How Much Do You Say

One of the issues we try and help students with in preaching classes is how much do you say. That's not only a statement about how short or long to preach, but it also has to do with content. The quality or depth of a sermon is often related to how much you are able to say about your subject. In that sense, you should never preach everything you know about a text. If you are preaching everything you know, then you haven't studied enough or you haven't gone deep enough in your study.

Preaching is as much about depth as it is about anything. If preachers only tell their congregations what the congregants can find out on their own, they haven't done the job of preaching very well. Preaching is about telling others what you come to know because you have been trained to find out how to learn more about the text than someone in the pew can find out without that training. Preaching is about the privilege of spending time going deep into the Word. The deeper one goes, the more there is to say.

The real problem a preacher of depth has is trying to figure out just what to say. Knowing that learning as much as one does when the preacher goes deep there is too much to tell. However, because you know so much, it means that you get to pick out the real jewels and preach about those things. Therefore, what gives power to your preaching is what you know about the text and don't say rather than telling everything you know about a text.

Does anybody else find it ironic that the best preachers discipline themselves to tell only the best they have and not everything they know? The next time your preacher goes on and on and says nothing, it's because he/she is simply telling you everything they know about the text. And you have the right to ask the Holy Spirit to give your preacher more - more discipline in study, more knowlege of the scriptures, more time to prepare, and more dedication to the Lord. Amen.