Sustaining Pastoral Excellence

Sermons Most
Likely to Succeed
Do sermons actually change beliefs
and behavior? An ongoing study
reveals hard facts.
BY LORI CARRELL
New research is discovering the characteristics of sermons that
create lasting impact. The investigation began with surveys and
interviews contrasting listener and pastor perspectives in 102
churches across the country.
A central finding of the research to date is that listeners
value preaching, asserting that the sermon is the component of
the church service most likely to impact their spiritual growth.
In fact, listeners love their preachers and declare statistically
what one respondent articulated in her written comment, “Pastor
ain’t broke—don’t fix him!” At the same time, listeners’ responses
also reveal that it’s the rare sermon that creates lasting
change. Pastors and listeners agree that such change is the desired
result of sermon communication, and yet it’s unusual. An
analysis of these rare sermons that are “most likely to succeed”
in the challenging task of spiritual transformation reveals the
following characteristics.
Successful Sermons Ask for Change

Successful sermons are built around a clearly stated changebased
goal that emanates from Scripture; for example, “Listeners
will pray for their
enemies” (Matthew 5:46-
48). In less transformative
sermons, a desired response
may be implied or
informative (“understand
grace”), but listeners
can’t discern a clear call
to change. Interestingly, the research demonstrates that listeners
are still satisfied with sermons that don’t ask them to change,
but they acknowledge that the result is reinforcement,
Successful sermons
are built around
a clearly stated
change-based goal
that emanates from
Scripture.
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not growth. In lower-impact sermons,
a majority of preaching time is spent
on explanation, creating sermons
that are more informative than transformative.
In addition the listeners’
responses indicate that what’s being
explained is already known to them.
If listeners already agree with sermon
content, how can they be expected to
change? Successful sermons move believers
to action. Rather than merely
motivating a desire to be different
(for example, “Yes, I’d like to be more
forgiving”), sermons with lasting
impact develop practical implementation
ideas, proclaiming the power and
grace of God to enable that spiritual
growth. Whether the action plan is
illustrated through stories or specific
steps, a call to change is most likely to
be successful when “how to” ideas are
included.
Successful Sermons Are
Organized for Listening
Successful sermons are sermons listeners
can remember. Organization of
ideas is key to this memory process.
According to listeners, well-organized
sermons that aid recall are rare. For
many preachers, the passage itself provides
structure, verse two comes after
verse one, so they “preach through the
passage,” expounding on ideas they
encounter. Such an approach can be
experienced as a conceptual hodgepodge
that listeners call rambling. If
content seems disjointed, listening
energy, retention, and activation possibilities
decrease. When asked what
makes a sermon difficult to process
and remember, the #1 answer from
listeners was “disorganization.”
Following exegesis, preachers who
preach sermons with lasting impact
spend preparation time organizing the
ideas in ways that listeners can process.
Such sermons are structured for
oral-aural communication; that is, the
preacher talks and the listeners hear.
Choosing a listener-oriented structure
for the sermon is a critical leadership
task for pastors as they seek to guide
listeners toward spiritual growth. Basic
components of sermons organized for
listeners include:
• an attention-getting opening to
focus listeners’ thinking on a clearly
articulated subject;
• a specific, spiritual-growth goal delineated
in the introduction;
• two or three connected, memorably
worded main points;
• conceptual links between the main
points that move listeners from one
idea to the next;
• a concise review that doesn’t include
extraneous information; and
• a compelling final statement connected
to the spiritual-growth goal.
Listener-oriented sermons stay
focused, providing depth. Organizing
information for auditory processing
also includes discipline in content
selection so that sermons are deep
rather than wide. Wide sermons are
characterized by too many points,
shallow topic treatment, over-explaining,
familiar ideas presented as novel,
repetitive subject matter, tangents,
or unnecessary length. With wide sermons,
listening energy is diminished,
as is the potential for lasting impact.
Deep sermons are rich with focused
content that:
• stays clearly linked to the Scripture;
• obviously connects to the delineated
change goal;
• provides insight;
• balances intellect and emotion;
• delineates implementation ideas; and
• declares the grace and power of God
to enable change.
Successful Sermons Are
Well-Delivered
Sermons most likely to succeed may
be preached by preachers with vastly
different delivery styles, from a softspoken,
compassionate pastor to a proclaimer
who sets the back pew aflame
with zeal. The commonality is a delivery
that authentically communicates relationship
and emotion.
Less than 2 percent of the pastors
surveyed rehearse sermons orally. When
weighing demands on their time, pastors
reveal that sermon delivery is not
a priority. Listeners have a different
perspective, reporting that delivery
does matter. In particular, some delivery
behaviors (such as reading or predictable
expression) make it seem to listeners
that the pastor “just doesn’t care.”
How we say what we say communicates
relational and emotional meanings,
intentional or not.
The way a pastor speaks the sermon’s
words communicates the very
heart of God for God’s people. Delivery
also communicates the pastor’s emotion
related to listeners, the topic, and the
act of preaching.
Sometimes pastors who are working
hard to preach (or teach) sermons
in which they “explain things in a clear,
casual, and accessible way” unintentionally
weaken word power. In the part
of this research designed to identify
the “unique excellence” of preachers,
“powerful and compelling language
usage” was the rarest strength. Word
selection impacts listeners’ memory
and motivation. Listeners crave “inspiration”
as a part of what helps them
grow spiritually; listeners also identify
sermons with powerful word usage
as more inspirational than those that
are comprised primarily of explanatory
language. Artfulness with words that
create vivid visual images; thoughtprovocation
with words that construct
metaphors for complex spiritual
processes; soul-stirring with compelling
words that evoke emotion through
alliteration, parallelism, and onomatopoeia—
all can be found not just in
sermons with lasting impact, but also in
the public communication of Jesus.
When asked what makes a sermon difficult
to process and remember, the #1 answer
from listeners was “disorganization.”
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Successful Sermons
Integrate Listeners’
Perspectives
Sermons that honor and integrate
listeners’ lives are most likely to be
successful in their ultimate aim. While
pastors express concern that the
loud call of listeners for “relevancy”
could be a call away from Scripture,
listeners describe their desire for connection
much differently. Because 78
percent of the listeners have never
talked with their pastors about a sermon,
it’s no wonder that perspectives
on this matter differ dramatically.
Most of the pastors and parishioners
don’t talk before or after sermons
about those sermons, and yet all are
expecting life-change outcomes. As a
result many pastors prepare sermons
based on general assumptions about
listeners (for example, an estimated
percentage of “seekers”) but proceed
with no specific understanding of
listeners’ perspectives on the selected
topic or passage.
How can preachers move beyond
assumption when connecting content
to listeners? A process associated with
successful sermons is a pre-sermon
dialogue group in which the pastor
“listens to listeners.” During such
dialogues the pastor’s preparation is
enhanced by listeners’ discussions of
how the upcoming sermon passage
or topic intersects with their spiritual
journeys. This research is demonstrating
that such listening sessions can
increase the transformative quality of
sermon communication by…
• generating fresh sermon ideas (a top
need according to pastors);
• increasing sermon relevancy (a top
need according to listeners);
• increasing energy given to listening
during sermon communication;
• increasing specificity and depth of
informal feedback received by pastors
after the sermon; and
• energizing pastors personally and
professionally with listener support
and prayer during sermon
preparation.
Yes, sermons can change beliefs and
behavior, yet there’s much to learn
from the listeners and preachers participating
in this study of transformative
sermon communication. May this
first wave of findings illuminating
characteristics of sermons that are
“most likely to succeed” provoke your
thinking, intensify your praying, and
enhance your lasting impact.
LORI CARRELL, Ph.D., (Professor
of Communication
Education at the University
of Wisconsin-Oshkosh)
is author of The Great
American Sermon Survey
(1999) and is currently conducting research
on “Transformative Sermon Communication”
among participants in the Center for Excellence
in Congregational Leadership with the support
of a Lilly Endowment, the Green Lake Conference
Center, and the UW system.