The following is from the end of an article by John Piper on preaching:

“I stand vigilantly on the precipice of eternity speaking to people who this week could go over the edge whether they are ready to or not. I will be called to account for what I said there.  That’s what I mean by preaching.”

Read “My View on Preaching” by John Piper.

“The greatest compliment anyone could give you about your preaching ministry is that the way you preach is the way you are in real life. The key word is authenticity. The preaching of truth is communicated through an individual’s personality.” – James McDonald (“Two Tips for Powerful and Authentic Preaching“)

The following are my notes from a luncheon with Vince Antonucci. He’s the founding pastor at Verve on the Las Vegas strip. He spoke on his approach to preaching.

1. Unfold their arms.  Unchurched people tend to be defensive and they expect to not like church.

2. Find their statues.  What common ground do you have?  How can you take what they recognize and use it to open a door for your message?

3. Slow brew the relationship.  Build relational glue. As they begin to trust you, they will listen to you.

4. Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio? (Ran out everything – because some kid may be watching first game). Your assumptions determine your audience.  If you assume they know the characters of the Bible, you will lose those who lack a biblical background.

5. Make it epic. Paint it with a story. Connect it to a hero.  People want to be drawn into something significant.

6. Clear, compelling truth couched in love. People need clarity – truth. They also need grace.

In simple terms, the “gospel” refers to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  Through his atoning death and the power of his resurrection, he is able to make wayward sinners friends of God.  In short, he is able to do for us what we are unable to do for ourselves.

As one called to preach, I’ve thought about how the gospel should infuse our preaching.  Not every message must be an explicit explanation of the gospel.  But every message should strike a note of hope, offering a bit of gospel to the topic at hand.

Gospel-centered preaching recognizes that the true power of transformation lies with God, not within us.  Reconciliation, forgiveness, patience, endurance — and other godly virtues — are the result of allowing God to work in our lives.

When we give the impression that we are “three steps” from any life change without mentioning God’s role, we risk creating a man-centered gospel that sprinkles in a little Jesus for good measure.

The central plot line of the Bible is all about Jesus.  It is the story of God’s redemptive action on people’s behalf.

Gospel-centered preaching is powerful because we are not responsible for the power — God is.

One of the most daunting tasks a person can undertake is preaching.  Every seven days you must stand before a group of people and offer a word from God to them.  If you’re week gets filled with appointments, Sunday is still on the way.

A preacher must wrestle with the text before he can adequately present it.  There are times when clarity unfolds slowly.  Yet, the preacher must find the right words to describe The Word.

Preaching is also one of the most fulfilling tasks a pastor can undertake.

As one entrusted with the word of God and people’s lives, we stand at a unique intersection. We have the opportunity to meet real people with real needs — and do so in the power of the Holy Spirit.  On any given weekend, we will stand before a variety of people, each expecting to hear from God.

It’s why no one should take the responsibility of preaching lightly.

“Biblical preaching is when listeners are enabled to see how their world, like the biblical world, is addressed by the Word of God.” (William D. Thompson, Preaching Biblically)

“To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world, it’s a very noisy world. And we’re not going to get the chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.” — Steve Jobs to Apple employees, 1997

If you have accepted the responsibility of a preacher, it’s important to remember we live in a “complicated … very noisy world.”

When people grant us the privilege of their ear for 25-40 minutes each weekend, we have to treat that privilege like it really is: a sacred opportunity to bring a word from God to their world.  While the outside noise may minimize during a worship service, it’s still there.  Thoughts of the previous week, worries about the upcoming one.  Playing a conversation over again in their mind.  Settling down from an argument on the way to church.

And that’s just the noise inside the preaching moment.  Once they leave, the volume only increases.

Competing philosophies voice their opinion over the airwaves and across web pages.  Our word from God is immediately challenged by the words of commentators, authors, artists, and well-meaning friends.  Our complicated, noisy world kicks-in.

As Jobs said to his employees, “We have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.”

For preachers, our goal is not that they will remember us; it is that they will remember what God’s word has said to them.  That requires clarity.  Without clarity, life-changing words get lost in the noise of unnecessary words.

Be ruthless in the writing and editing of your messages.  Continually ask yourself, “Does my message need this?”  If not, strip it out.  With clarity comes power and persuasion.

We cannot out-shout the world.  We can be clear.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

This is true if you are designing a product or giving a speech.  In some ways, achieving complexity may actually be easier than finding simplicity.  How?  Because it takes discipline to eliminate ideas, especially good ideas.

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I’m reading “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” and loved this quote in the chapter on simplicity:

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” – Hans Hoffman, German painter

This is especially true in preaching.  The overriding concern in preaching is not to overwhelm our audience with words but to speak the right word at the right time.  Transformation is the goal.  If we pack too much into a single message, even good stuff, the overall transformational effect will be reduced.

Why?

As painful as this is to admit as a preacher … They won’t remember much of what you say.

If your talk, presentation, or sermon is filled with unnecessary words, strip them out.  Only then will you give the necessary words a fighting chance to be heard.

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With each passing anniversary, it’s hard to remember the young man with big glasses and a goofy smile standing next to my wife in our wedding pictures.  But she insists that it’s me.

Tonya and I were married in Memphis, TN, on a rainy night in December (the 21st to be exact, in case you’re wondering).  It was the culmination of a year-long engagement and the beginning of a life-long adventure.  A friend sang “I Will be Here” and Tonya’s father presided over the ceremony.  A grand night indeed.

As a pastor, I have always loved performing weddings because every wedding is unique and yet there are common threads running through each of them.  Threads of love, anticipation, hope, and promise.  Most of all, there is joy.

This weekend we’ll be exploring a parable Jesus taught that revolves around a wedding feast.  It’s about more than wedding cake and dancing; it’s about God’s invitation to join him in his kingdom. Your period of engagement might be shorter or longer than mine but we both have the opportunity to step into the same adventure.