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Salvation of sinners – God’s primal desire for all of us is not healing and prosperity but it is salvation (1 Tim 2:4). And that salvation is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit when He changes a God-hating sinner into a Christ-loving saint. The reason why preachers lose this plot it’s because they assume that everyone within the sound of their voices is born again. They believe that to be saved is just to repeat the prayer of salvation after the minister and…congrats. Well, the problem with this is that many do pray that salvation prayer with their lips while their hearts are away. As evident by the reality that a great many – especially churchgoers – still show no practical signs of being new creatures; still worldly, still no fruit of the Spirit, still no evident growth, and zero desire to share Christ with others. They believe they can have Jesus in their hearts yet that Jesus has no power to change their lifestyles. That is called easy-believism and it’s not salvation. Hence, as you prepare to preach, never assume that all your hearers will be saved, individuals. They are always unbelievers. Never lose that evangelistic mindset.
Sanctification of saints – This simply describes the growth process among those who are already saved. The sheep of Christ need necessary food for them to grow; constantly and always. And I mean solid food, meat and bones included. Something that will comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. To rebuke them in their sins, to challenge them in their laziness and encourage them in their despair. Something that will add value and contribute to their Christian Faith. Hence as you are standing to give the Word, don’t waste people’s time but have something worth their effort to come and listen to you. Preach Biblically, truthfully, sincerely, and passionately. Saints will be greatly sanctified by this.
Preach the Bible
It’s my concern that the African Church seems to be more interested when preachers come with messages from weird dreams, strange visions and what else, more than the all-sufficient, inspired Scripture (2 Tim 3:15-17). I warn you, you will very much qualify as a deceiver if you approach preaching with anything outside the Bible. In fact, if your message is not Bible sourced, you have no message from God. Try again next week. Again, to preach the Bible is not just quoting it to support your message that you already have, but it is to get your message from the Scripture. The best preaching is that which is Text driven. Read the verses (large context) as loud and clear as possible and explain their meaning before you apply the meaning to people’s lives. I am very much a fan of verse by verse, line by line kind of preaching because I don’t believe we need anything from man’s wisdom when the Lord has clearly spoken through His written Word for our edification and learning. Nothing wearies my soul more than a minister who only reads one verse so he can waste 2hours of my precious time bubbling a lot of talk about all sorts of things and everything else under the sun. Please stick with Scripture!
Avoid noise without substance
There is a popular trend where preachers work very hard to whip themselves up into a noisy frenzy until we have all lost the direction of the message. When in reality, nothing is being said; just repetition, shouting and more noise. As they say, “an empty vessel makes a lot of noise.” Shouting is actually good if its mission is to emphasize a tangible point that people will remember for years to come. Therefore, don’t aim to shout, but aim to enrich your hearers with something. It’s not about pounding them with words, but it’s about communicating valuable truth to them. Calm down, have something to say, say it, emphasize it if necessary and you move on.
Avoid reading your notes
For learners, there is nothing wrong with this. Yet I must scold mature ministers who heavily depend on their notes until they do not preach but read notes to the hearing of the people. This is so rude. To preach is to herald, to announce and to proclaim! It’s not lecturing but it’s preaching! Yes, notes are helpful, but we must use them only as a guide to our message, hence, you have to teach yourself to never let the reading of your notes hinder the flow of your message. In fact, heavy dependence on notes is a sign that the message you are preaching has not gripped your own heart. You just have the sermon on paper while your heart is dry and away.
Avoid stories, stories and more stories.
On a good note, introducing a personal story in your sermon is a good way of combining the truth of the Bible message with life’s experience, so that your people can also relate to it. Yet it becomes a big problem when your stories take more speaking time than the Bible message you are preaching. God’s people are saved, and sanctified by the Word, not our life experiences. After all, we all have personal tales – a lot of them, don’t we? Yet when it comes to ministry, the story of Christ the Redeemer is all that matters. Learn that and keep stories as minimal as possible.
Avoid preaching without passion
The American preacher, Steve Lawson, loves to say, “Preaching is theology on fire.” He goes on to explain that preaching is likened to fire because it produces light and heat. To minister is to give light to the people; to illuminate them with Biblical truth. Yet that light is more effective when it’s got heat; passion and enthusiasm. It’s not just informing their minds but it’s also touching their hearts. Therefore, a minister without passion is better off as a weather reporter than he is a preacher. How do you expect people to believe and take seriously what you are saying when you speak like you don’t believe it yourself?
Avoid preaching people
We all know that the message of the Cross is already an offense to our hearers, yet that doesn’t mean we must seek to offend people; deliberately. Remember my first point that your message must strictly be Text driven, not people driven. It is bad to observe the lives of other people, recording whatever you don’t like about them, so that you can go on and preach about it. Yes, we do preach about sin, yet that sin message must apply universally to everyone, not point to a certain individual that you saw doing something that your think is wrong. It’s not exegeting Scripture but it is exegeting the lives of others, while using the Bible.
Conclusion
Brethren, some of us already live in poverty; there is a famine in the land with regard to the hearing of the Word (Amos 8:11). Most of what passes as preaching today is not worthy to be even called such. Therefore, I do not think the body of Christ needs any more preachers – we just need better ones. Preaching needs to improve greatly if we are to witness a revival in the Church. Let us, therefore, prayerfully labour with all our might to develop and polish our preaching skills, so we can rightly divide the Word of truth to feed God's hungry sheep that look up to us. Class dismissed.
Sinothi Ncube
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