Additional Keys to Effective Preaching
Before
Pray! We are trying to do something that is not humanly possible: convict people of sin so they repent, transfer people from Satan's domain to God's kingdom, enable them to understand spiritual truths, impart vision for a life of service to God, etc. Truly, "who is adequate for these things?" If we only want to entertain, impart a few knowledge nuggets, teach a little moral philosophy, etc.--we need not pray. But since we are trying to accomplish that which requires the power of God, our teaching must be birthed and bathed in prayer. I pray mainly for:
- Illumination: that God will grant me insight into his truth, build a burden within me, show me how to arrange the teaching, give me application and illustration, etc.
- Utterance: that God will empower what I say and the way I say it so that people are deeply affected, and that he would grant me extemporaneous utterance (on-the-spot insight and expression).
- Your audience: that God will draw the hungry people (Christians and non-Christians) to the meeting, that his Spirit will arrest their attention and convict them of their need to respond to him, that he will use this teaching far beyond the teaching itself through tapes, use by others, etc.
- Protection: from excessive distraction and accusation, from disrupting the meeting itself--but see next point . . .
Anticipate and prayerfully reject Satan’s accusations. This is the most oppressive thing about teaching. Those who teach seem to get this more regularly than others. You should pray for protection, but God has not promised to shield you from all attack, so learn how to handle it!
- Satan will accuse you ("You can't teach;" "You don't understand this passage;" "You’re a hypocrite;" "You are disqualified because of your fear;" etc.). Rely on God’s grace instead of your own righteousness or native ability (2 Cor. 12:9,10). If you are afraid, remember that it is not a sin to be afraid (1 Cor. 2:3,4)--it is only a sin to let fear dictate your choices.
- Satan will accuse God’s Word ("They already know this;" "This doesn’t make sense;" "This is irrelevant/stupid;" etc.). Choose to trust the power of his Word (Isa. 55:10,11; Heb. 4:12).
- Satan will accuse your audience ("They don't care;" "They aren't interested in Christ," etc.). Pray that Christ will be exalted, and think especially of those who are relatively new and spiritually responsive.
I have found no clear correlation between how I feel before I teach and how effective the teaching is.
Realize that the attack will often not lift until you actually open your mouth.
Back up all important points with scripture. Otherwise, you will appear to be speaking from your own authority. However:
- Don’t plan on turning to other passages unless they are crucial to your teaching, because this disrupts flow and causes confusion for new listeners.
- Don’t say, "You don’t need to turn there." This arouses needless suspicion. Simply quote or paraphrase the passage with reference.
Be sure you have both "heat" (burden and sufficient application) and "light" (adequate interpretation and explanation).
- Teachings without "heat" are boring; teachings without "light" are propagandistic and manipulative.
- Identify which of these you tend to neglect and correct for this.
Include humor. Humor is an important feature of good teachings--Jesus was a master of it (see Matt. 7:3-5). Why? It is insightful. It makes difficult learning easier to digest. It relieves tension after a super-convicting point. It destroys the stereotype that the Bible and Christianity are stuffy. It engages the audience and establishes the humanness of the speaker. However, consider these qualifications:
- Use humor as "spice," but never for the main course (SANGUINES BEWARE!).
- Remember not to substitute humor for refutation (simply mocking the opposing view). You can poke fun along with refutation, but not instead of it (e.g., MOCKING PANTHEISM IN BASIC DOCTRINE CLASS).
- Use humor that is conducive to your personality. Apply this to working from tapes: imitate the content more than the style.
Plan on a good level of content per minute. Do you have too much on one subject? If you are repetitive or slow, you will lose your audience’s interest and even arouse aversion for patronizing them. Neither should you overestimate the theological knowledge of your audience. Be simple and concise. Good planning will enable you to be easy to understand even though you move at a brisk pace.
Write out your entire teaching in outline form. This ensures that you have thought through each point in detail, including transitions (Col. 2:8-15 NOTES). The goal is not to memorize your teaching, but to be thorough in your preparation. Be thoroughly prepared--but leave room for extemporaneous utterance.
- Do sections at a time. Dive down and develop a section in detail, then move back to get the big picture, then dive down somewhere else, etc.
- Get your outline down far enough ahead of time that you aren't making changes under the wire. This produces a vicious circle of anxiety, decreased concentration, more anxiety, etc.
Rehearse alone and with another experienced person.
- All new teachers should give their teachings to an experienced teacher if possible. Remember: the goal is not to preserve your ego, but to serve the people!
- I like to walk, pray and preach through sections at a time.
Keep your teaching notes to a minimum! One side of an 8 x 5-inch sheet is enough (Col. 2:8-15 NOTES). If you aren’t sufficiently prepared, your notes won’t help you. If, however, you are prepared, excessive notes can still hurt you because they distract you from communicating to your audience (EXAMPLES).
- The most they can do is jog your memory if you blank out (SAFETY NET).
- I usually write them out as a final run-through of
the content.
- Try your section teaching without notes, or at least stick them in the back of your Bible!
HOW LONG? 30 minutes is plenty for inexperienced teachers! Remember Eutychus (Acts 20:9)--unless you can raise them from the dead, stop before they drop over! "The mind can only absorb what the seat can endure."
- You can go longer if you are gifted, or if you use discussion.
During
Eye contact
- Look directly into the eyes of several people around the room. Find responsive listeners, but don’t focus exclusively on them. Don't dodge the resistant faces.
- Ignore unresponsive body language, but respond to looks of confusion, excitement, etc.
Voice ("VOICE" THROUGH "DRESS" ARE "PICTURE FRAME" ISSUES)
- Your voice should be loud enough for the person farthest away to hear comfortably.
- You should practice variation in tone (sharp or mellow), pitch (high or low), rate (fast or slow), and volume (loud and soft). Uniformity bores people or wears them down.
- Use vivid words, and find effective ways to emphasize key words. Use pause, repetition or special gestures for emphasis of important statements. Listen to other effective teachers and imitate them, without losing your own personality.
NOTE: Practice these things in normal conversations. This will make you a better teacher, and you’ll be a more interesting conversationalist as well!
Gestures & Posture
- Don't slump or cower. Come across relaxed, but take authority.
- Your gestures should be varied, appropriately aggressive, and undistracting (enhancing your content, not distracting from it)--not showy or over-dramatic. Avoid drinking unless necessary.
- Your facial expressions should express the full range of emotion: anger, surprise, delight, irony, pathos, compassion, etc.
- Lecterns, coffee tables, etc. should be avoided in home group teachings. They introduce more formality and distance between you and your audience, and they encourage more notes.
NOTE: Identify your tendency in this area and correct for it. Those who tend to be passive communicators should push to the point of feeling uncomfortably aggressive. Those who tend to be aggressive should be sure they include appropriate grace, qualifications, encouragement, etc.
Dress should be undistracting to the audience--avoid excessive sloppiness or formality.
Never disqualify yourself as a teacher or your content. Statements like, "I’m not very good at this," or "This is not a very good outline" needlessly compromise the opportunity to impact your audience, and deflate your own confidence. You are teaching God's Word and you are God's spokesman!
- However, you should be careful to distinguish between your own opinion and God's Word. You should also acknowledge the complexity of certain issues.
Speak both as a fellow-learner/sinner and as a prophet. Somehow, you should communicate that you have much to learn and a long way to go in your own walk with God. This helps people to identify with you and is a way of communicating God’s grace. But having done this, you also need to boldly proclaim God’s Word and call on people (as God’s mouthpiece) to respond to it.
- Your use of personal pronouns is important in achieving this balance. "We" and "I" are usually appropriate in speaking as a fellow-learner. "You" is often most appropriate in speaking as God’s spokesperson.
- Normally, you should speak more as a fellow-learner/sinner than as a prophet. Also, you should normally speak as a fellow-learner before speaking as a prophet. And when you use yourself as an illustration, it should often be of your errors and sins rather than of your victories.
Be sensitive to the non-Christian and the new Christian. Keep them in mind in every part of your teaching preparation.
- Avoid saying things like "I'm sure you all know that passage . . ." They do not know it and will feel intimidated by this statement.
- Avoid undefined "Christianese"—Christian jargon or biblical terms with which new people are unfamiliar. If you use these terms, define them immediately. Otherwise, they alienate new people.
- Don’t turn to other passages unless necessary. When turning to another passage, tell your audience how to find it and allow time for them to find the passage before you read it.
- Stay grace-oriented. Non-Christians and new Christians usually view the Christian life without proper understanding of or emphasis on God's grace, so unless you emphasize this, they will usually hear you through a legalistic grid. When teaching biblical ethics, stress God’s acceptance apart from our works, the Holy Spirit’s role in sanctification and ministry, biblical ethical priorities (e.g., love over ritual; sexual purity over no cussing) and the fact that God’s moral will is for our welfare and fulfillment. Having done this, be strong and unashamed in your ethical imperatives.
Use slang only if it is familiar and appropriate to your audience. Otherwise it will reduce your credibility.
Avoid verbal "fat."
- Avoid extraneous material and redundancy.
- Don't narrate what you went through as you prepared your teaching: "So I wondered what this word was in the Greek . . ." Tell your audience what you discovered, not what you went through in the process.
- Don’t say, "An example/illustration of this is . . . " Just give your example/illustration.
If you blank out or goof up, go on to the next point. Resist the urge to go back over the part you messed up unless it is crucial to the teaching. You usually just make the mess worse.
After
Stay alert during the questions and sharing. Give appropriate responses to questions or added points. Be ready with additional questions to pose to the group if there are no questions or sharing.
Look for individuals who want to talk further about the teaching. This is spiritual opportunism. God often uses the teacher to powerfully affect people. Make yourself available to talk after the meeting, answer their questions, and advise additional steps.
Have your teaching taped so you can listen to it afterwards. "If others have to listen to you, you should have to listen to yourself." This will often reveal things that you don’t get from others’ feedback. Be careful about over-reacting to what you hear—positively or negatively. You probably weren’t as good or as bad as you think!
Solicit feedback, especially from experienced teachers. Ask them for both positive and critical observations. Model the ethic of receiving and giving feedback—this is crucial for high quality teaching in your group.
Also, resist the "seniority system" tendency in home groups that has all the leaders taking turns regardless of gifting. Teaching is not a perk for years of service; it is a ministry for those who are gifted and want to teach. We need to have the most gifted teachers teaching! (But hold out for character and personal ministry before including in personal rotation.). Try new teachers out at retreats, cell groups, communion, etc.
Explain "Teaching Feedback" form. When listening to other teachers, note positive (+) and negative (-) points as you hear them. Then arrange into proper category on the front.
Explain "Do’s and Don’ts" handout. Look this over. There is some overlap with tonight’s material, but also some important additional points. You’ll be reminded of some of these in the next three weeks!
3 Stages of Teacher Development:
STAGE #1: See "Preparing Your First Few Teachings" for normal prep sequence for newer teachers. Rely primarily on tapes during this stage.
- Some new teachers feel they must do "their own material" even when they aren’t gifted or experienced enough to do this. The goal is not to be unique; it is to reach and instruct people! The burden is on you why you shouldn’t use existing tapes by proven effective teachers. You "make it your own" by doing the research, getting the same burden and adding your own personal examples. Don't sacrifice the group on the altar of your creativity!
STAGE #2: Work up your own outline first, using the "Homiletic Worksheet." Use the tape as a supplement &/or stimulus.
- This is usually for teachers who demonstrate gifting in originality and have a fair amount of teaching experience. If you can get to this point, you have really accomplished something.
STAGE #3: Create teachings regularly (not always) without relying on tapes.
- Most people do not get to this stage. This takes a high level of gifting, and the time needed for this kind of prep.
- Even highly gifted teachers tend to re-teach their material, adapting and improving it each time.
Final Reminders
- Remember where your group meets next week, and show up on time! If you are first, come a little early to get your camera ready.
- Do your best as unto the Lord--and leave it at that.