In what feels like a different lifetime, I wrote a Grove Booklet entitled How to write a good sermon. The title bothered me and I have never quite come to terms with it, but Grove wanted ‘how to...’ booklets and we decided simplicity was best.
Now, 10 years and three jobs later, I have been asked to revisit the material for this article... and I find the question matters to me even more. Forget my embarrassment at the bold title: how do we write a good sermon, and why don’t we do it more often? Working in a theological college has meant that I have visited churches and conferences of every style and persuasion and heard many sermons over the last five years. Without commenting on the college or my local church (for the sake of fairness), this informal survey of British preaching has had some wonderful highlights, but overall has not left me encouraged. Sermons can all too easily become either mere devotional ponderings or opportunities to harangue or entertain, neither of which nourishes the soul. In my grumpiest moments I’ve wondered if the traditional evangelical emphasis on the biblical text has become withered by the need to define or defend a constituency, if the charismatic emphasis on hearing from God is confused with the instant gratification of emotionally engaging oratory, whether the liberal art of exploring the prophetic question has diminished to political posturing... and why pretty much everyone is obsessed with sex. Some of the best sermons I have heard, by which I mean the ones that have drawn me closer to Christ,
