Or David Crowder will shave his beard.
Terrible, terrible things will happen if you touch that sermon, so don’t do it.
11. Re-Read the Sermon Three Times on Sunday Morning
The third and final time I pick up my sermon before I preach is 6:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when I re-read it three times in a row.
I don’t rehearse out loud. If I found that helpful, I would. If you do, then make that part of your practice.
What Are You Waiting For?
Finishing our sermons early every week is about more than trying to feel better emotionally, though that’s important. It’s not even about trying to produce better sermon better sermon content.
It is about allowing ourselves unhurried time before the Lord after our message is completed to acquire what the great 20th-century revivalist Leonard Ravenhill called “unction.”
In his classic book Why Revival Tarries, Ravenhill writes,
“The word does not live unless the unction is upon the preacher. Preacher, with all thy getting—get unction. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet; it is won or lost before the preacher’s foot enters the pulpit. Unction is like dynamite. Unction comes not by the medium of the bishop’s hands, neither does it mildew when the preacher is cast into prison. Unction will pierce and percolate; it will sweeten and soften. When the hammer of logic and the fire of human zeal fail to open the stony heart, unction will succeed.”
Friends, we all need the fire in the belly and the tranquility of soul that an intentional and disciplined sermon writing process can bring to our ministries and life.
So what are you waiting for?
Decide.
Do the work.
Feel the freedom that comes from enjoying writing your sermons as much as preaching them.
Rest knowing that you’ve given God and your people your absolute best effort.
Then walk into the pulpit with the fire of heaven in your heart.
Every.
Single.
Week.
NOTES:
- Tim Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek (New York: Crown Publishers, 2007), 75.
- Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro (Seattle: Amazon, 2011), Kindle location 484.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1934), 18-19.
- Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1959), 20.
This article on a sermon by Monday originally appeared here.
