God has made us as embodied creatures with eyes, ears, reason, and all our senses and emotions. We preach Christ to whole people, real people, in real time.
The experience of writing a sermon is very different from the experience of hearing a sermon. In writing, we might read and reflect, stop and pray, take notes and doodle, go back and read the text again, go for a walk and pray about it, share a few different ideas during the week’s visitations, write a draft, edit, rewrite, and finally walk away with something like a finished product for the week. The composition of a sermon is flexible and recursive and fluid. It can be stopped and started and reviewed in countless ways.
Hearing a sermon is far different. You listen to a sermon one time, straight through, beginning to end. Every word that has passed lives entirely in the past. The words already spoken are as inaccessible to you as the words yet to be spoken. All you have is what you hear in the moment (a moment, by the way, which is punctuated by cell phones and babies and coughs and sneezes, besides your own wandering thoughts). Hearing a sermon is unforgivably linear. The preacher moves inexorably forward.
With all that in mind, I want to draw your attention to how we help our hearers experience the various moments in a message. I am indebted to David Schmitt for anything you might find helpful here, and I take responsibility for the ways I may distort or fail to communicate his insights. You can hear from him directly yourself by clicking the links below.
In our preaching, we intentionally organize and develop our main ideas and moments for our hearers. Organization has to do with the structure, flow, progression, or outline of your sermon. Those larger moments are then developed for our hearers. This aspect of development is what helps your hearer experience (and understand) what is being communicated.
You can imagine a sermon outline for John 20:19-31 which looks something like this:
- Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough.
- The Spirit of God creates faith when and where it pleases God.
- Freely we receive faith, and freely we share.
This outline provides a way the ideas of the sermon can be organized in an intentional progression. The development of those ideas is where I want to spend some time now. As a side note, my process of composition is very fluid. Sometimes a structure provides a starting framework. Other times I will have a thought about a main idea or a way I want to bring an idea to life even before I have a clue about how it will fit into the overall structure.
Let us explore some of the ways a preacher might develop #1: “Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough.” You will have to decide whether the clear statement of your main idea makes sense at the beginning or at the end of your development.
Narration—You could tell a story about a time when this was true. It might be a personal narrative, a biblical narrative, or it can draw on film or literature. You might tell a story about a parishioner who is lamenting how their adult children do not attend any church, or an excited confirmand who cannot seem to convince their friends why they should trust in Jesus. Or you might just retell the episode from John 20.
You can imagine the excitement of the ten disciples who were there on that first Easter evening. They. Saw. Jesus! They saw Him. They heard Him. His words and His living breath brought the very Spirit of God into their midst. So naturally, they run and find Thomas and excitedly tell him, “We have seen the Lord!” But Thomas, one of the Twelve, the same one who was boldly leading the way to Bethany into the fray of danger back in chapter 11, Thomas hears them. He hears their words, but it is not enough. Their words do not work. He does not believe. He cannot believe. He will not believe. Thomas shakes his head in disbelief. Maybe he says it in defiance like a challenge, or maybe it is a mournful admission in sadness. Thomas says, “Unless I see... Unless I touch... I will never believe.” Imagine how defeating that must have been for the Ten. You see, sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough.”
Image—An image is like pushing pause while watching a movie. It is a freezeframe moment. From that still image in the midst of a narrative, you may zoom out or you may zoom in, in order to help your hearer’s see what you want them to see. What images capture the sense of #1 above? A preacher crossing himself before ascending the pulpit? The face of a young woman who has just shared why she believes in Jesus and is about to hear her friend’s response? John’s head slumped down with his eyes closed in heartache when Thomas rejects the Easter message from Peter’s excited lips?
Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough. Picture a sea of people flowing into the stadium for a game. They are laughing. They are high fiving. They are wearing the colors and flowing in the same direction. It is a force of humanity, and it has momentum. Notice on the corner of the street, a man standing on a box. He looks nice enough. He is probably sincere. But despite the volume of his megaphone, no one is listening. As he shouts verses from the Bible and calls the crowd to repent, the sea of people flows by. I want you to freeze that image. Picture the megaphone raised to sincere lips. Picture the fervor in the man’s eyes. Whatever you think about his method, he came with a message to share. Now look at the faces closest to him. None turn, expect to point, and giggle. None are convicted. None fall on their knees in repentant faith. At best, he gets a curious glance. Our approach may be world’s away, and our intentions and motives might be vastly different, but we often get the very same response. Like the ten disciples telling Thomas about Jesus, and like the curbside preacher, sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough.
Serial Depiction—This method of development makes use of the force of repetition, building towards a crescendo. It is less about the hearer taking note of every example, and more about them feeling the force of all the examples. For me, there is often a simple refrain repeated and attached to an intentionally organized series of examples or illustrations. Other times I will just couch my examples between two statements of my main idea. As it relates to the feeling that our words of witness do not always feel like enough, you could focus on any of the following: The feelings this evokes, the people who experience it, the settings where it occurs, the different strategies employed. You might intentionally get broader and broader, or narrower and narrower. You might move from the most extreme, to the most common.
Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough. We take our kids to Sunday School, so they can learn the stories of the Bible. But how many never make it to confirmation? Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough. Our confirmands memorize the catechism and the promises of Scripture. But how many will still be here even two years later? Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough. We pray for our graduates and encourage them to find a local church near their school. But we know what their Sunday mornings will look like. Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough. We invite our friends to Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday, year after year. But how many have ever been baptized as a result? Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough. We tell our parents why our faith matters, and that religion is not just to raise obedient kids. Sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough. We hold weakened hands in the ICU, knowing their final breath is immanent. We want them to have peace and be prepared to enter Eternity. We want them to have assurance, we want the assurance, that they are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. And we know that faith comes by hearing. But sometimes, sometimes our words of witness just do not feel like enough.
My goal here is to illustrate from John 20:25 how we can help our hearers experience the various moments in our preaching. We have content and truth to proclaim. But God has made us as embodied creatures with eyes, ears, reason, and all our senses and emotions. We preach Christ to whole people, real people, in real time.
I will unpack a few other options we have available to us next week. This week, consider exploring how one of your main ideas might be expressed in one of the options above.
https://scholar.csl.edu/cchom2/36/
https://justinrossow.com/2014/10/11/retooling-your-sermon-development/2/
https://justinrossow.com/2014/10/11/retooling-your-sermon-development/3/
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out our previous articles on John 20:19-31.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching John 20:19-31.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach John 20:19-31.
Lectionary Podcast-Dr. Peter Scaer of Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN walks us through John 20:19-31.
