More Simple Church Sermon Preparation Tips

In a previous article that I had written, I went over a few sermon preparation tips for giving a better sermon. They involved getting a passage of scripture first, telling a personal story to start off with and keeping the sermon short. In this article, I'm going to share a few more tips that will greatly help you in giving a sermon that will keep your congregation interested and awake.

You will find, and I kind of touched on this briefly in another article, that if you outline your sermon first, it will go a lot smoother. One way to do this is by writing down a list of bullet points that you want to cover in the sermon itself. These can usually be sandwiched in between an intro and a conclusion. From the outline, you can then write the completed sermon. This will help you stay structured and organized.

Another thing you want to do is actually give the sermon out loud (by yourself) before you give it. There is a strange thing about the written word. It sounds one way when reading it silently, but can sound totally different when read out loud. This is why you want to read your sermon out loud before you give it. You will probably find that some of the wording just doesn't sound quite right and you will end up wanting to change it. Had you not read it out loud before giving it, you would have never picked up on this.

Finally, if at all possible, you want to memorize as much of the sermon as you can. The reason for this is that if you have your face buried in the text through the whole sermon, you're going to lose your congregation. They want to see YOU. They want to feel that you're speaking to THEM and not to the notes on the pulpit. If you can't memorize the sermon, at the very least, make sure you read ahead and look up as often as possible. The sermon doesn't have to read word for word, though that would be preferable. Point is, you need to make eye contact with the congregation to be effective in your delivery.

There you have it. Three more simple tips to help give you the best sermon that you can possibly come up with. Make an outline, make sure you read the sermon out loud to yourself first, and make eye contact with the congregation. If you do these 3 simple things, added to the tips I gave prior, you'll find that your sermon is the best one you can possibly deliver.

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