7 Questions to Ask Before You Preach
As well as having been a preacher for over four decades, I also have been privileged to be a teacher of preachers, having served as an adjunct professor in two universities.
In that teaching role, I spent a great deal of time offering my students sermon filters for the head. That is, how to put together a good message with good textual study keys as well as the typical ingredients of introduction, exposition, illustrations, application, and conclusion.
Such filters for the head certainly have their place. Without them, the sermon will suffer from poor organization and weak content.
However, recently I came across a post from Francis Chan that offered some additional insight. Many of you who are reading this no doubt have heard of him.
Francis Chan is an author and church leader, formerly the pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California. Chan has written several books including Crazy Love and Forgotten God.
Chan is also a very popular and powerful speaker. I’ve been privileged to hear him on multiple occasions and have benefitted significantly from his sermons.
What’s interesting is that this gifted communicator recognizes that he has feet of clay. That is to say, his humanity and its inherent brokenness are all too often negative factors in his speaking.
In light of that, Chan notes that he keeps a list of questions in the front of his Bible. It’s a checklist that he runs through each time he prepares to speak since he is self-admittedly “prone to wander” as the old hymn says.
“My motives for preaching can be very unholy at times,” Chan admits. “These seven questions can be good checks on my sinful heart.”
Francis Chan’s 7 Questions
Here are the seven questions Chan asks himself before speaking along with a behavioral reminder:
Am I worried about what people think of my message or what God thinks? (Teach with fear.)
Do I genuinely love these people? (Teach with love.)
Am I accurately presenting this passage? (Teach with accuracy.)
Am I depending on the Holy Spirit’s power or my own cleverness? (Teach with power.)
Have I applied this message to my own life? (Teach with integrity.)
Will this message draw attention to me or to God? (Teach with humility.)
Do people really need this message? (Teach with urgency.)
In reading these seven questions, I found myself greatly convicted. While I had prided myself on my sermonic “head filters,” I had typically neglected the “heart filters.”
As a result, my messages were all too often straight as a gun barrel theologically, but just as cold and empty. It’s no wonder that while they might have impressed people, they hadn’t impacted people.
I’ve increasingly come to see that as important as “head filters” are, the “heart filters” are even more important. When they are in place, the Holy Spirit can move in powerful ways.
The next time you have the privilege to preach or teach, let me offer you a suggestion. Take some time to process Francis Chan’s questions. Then see if what you have to say and how you say it might come out differently. And with that, your message truly be transformational.
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