Delivering Your Message

You want every eye watching and every ear listening. You want the attention of your people on the message you are delivering through the power of the Holy Spirit. All you need to do now is get out of the way and the way you do that is through an intentional delivery. The research is complete. The outline is filled in. The writing is finished. And you’ve practiced your sermon. Your delivery is the final stage of your sermon and everything from your cadence, to your appearance, to your gestures goes into a strong delivery. 

In this episode of Hello Church! Podcast we talk through simple but powerful delivery details to help you optimize the other aspects of communication that have nothing to do with your words. 

The message you are preaching has eternal significance and the last thing you want to do is distract from the work of the Holy Spirit.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome to Hello Church! Podcast
1:22 Practice Delivering the Sermon
4:25 Bring Your Message Back to Your Big Idea
5:52 Use the Power of Restatement
6:54 Use Your Sermon Outline Based Notes When Preaching
9:04 Body Language & Nonverbal Communication
10:24 When Preaching, Make Sure You Have Ample Lighting
11:33 Use Vocal Expression
13:06 Critique or Edit Your Message Before You Preach
15:51 Share Your Preaching Tips With Us
16:14 Talking About Easter Sunday

Full Transcript

Justin Trapp:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Hello Church! Podcast. My name is Justin Trapp.

Wade Bearden:

And I’m Wade Bearden. And we’re in the middle of season two of Hello Church!. We’re talking about the sermon. And Justin, this is episode nine of season two. We’ve talked about the big idea. We’ve talked about sermon outlines, we’ve talked about the conclusion, we’ve talked about the introduction, and today we’re going to talk about delivery. You actually being on stage. The writing is done. Now it’s the delivery aspect.

Justin Trapp:

Who is it that said, “Sometimes you can ruin a good sermon by talking?”

Wade Bearden:

By talking.

Justin Trapp:

That’s what we talking about today.

Wade Bearden:

Sometimes you can just get on stage and not say anything. You know what I mean?

Justin Trapp:

And say everything.

Wade Bearden:

And say everything.

Justin Trapp:

But nothing at all.

Wade Bearden:

We want to hear from you, our listeners. What episode in this season has been the most beneficial to you? Which one of you enjoyed the most or you found the most helpful or possibly has helped you directly, tangibly in your sermon prep? Let us know. You can tweet us. You can use the hashtag Hello Church pod. You can comment on YouTube. You can also follow us on Instagram Hello Church pod. But do that, let us know. We would love to hear your thoughts on this season, season two of Hello Church!.

Justin Trapp:

Yeah, so let’s talk about the delivery of the sermon. And I think this is a tough part about sermons. The tough part is delivering, presenting, communicating biblical principles, God’s written word, the gospel, the good news, presenting content to a diverse room, whether the room has 40 people or 4,000 people, whatever the case may be, there will be people from all different people groups, age groups, social status, marriage status, parental status. It could be four kids all under seven or empty nesters. You’ve got to present the gospel, the good news to all of these types of people and everybody in between. And I think that is so challenging.

Wade Bearden:

Yeah. And you also don’t want to go viral for saying something wrong.

Justin Trapp:

The wrong reasons. Right.

Wade Bearden:

Right. Right. And so the delivery is so important, and we’ve all seen it happen before. Great content stymied by bad delivery. So we’re going to walk through a couple of principles, some additional points for pastors. And I think for me, if I’m thinking of what I feel like is the most important part of delivery, it’s actually not even on the stage, it’s what I do beforehand and its practice. You do not pastors, you do not want to practice your delivery the first time you preach it in front of your congregation. You need to make sure you practice beforehand. And if you’re not preaching as often, you might even have to practice it a number of times in front of the mirror before that Sunday, just because it’s easy to get rusty.

Justin Trapp:

Yeah. Who was it that said, “You always need to be prepared to preach a good sermon?” I have actually have a quote within a quote. Right. So Mark Twain said, “Usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” And I think the same is true for preaching. In order to have something that’s cohesive and clear, you really need to be well-prepared, but also well practice. Tony Robinson once said, he said, “It is what you practice in private that you’ll be rewarded for in public.” And of course your reward as a pastor, as a communicators, to see people’s lives impacted by the Lord, but using your words from a stage or a podium. And that is the reward. But it really starts with what you do in private and practice.

Wade Bearden:

And so pastors, I would say maybe in front of a mirror or at the very least, just run through your entire message. And I always tell people to go through the whole thing because even just reading the Bible passage will help you become familiar with what you’re wanting to say so that when you’re up on stage, it’s not the first time that you’ve read that passage out loud. So do everything. So that’s our first point. You need to practice. And the second point when you deliver your message is you want to continually bring it back to your big idea. You want to make sure that when people leave the service, instead of them saying, oh, what was that about? Well, they talked about this. And then you want them to say, oh, I remember the main topic. They might not be able to recite your quote, unquote big idea that you put down in your notes, but they should know what you were talking about and what you were saying about what you were talking about.

Justin Trapp:

I remember growing up, our pastor would get up and he was a sweet man, love the Lord. A very generous man. His main point of the sermon was always at the beginning, and he would tell you the title of my sermon is, and it was this big curtain reveal, right, and the crowd oohed and awe, but I don’t remember a lot of reemphasis of that main idea, right, beyond the big reveal at the beginning. And I love what Winston Churchill said. He’s talking about really messaging, and he was such a great communicator, especially in historic times. He said, “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver, hit the point once, then come back and hit it again, then hit it a third time. A tremendous whack.” Great. Winston Churchill once said.

Wade Bearden:

No, no. And I think that’s so important. And one thing I would tell pastors too, when you’re thinking about your big idea is to use the power of restatement. So you want to say your big idea, but find different ways to say it so that throughout your message you’re rephrasing it, you’re boiling it down, and you’re handing it pre-packaged to your people. And I like to do this too. If I’m reading a passage and I’m explaining thought by thought, the passage, I like to just almost pause and say, if I had to sum this up, or if we had to just kind of stop and describe what Paul’s saying in one sentence or what Jesus says in one sentence, it is this. And so what that does is it brings clarity to everything that you’ve talked about before. So you’ve just kind of gone through a lot of information, but you’re saying, okay, all of that helps me to understand this big idea. So make sure you say it and then use the power of restatement. Being able to say the same thing in different ways.

Justin Trapp:

Wait, I have a question for you, and this is sort of moving on to the next part of the talk here, conversation is there a rule? Should pastors use notes, not use notes?

Wade Bearden:

Yeah.

Justin Trapp:

Do you use notes?

Wade Bearden:

So a couple different types of notes. So there’s no notes, manuscript, which is just kind of word for word. And then there’s sort of a paired down version of the manuscript, maybe bare bones or outline based notes. I always use outline based notes because if I’m trying to read a message verbatim, it just doesn’t come across well for me. There are some pastors and some of you listening to this who can do that. You can have a manuscript and you can read it or at least read sections of it at a time. And it turns out great. For me, I can’t do that. And here’s what I tell pastors, if you are using the manuscript version and you’re struggling, try something different. I even know pastors who will manuscript their messages and then they’ll hide like 80% of it. They’ll go through it a few times, hide 80% of it, and only come up to the stage with their bare bones down.

Justin Trapp:

But you can do that in seminary, by the way. You can hide, you can create a bunch of content and then say, oh, you know what? I needed that, but for preaching, let’s hide that. And so when you go into podium mode, it just shows that 20%. I manuscript out, but I do exactly what you just said. I manuscript out because I want to be very intentional about what I want to say specifically, and then I practice it and I rehearse it. But when I actually get on stage, in the past, I’ve used a very abbreviated outline system, or now I use seminary, which is abbreviated as well, because I’ve internalized that content. I’ve practiced, I’ve rehearsed how I want this particular illustration to end, how I want this transition statement to feel, or the pacing of it, so to speak. I rehearse that. Once I rehearse that, then it’s like, okay, I know where I’m going when I get to this section so.

Wade Bearden:

I think that word internalize is perfect. Internalize your notes so you can look up and connect with people. Okay, so the next point is think about body language and non-verbal communication. So many of you, when you think about communication and preaching a message, you think about body language, non-verbal communication, you think about your pitch, you think about pauses. Consider all of that together because there’s a difference between reading something in a monotone voice and actually preaching. Here are a couple things.

So watch your gestures, what you do with your hands. I know for me, sometimes when I’m preaching I move too fast, especially if I’m nervous. So I’ll just be kind of moving around and just maybe watch a video of yourself and just see what type of gestures you’re using, if you’re telling a story. I also like to think of the stage as a set on a play. So if you’re telling a story and you’re saying, Hey, I caught this touchdown pass here, well then if you’re motioning as a football quarterback, you’ll move to the other side where you didn’t catch the catch. So kind of visualize all of that as you’re telling stories and as you’re using your hands so that you’re not distracting. You always with your gestures, you always want to add to what you’re saying instead of pulling away.

Justin Trapp:

One of the things, it’s not even in our notes, Wade, but I just remember while you were talking, one of the things I think is helpful in helping people receive the message is having good lighting wherever you’re preaching.

Wade Bearden:

Oh, yeah.

Justin Trapp:

Because there’s a statement, a pastor I worked for my first full-time seminar job. He said, “People understand what they hear, but they believe what they see.” And if there’s shadows across your face while you’re trying to present the gospel and they can’t see your face clearly, you may have all the right words, right, but if they can’t see the lights in your eyes, then it’s just not going to be as strong of an impact. And so maybe just take a look. Go have someone stand on stage at your church and turn on what your preaching lights or whatever lights you use and have them walk where you would walk and just look at the light on their face and make sure that you have ample lighting when you’re trying to present the gospel. And I know that’s not really, that has anything to do with you memorizing or practicing or rehearsing. But it could make the difference between someone understanding, but more so believing.

Wade Bearden:

Yeah. And I’ve heard other people say, think of your voice too, like a rollercoaster. If there’s a rollercoaster you’re riding and it’s just kind of going straight, it’s kind of boring. Right. You want the ups and you want the downs. So don’t be yelling the whole time. Don’t be whispering or monotone the whole time.

Justin Trapp:

Can you imagine that? What’s that guy? Is he the Aflac guy, Gilbert Gottfried? That,

Wade Bearden:

Yeah.

Justin Trapp:

Can you imagine a sermon from someone that’s yelling all the time?

Wade Bearden:

Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Trapp:

Or a sermon from Ben Stein who’s monotone all the time. You’ve got, a rollercoaster is a good analogy. I like that.

Wade Bearden:

Yeah. And two, if you put an emphasis on everything by yelling, you put an emphasis really on nothing.

Justin Trapp:

Yeah.

Wade Bearden:

So think of your pitch, your punch when you’re going to go loud, think of pauses, how can you include pauses. For laughter, for reflection, keep those things in mind as you’re talking through your message.

Justin Trapp:

Well, it also goes back to, I said at the beginning, sometimes you can ruin a good sermon by talking. When I think where I heard that the communicator was actually trying to make the point, sometimes you do need to pause and you do need to let your last statement settle in, and you need to let them have a moment to think about that because,

Wade Bearden:

No, see look, you’re bringing it down right here.

Justin Trapp:

Yeah.

Wade Bearden:

You’re doing it right now.

Justin Trapp:

Yeah, totally. Intentionally. Right.

Wade Bearden:

And make sure too and then also cadence. How fast or how slow you speak, you need to ask people, get feedback on that. And then the last point that we would offer to you is critique before you preach. So when you are thinking through your message, why not critique it or study it hard or look at it, examine it before you go out there. If you’re rushing and you’re finishing your message 10 minutes before you get on stage, well then you haven’t really had time to think deeply about what you’re saying, what you need to cut, what you need to clarify and what you need to expound upon. So think through your message, practice it, and then critique it or edit it before you preach. You wouldn’t write a book and throw the first draft online or publish the first draft. No. You want to edit it and work through it, refine it. Same thing with your message.

Justin Trapp:

Well, I think too, Wade, as it relates to preaching self-awareness, we just need to have a good healthy dose, excuse me, of self-awareness. If you’re not aware of the opportunities for improvement, then you’re never going to improve. And I think one of the toughest things to do is to watch a video of yourself preaching. I got to be honest I’ll watch back our podcast episodes and it’s painful because sometimes I’ll stutter or I’ll say um or I’ll say you know, or I’ll fumble on my words like I did a few moments ago. If I don’t watch those videos, I won’t see the opportunities I have to improve as a communicator.

And I think as preachers, if we allow ourselves to get into this malaise where we preach and our people love us, and so God impacted their hearts through our words and through the messages, and we take their pats on the back as sort of the determination, or the what am I trying to say? The grade on how we did as a communicator, then I think we’ve done ourselves a disservice and we’ve done the people in our congregation, the hears of God’s word of the good news a disservice as well. And so just be honest with yourself.

If you need to invite others and you say, you know what? I don’t have a lot of self-awareness, Justin, I need some help. Invite maybe a trusted a spouse or a staff member to say, Hey, can you listen to this for the next 15 to 20 minutes? Give me your thoughts. Is it connecting? Is it making sense? Is my rhythm okay? Are my dynamics good? And give me some real good feedback. Again, this is a safe space. I’m not asking you to tell me the sermon is great. I’m willing to improve as a communicator of the gospel so.

Wade Bearden:

Yeah, yeah, it’s so important. Hey, let us know some tips that you have for delivery. Like I mentioned before, you can comment on our YouTube video, if you’re watching this on YouTube. You can Instagram us or DM us or comment on our Instagram account. It’s Hello Church Pod. Or you can use a hashtag Hello Church pod. We’d love to hear from you. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube and on Spotify. And we’re continuing our series, our season through the sermon, and we’re actually going to do something a little bit different. I think this is going to be exciting. We’re going to be talking about Easter Sunday, so we’re going to take a lot of things we’ve been learning and kind of push it through that lens. Crafting a good Easter Sunday message. That’s it for this week, of Hello Church! pod. And we’ll see you later.