Sermon Checklist for Preaching

“Just-Wait-One-Minute-Are-You-Sure-This-Is-Really-Ready-To-Preach?”

1. I have spent more than four hours reading, studying, and meditating on my text and I’m satisfied that my sermon captures God’s revelation from the text and not merely my own musings.
2. The message is sound enough that it inspires my passion. I can’t wait to preach it and I know that I’ll be able to preach it with energy and commitment.
3. Remembering that my audience doesn’t have a copy of the sermon in front of them, I’ve composed my material in such a way that they can stay with me.
4. “The Tiny Dog Now” really “Is Mine.” The sermon deals, in the main, with only one text, theme, doctrine, need/longing, image, and mission/application.
5. I could, from memory, recite the trouble or grace that controls each of the pages. And I know that the trouble calls for the grace; the grace answers the trouble.
6. The trouble is real enough that it makes me squirm; the grace that it makes me weep.
7. I have the opening three sentences completely memorized and they are good!
8. The “God-action statement” (the one theme) is set up, prepared, “counterpointed,” repeated, referred to, or varied at least once every minute or so.
9. I have the closing three sentences completely memorized, and they are good!
10. I’ve had some fun playing with and developing at least one of the images, episodes, or rhetorical phrases of this sermon.
11. It’s clear that I count myself a member of any group (text or world!) cast in a bad light.
12. I haven’t asked for permission to tell a story, paint a picture, show a movie, make a point; I’ve just gone ahead and done it.
13. My illustrations are current, interesting, have “existential cash-value,” and engage at least one of the five senses.
14. There is some subtlety to this sermon, and at least one surprise.
15. I have eliminated from my sermon the wimpy words “maybe,” “very,” “in general,” “indeed,” “perhaps,” and every member of the “seem” family.
16. This really is a sermon, not an essay in disguise. Every word and turn-of-phrase is taken from the way I, and the people to whom I’m preaching. really talk (which means that the preceding phrase does not qualify!).
17. All the theological terms and concepts could easily be understood by a bright sixth-grader... or if not, I’ve worked to make that so by the end of the sermon.
18. I have edited out at least half as much as I’ve left in.
19. It’s clear. It’s clear. It’s clear (and, I’ve made it plain!).
20. I have asked at every turn, “Will N., and N., and N., and N. understand and care about what I’m saying?” (Where the Ns. represent specific, select members of the audience; and where one of the Ns is a first-time visitor, friendly agnostic, or non-believer.)
21. I have built some pauses and silences into my sermon.
22. I can name the places where my pitch, timbre, speed, intensity, and volume might vary... and how they might vary. That is, I know what the italicized, bold-faced, underlined, and CAPITALIZED passages of my notes should sound like.
23. I have over-estimated neither the piety nor goodness of my audience.
24. I have prayed for this sermon and the event of its performance.
25. I would be thrilled to have any one of my seminary professors show up unexpectedly to hear this sermon... even Professor (fill in the blank).