceses of my NZ Anglican (Tikanga Pakeha) Church about what is required for ordination. When I was in training and formation for priesthood (more than 3 decades ago), the seminary (St John’s College, Auckland) had weekly hour-and-a-half speech training, compulsory for the three years there. Year by year, the focus on sermons increased. Homiletics was a half-year course as part of the degree taught there (for the five denominations training ecumenically there).
For a year, I was part of a professionally-supervised small group where, each time we met, one of us would bring a recorded sermon we had delivered. After listening, each person in the group stated the main point they got from the sermon, after which you, who had preached, had to show the written-down main point you were trying to get across. Continuing on early in my ordained ministry, experienced preachers would regularly come and sit in and critique one’s sermon. Even with all these possibilities in those days (and 2-4 years of curacy, ongoing training under the daily guidance of a very experienced priest), some of my colleagues (in reflection with me in preparation for this blog post) think that they could have had a better formation. How is it nowadays? With the added complications of the distracting digital culture I’ve already mentioned?
Some (now) have a more “learn on the job” approach to ordination. Where might you ideally set the point of ordination along the scale of study, formation, and training for preaching? Is this a skill better mostly learnt “on the job” after ordination? Or is there an expectation that an ordained person has good competency at preaching, and so quality study, training, and formation in preaching is a requirement for ordination?
I would emphasise the importance of life-long learning and formation, but I would also highlight that our agreed ordinal sees a certain level of study, training, and formation as occurring prior to ordination:
Ordained ministry [is] to enable the whole mission of the Church (NZPB p. 900)
Bishop N, we present N.
Those responsible for her/his training
believe her/him ready to be ordained priest
in the Church of God. (p. 901)
Above all they are to proclaim God’s word (p. 901)
There are many in their (ongoing) preaching formation who read books of great sermons. Contemporary technology allows us to access excellent sermons on YouTube and other platforms.
In our ongoing improvement as preachers, we now have wonderful, accessible technology resources: we can see ourselves on video recordings. We can carefully reflect on pitch, pace, volume, content, etc. We can put the sound off and focus on and critique our gestures. If our community doesn’t regularly record/stream services, the sermon can be videoed discretely. If that has difficulties, we can record (at least the sound of) ourselves simply on our own phone by where we are speaking. And always, there is the huge value of the critiquing of our preaching by an insightful person we trust and who can speak to us honestly – both about our drafts and about our final preaching in the assembly.
Finally, there is the work of God in the heart of people as we preach. Every preacher experiences someone telling them how they were touched by such and such words in the sermon, and we preachers know we never said those words.
What do you think?
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