Chris Brauns spotted a problem. When a church needs a pastor, they usually come up with a list of desired qualities. One of those qualities is good preaching. The problem: it can be hard to agree on what good preaching means.
Everyone thinks they can spot a good sermon. But, as Charles Spurgeon said, “Everybody thinks himself a judge of a sermon, but nine out of ten might as well pretend to weigh the moon.” Evaluations often become subjective. We may begin to evaluate a preacher based on their personality, humour, storytelling, practicality, tone, relatability, or conformity to a preferred style.
If preaching is central to the ministry of the church, how do you evaluate someone’s ability to preach when you can’t even agree on what good preaching means?
“This dangerous tendency toward subjective decision-making is why it is imperative to have a reliable, predetermined set of sermon-evaluating standards that will allow you to focus on what is important and get beyond personal preferences,” Brauns writes in his book When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search: Biblical Principles and Practices to Guide Your Search.
Brauns has created a simple definition of preaching to help search committees evaluate sermons. “A sermon should be a biblical bullet fired at the life of the listener.”
- A sermon should be a bullet. A sermon should be focused on a clearly stated central idea. As J.H. Jowett wrote, “I have a conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, not ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as crystal.”
- The bullet must be biblical. The central thought must flow out of the Bible. It should reflect the central idea of a biblical text.
- The bullet should be fired. In other words, preachers should proclaim the text with Spirit-empowered boldness and clarity.
- The bullet should be aimed at the life of the listener. The sermon should call for a response on the part of those who hear it.
Of course, other qualities matter. It helps if the sermon is clear, interesting, and effectively communicated. But what matters most is that the sermon expresses a clear thought derived from the text, boldly communicated to the congregation in a way that calls the listener to respond in worship and obedience.
Left to ourselves, we tend to pick what we like. Our culture emphasizes the power of personality and charisma. While personality and charisma aren’t wrong, they aren’t the measure of a good sermon. Often, we tend to weigh subjective elements of a preacher’s sermon or our own personal preferences over the more important qualities of a good sermon.
That’s why I appreciate the clarity that Brauns brings to the discussion as someone who both preaches and listens to preachers.
Keep preaching central. Trust in the power of God’s word. Pay attention to the subjective, but weigh the standards of a good biblical sermon above our personal preferences. Even more, build churches that understand these qualities so they develop an appetite for good preaching. It matters more than we think.