I am a preacher. I love to preach and listen to preaching, but I also know that I need constantly to be getting better at preaching. As a result, I regularly submit myself to scrutiny over my preaching and take advice and criticism from trusted sources (my wife and our other two pastors, Luke and Buster do a great job at this). In addition, I try to listen to other preachers preach and take advice from seasoned pastors when given the opportunity. I also read books about preaching. Some books about preaching are good, some are not as good. Some are academic, some are devotional. Regardless of how a book is written or how great it is, I have discovered that nearly everyone has something in it I can take away to become better at preaching.
Recently, I read Preaching that Changes Lives by Micahel Fabarez. Honestly, the beginning of the book was not life-changing for me, but as I continued to read, I found myself saying, “This is not a really great book, but I’ve really been impacted by what he says on _______ (see here a variety of subjects). By the time I finished the book, I discovered that there was more meat than I had at first realized, but there was one thing in particular that has changed my preaching more than anything I have read in recent months.
Fabarez argues for structuring a sermon outline, not in a linear fashion, but in more of a diagram fashion that not only flows with points in progression, but that closely ties each point to the main idea of a sermon, or what I refer to as The Big Question. Each sermon I preach seeks to answer one big question from the text. I have begun structuring my sermons in a way similar to Fabarez’ diagram above with The Big Question as the driving force and with each point answering a part of The Big Question while also building off of the previous point toward a fuller understanding of the scripture at the end of the sermon.
My preaching has become more focused and more Christ-centered. I am thankful for Fabarez on this issue in particular. I plan to write more about his book with a full review over the next several weeks, but for now, take the best and begin to apply it in your own preaching. I’m telling you, this changes everything.
