How to Prepare a Sermon: 32 Hacks for Preachers

There are no shortcuts in the path that is sermon preparation. It takes sweat, soul-level investment, and often a bit of anguish.

However, after twenty years of preaching, I have collected a handful of insider “hacks” that can improve your sermon preparation and help you become a more effective preacher. Some of these were passed down to me by other preachers; others I learned the hard way.

We can organize these tips and principles based on the following steps in the sermon process:

Approaching the task

Before we even begin work on the sermon itself, we first need to get a handle on how we are to approach the work of preaching God’s Word.

1. Preach God’s thoughts, not yours

Some pastors feel pressured to be clever or have something profound to say. Other pastors are confident they have something profound to say. Both err.

God is far wiser than us. He knows the needs of our people better than we do. Thus, the job of the preacher is not to preach their own thoughts, but to “plagiarize” the text’s.¹ We’ll be far more effective preachers if we look to the Scriptures, study them to know what God is saying, and then communicate that message.

2. Read your Bible—a lot

A famous, albeit likely apocryphal, story tells of a massive generator at Henry Ford’s plant that stopped working. Ford hired his longtime engineer, Steinmetz, to diagnose the problem. Steinmetz walked around and listened for a while, then placed a chalk mark on the part that needed repair. Sure enough, that was exactly the part that needed fixing.

Steinmetz’s bill was a whopping $10,000. Shocked, Ford asked for an itemized breakdown of the bill, which read, “$1 for the chalk mark; $9,999 for knowing where to put the chalk mark.”

Likewise, our knowledge of God’s Word, built up over time, is a priceless asset in the pulpit. Thus, a powerful asset for preaching any particular passage is a deep knowledge of the whole Bible. But it’s a skill that takes years to build, and it only grows as we invest in reading the entire Bible—Genesis to Revelation—regularly. So, read through the whole Bible. Often.

3. Exegesis is everything in preaching

Preachers sometimes ask me how to improve their rhetoric. They’ll say they are strong in exegesis but weak in delivery (sometimes others have told them this).

Almost without exception, however, when I begin working with them, it turns out they have no command of the text. They may make observations, explain Greek words, or demonstrate knowledge of technical commentaries, but they fail to understand the passage’s logic and movement. They don’t know what the text is actually doing.

I find that once a preacher grasps what the author intended to accomplish with the passage—how and why he wrote it—writing a powerful sermon becomes the easy part.

Once a preacher grasps what the author intended to accomplish with the passage, writing a powerful sermon becomes the easy part.

4. Focus not just on what your text is saying, but doing

When studying a passage, we often stop at what a passage is saying and go no further. This leads to poor preaching.

We must also ask why the text is saying what it is saying. Put differently, the key question in sermon prep is, “What is the text doing?”

Imagine a preacher is given the text, “The building is on fire. Please have everyone leave immediately.” One could imagine that preacher waxing eloquent on the twenty-first-century uses of “on fire” and how the phrase can mean both “unstoppable” and “engulfed in flames.” He might riff on the building’s condition and the logic behind the call to leave. He might even apply the passage to “toxic relationships that are burning us out,” encouraging his listeners to leave them.

Yet those who follow such a preacher would die as the enflamed building collapsed around them. In contrast, the preacher who serves his people well is the one who gets them out of the building.² So know what the biblical author is doing with his passage, and then let your sermon accomplish that same purpose.

5. It’s the Spirit’s sword

Ephesians 6:17 describes the Bible as “the sword of the Spirit.” In the Spirit’s hands, that Word can divide soul and spirit, drawing out the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:12).

We preachers cannot change the human heart, but God’s Spirit can. This is why Spurgeon said, “Defend the Bible? I’d just as soon defend a lion. Unchain it, and it will defend itself.”³

Our confidence is not in ourselves, but in the Spirit to use his Word. We must remain highly conscious of this. Any good preparation must be saturated with pleading prayers for God to use his Word.

Scheduling your preparation

Once we have a proper perspective on the task before us, we can move to the practical work of scheduling our preparation.

6. Work ahead to prepare the series

Before you begin a series, set aside time to prepare the whole series. This will not only make each sermon better (your grasp of each passage improves as you understand it in light of the whole), it will also save you time each week, since you’ll already have a sense of where you’re headed.

So before you begin preaching through a book:

• Read it over and over, getting a sense for its overarching message and structure. As you do, look for clues about the situation of the original hearers, which helps uncover the “why” behind the book.
• Create a rough outline for the book and plan your preaching calendar.
• Use this time to explore different commentaries, acquainting yourself with their strengths and weaknesses, so you know which to use later on.

Organize your preaching calendar with Logos’s Sermon Manager.

Before you start a thematic series:

• Take time to carefully select the passages you’ll use. Make sure you understand the argument and authorial intent of each so that you’re not misusing them.
• Review books or articles written on your series’s theme.
• Create a rough outline of the series and plan your preaching calendar.

7. Know yourself

I don’t find it particularly helpful when experienced preachers share their preparation schedule for others to emulate. Why? Because every preacher is wired differently.

Some love the study and writing process. Others, like me, find it daunting. Some minds are sharpest in the morning. Others, like mine, come alive at night. Some work best without pressure. Others, like me, perform best under the gun.

So don’t adopt someone else’s schedule and force yourself into it. The key is to know yourself and build a schedule that leverages who God made you to be.

8. Allocate your time

How much time you’ll have for sermon prep will vary according to context.

When you do that work follows from knowing yourself.

But how you allocate your sermon prep time should roughly follow this pattern:

1. Doing your own work in the text (25–35%)
2. Interacting with others (10–15%; e.g., use commentaries, study with others, get feedback, etc.)
3. Plan out your sermon (10–20%)
4. Write your sermon (20–30%)
5. Refine your sermon and practice its delivery (10–20%)

9. Pray through your sermon

Your schedule should include adequate time for prayer. After you’ve written your sermon, take time to pray through it, section by section. Think about what you want God to accomplish through that section and pray to that end.

It’s helpful to think of specific people in your congregation who may particularly need that message and pray for them (and others like them).

Writing your sermon

Now that you’ve done the hard work of studying and scheduling, it’s time to put pen to paper and begin writing your sermon.

10. Write out a manuscript (yes, even you)

Not everyone preaches from a manuscript, but everyone, in my opinion, should write a manuscript. It forces your mind to slow down and think through every detail. It creates needed space to pray and wrestle through the best way to communicate something. It clarifies for you what you’re trying to say and how you’re saying it.

Whether or not you take your manuscript into the pulpit, writing it will make you a more effective preacher.

11. Use introductions as hooks

The goal of the introduction is to convince the congregation that they need to listen. It’s to turn on their brains, pique their curiosity, move them forward in their chairs.

Certainly an introduction should introduce your subject matter. Ideally, it provides something memorable that helps people recall the sermon, perhaps even a thread that appears throughout the sermon. But good introductions accomplish those aims in a way that draws people in.

12. Don’t treat conclusions as summaries

After completing the hard work of climbing a mountain, you don’t conclude your journey by looking backwards over the trail you’ve just hiked. Instead, you look out at the beautiful vista accessed by your hard work.

Similarly, your conclusion shouldn’t simply summarize what you’ve said, reviewing your points. It should put an exclamation point on the sermon, propelling and motivating the congregation toward its driving force.

13. Illustrations are better than explanations

I once treated illustrations merely as a chance to come up for air amidst the rigors of sustained exposition. I no longer think that way. That’s because I’ve found that illustrations often do a better job of communicating a complex or important point than more didactic and logical explanations.

Illustrations often do a better job of communicating a complex or important point than more didactic and logical explanations.

Saying, “A church should function less like a restaurant and more like a potluck meal,” is quick, powerful, and memorable. And it’s likely more effective than a precise explanation of the priesthood of all believers or the pastors’s role in equipping the saints.

14. Treat the whole sermon as application

Sermons that backload a text’s relevance until the end are typically boring. More importantly, the whole text is doing something. So when sermons fail to reflect this, they are less faithful to authorial intent.

All explanation of the text should move to implication because this mirrors what the text is doing. It will also make your sermon more powerful.

15. Preach the gospel, but not as an artificial add-on

I’ve heard many sermons that feature what feel like commercial breaks for the gospel. The basics of the gospel are presented, but in a way that feels disjointed from the text. Consequently, when disconnected from the text, such gospel presentations end up sounding quite the same week after week. This trains people to tune out once we start talking about Jesus.

There’s a better way. Each passage in the Bible organically connects to the cohesive story of the Bible (see Luke 24:25–27, 44–47). Thus, we don’t understand our passage until we understand how it contributes to that broader story of Scripture. Once we grasp that connection though, we’re able to preach the gospel in a way that is native to our text. The aspects of the gospel we highlight are of one cloth with the passage’s own emphasis.

16. Stand with the congregation under the text

Our most important identity is not as the preacher of the passage, but as its first recipient within our congregation. Getting this right makes all the difference in the tone and manner of our sermon.

As often as possible, replace “you” with “we/us” (e.g., replace, “Are you listening to what God is saying?” with “Are we listening to what God is saying?”). Talk honestly (not with an exaggerated faux humility) about how you need the passage’s message as well.

When our congregation’s hear us preach, they should sense that we are fellow sinners in need of the same gospel as they.

17. Don’t just give the context, use the context

One of the most basic principles of biblical interpretation is that context shapes meaning. It’s been famously said, “A text without a context is a pretext for a prooftext.”⁴

Driven by this conviction, many preachers use a portion of their time to provide the literary or historical context for their passage. I’ve come to believe this is unhelpful. The key question about context is not simply what a passage’s context is, but how that context informs the meaning of our passage.

Thus, as you seek to drive home the meaning of your passage to your hearers, draw from context to do so. For example, if preaching in Philippians, you might say: “Maybe you feel like joy is hard to come by. The very Christians who are supposed to be the source of our joy often suck us dry. Interestingly, that’s exactly what was going on in Philippi. Look ahead at 4:2 …”

So be freed from feeling you need to explain the context. Instead, invoke the context to reinforce your message and make it more compelling to your listeners.

Logos includes Workflows that can be used to guide your sermon prep.

18. Preach just the passage before you

It’s difficult enough to preach the passage in front of you. Yet many preachers feel obliged to find a similar passage elsewhere in the Bible and give a mini-sermon on that passage, as well.

Of course, when preachers do this, they are often attempting to show how that additional passage explains or develops an important point. But this approach demands much of the listeners (and much of the preacher!).

Limit the number of times you point people to other passages. A good guide is only to reference another passage if:

1. It makes the point of your passage stronger without having to spend additional time explaining the referenced passage, or:
2. It is explicitly cited or alluded to in your passage and therefore important to the exposition of your passage.

19. You can probably say it better

Some pastors love to quote others. But quotations are generally hard on listeners—unless they are short and punchy. The longer and more complex the quote, the more demanding it is to follow.

Most of the time, you can convey the point in your own words better than the quote you wanted to use. Benefit from the quote’s insight, and then say what you’ve learned in your own voice.

20. Keep your sermon targeted

A shotgun and a rifle look pretty similar to the untrained eye. But the former shoots off an array of shot, whereas the latter fires one single, very targeted bullet.

A sermon is most effective when it’s a rifle, not a shotgun. Have one central argument that the whole sermon is built around, delivering it with maximum force. Typically, this argument will mirror the central argument of the passage you’re preaching.

21. Structure your sermon clearly

Just like your own body, the body of your sermon benefits from some shape. Neither is best as a blob. The body of a sermon begins to take the form of a blob either when it is under-structured or over-structured. Shape your sermon in such a way that the congregation will gain a clear sense of its points or contours—they can’t miss them.

Simplicity and clarity are key here. Try not to have too many points. Especially try not to have multiple sub-points under your numerous main points, with even more application points at the end.

22. Be strategically sparing & selective

A young David Helm once came home after pouring his soul out in the pulpit. Over dessert, he asked his wife for feedback on his sermon. She offered him a slice of pie and said, “When I give you pie, I don’t make you eat the whole pie at once.”⁵

As pastors, we have so much we want to share with our congregation. Then our time studying provides us with even more material. But attempting to serve the whole pie in one sitting does not serve the eater, nor does it do the pie justice. Give them one slice and leave the rest of the pie for another day.

23. Preach your own sermons

I have twice had to confront pastors who preached another man’s sermon as their own. Not only is this morally wrong, it undercuts God’s design in preaching. Sure, churches could livestream the best preachers in the world each Sunday. But that is not how God has designed the ministry of his Word.

God has given a certain flock a shepherd, and he has charged that shepherd to devote himself to God’s Word so that he can instruct and exhort from it (see 1 Tim 4:13). That shepherd wrestles with the Scriptures each week, allowing God to plow his own heart. Then he ascends the pulpit to feed the sheep.

No matter how perfect another man’s sermon sounds, preach your own sermon. It’s God’s good design.

24. Don’t make yourself the hero

Be wary of sharing personal anecdotes in which you got it right. Better to share personal anecdotes that make clear you are a fellow sinner who needs the same gospel as everyone else, a fellow sufferer in need of the same hope.

You don’t want people leaving the sermon thinking you are the hero. In fact, to do so is to steal the spotlight from the true hero your people need.

25. Shorter is better

“I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.”⁶

This adage conveys an important lesson. As a general rule, the most concise way to communicate something is the most effective. Moreover, many preachers exceed their congregation’s capacity to listen attentively.

As a general rule, the most concise way to communicate something is the most effective.

Nowhere does Scripture imply that a longer sermon is more God-honoring. Your sermon will almost certainly communicate God’s message most effectively if it is shorter. It will take more time to winnow it down, but that time is well spent.

26. There are no formulas

Every “hack” I’ve given in this section has its exceptions. The only absolute rule for sermon writing is that there are no absolute rules.

Preaching formulas leads to formulaic preaching. Formulaic preaching leads to boring and repetitive preaching.

If you follow every one of the hacks in this section every week, you are probably doing something wrong. Don’t follow a formula, preach the Bible in the power of God’s Spirit!

Use Sermon Builder, including its powerful suite of tools, to write your sermons right within Logos.

Delivering the sermon

With your sermon written and prayed over, the final step is to deliver it in a way that is clear, compelling, and free of distractions.

27. Create easy-to-use notes for yourself

Whether you bring a manuscript or an outline into the pulpit, you want to make sure it is not cumbersome, unwieldy, or distracting. For example:

• Consider using different colors, easily identifiable headers, bolded text, and indentations to help guide your eyes to find their place quickly.
• If you are using paper, you might use smaller paper dimensions, larger fonts, an easy-to-turn method, and a dark binder/notebook.
• If you are using a tablet, make sure the battery is charged, Siri and other sounds are muted, and the tablet won’t dim or turn off.

28. Vary your volume, pace, pitch & tone

Start with your natural, conversational voice and cadence (sometimes when attempting to project or enunciate, we drift to an unnaturally higher pitch that is harder to listen to).

From that base, use all the tools in your vocal arsenal. For example:

• Your tone should change when you tell a story.
• Preachers often get louder when saying something important. Try saying it softer instead.
• Explore how slowing and quickening your pace impact communication.
• Learn the value of intentional silence.

29. Mind the direction of your gestures

When gesturing, remember the congregation sees right-to-left, the opposite way you do.

This is especially important to keep in mind when gesturing a sequence (e.g., a timeline or a numbered sequence). In such cases, reverse your gestures (swap your left-to-right gestures to right-to-left) to mirror them for your congregation.

30. Make eye contact with the congregation

When using notes or a manuscript, it can be difficult to maintain eye contact. But learn to know when your sermon needs eye contact and be ready to give it then.

Some key moments where eye contact is critical:

• The opening few lines of your sermon
• Anytime when you are especially speaking from your heart to theirs
• When telling a story

Don’t just build your sermon in Logos; deliver it using Logos with Preaching Mode.

For after you preach

Even though the sermon has been delivered, there remain two important steps.

31. Improve

I often say that the best way to get better as a preacher is to preach a lot. But that’s not exactly true. I can think of preachers who have preached for decades with little improvement. It ought not to be so. Paul wanted everyone in Timothy’s church to see him get better and better (1 Tim 4:15).

Here are three ways to grow as a preacher:

1. Every time you preach, get honest feedback from a handful of trusted people (e.g., elders and fellow pastors, your wife, your children).
2. Every once in a while, listen to—or better, watch—one of your own sermons.
3. Ask a more seasoned preacher to work with you to help you grow.

The fact that you’re reading this article suggests that you are committed to improving. Keep it up!

32. Rest in God’s power (or know you can’t accomplish much)

Only a preacher understands the array of emotions one feels after delivering a sermon. We may feel elation if we think we’ve done well or when we hear how the sermon has impacted someone. We can feel blue when we think the sermon was mediocre or when we receive criticism. But we can check these emotional fluctuations by reminding ourselves of the critical truth that we preachers can’t accomplish much.

God’s Spirit uses his sword to accomplish his purposes. We are merely servants, and God delights to use the folly of our preaching to accomplish his grand purposes.

So pray much. And rest.

James Seward’s recommended resources for sermon prep

I highly commend the Charles Simeon Trust’s Workshops on Biblical Exposition.

Additionally, I recommend the following books:

• Gary Millar and Phil Campbell, Saving Eutychus: How to Preach God’s Word and Keep People Awake (Matthias Media, 2023)
• Tim Chester and Steve Sach, Dig Deeper: Tools for Understanding God’s Word (Crossway, 2011)
• Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (Simon & Schuster, 1972)
• Peter J. Adam, Speaking God’s Words: A Practical Theology of Preaching (InterVarsity Press, 1996)
• J. C. Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching (Banner of Truth, 2003)

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• Pastor, Learn How to Maximize Your Sermon Prep
• Sermon Planning: How to Get Ahead without Stressing Out
• Top Preaching Tools & Resources That Belong in a Pastor’s Library
• 4 Steps to Faster Sermon Prep (Without Sacrificing Quality)
• Pastor, Are You Making These Common Lexical Mistakes?