For the Love of Preaching: Make it playful work!
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Multiple choice: Which stage of sermon prep do you find the most fun?
Reading the text
Exegesis
Deciding on your message
Composition (manuscript, notes, etc.)
The vast majority of preachers I serve would answer with #2, exegesis.
So would I.
In fact, many find exegesis so much fun they don’t know when to quit!
We love the thrill of the hunt!
Forming a question
Following the clues for an answer through biblical footnotes
Asking more questions
Heading to commentaries
And then experiencing that frisson of excitement with every revelation.
It’s addictive in the best possible way because we’re learning, growing, and developing our knowledge, our faith, and relationship with God, and we can’t wait to go back for more!
That’s true as long as we’re actually learning. As long as there’s something new under the sun.
It’s the “new” aspect that’s actually at the root of why we enjoy exegesis.
Every time we discover something new, our brains push out a little dopamine and we feel that rush of satisfaction.
However, when we run out of “new” because we’ve read the same Scripture verses, footnotes and commentaries over and over, well, uh-oh.
When we lose the novelty, sermon prep isn’t as much fun.
And if sermon prep isn’t as much fun, it’s more work than play.
If it’s more work than play, it’s easy to put it off and procrastinate until it’s Saturday night and we’re crabby and desperate for something to say.
The secret to always enjoying sermon prep? Make sure there’s always something new for you!
Exegesis isn’t the only place you can learn something new in sermon prep.
You can introduce novelty into any step.
Approach the text in new ways
There are many ways to approach the text in new and novel ways.
Fan Fiction
To see the text afresh, introduce novelty by rewriting it as a piece of “fan fiction:” mix elements together that “shouldn’t” go together.
Mix people, eras, or locations
For instance, take the Israelites crossing the desert for forty years.
Rewrite their journey if it were placed into the current day crossing the Sinai Desert. What would the news coverage be? Would the world be interested? Would they care? How might this speak to our care for contemporary refugees?
Swell the ranks of those by adding your congregation to those making that 40-year trek; how would your folks respond to the challenges? Would your parishioners and the Hebrews mix together, or would everyone set up an “us” and “them” situation? What would the Hebrews think of our modern conveniences, like cell phones?
What complaints might your parishioners lodge against Moses’s leadership? Against God? How would Moses and God respond to them?
“how-to” manual
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson
You know this genre of “how-to” books: the ones that offer useful (and often overly simplistic) examples intended to better our lives by giving us blueprints to shed our bad habits and adopt new ones?
The bible is no exception.
Seen through the lens of how-to books, biblical characters can show us what to do—and what not to do. And spending some time thinking about the books they might write or inspire can lend new eyes to a familiar text.
From tongue-in-cheek prescriptions to the serious business of normalizing the lows of human behavior and the heights of God’s grace, drafting a how-to manual moves the story from “then” to “now” and from “them” to “us.”
Use this exercise for your personal musings to see the text in new ways. You may even incorporate your “how tos” in your sermon.
For example, How to Love Your Enemies in Three Easy Steps by Jesus the Christ:
Step One: See them for who they are.
Step Two: Pray for them as they are.
Step Three: Forgive them for who they are not.
Other possible how-to books:
How to Lead a Nation in the Right Direction While Leading Your Family in the Wrong One, by David, King of Israel
How to Talk God Off the Ceiling: A Case Study of Abraham, God, and the People of Sodom
Explore new biblical resources
Seeing perspectives beyond the traditional viewpoint or our own experience reinvigorates our love of Scripture and learning.
Just one new book or one new voice can open worlds of ideas.
learn from underrepresented voices to appreciate a fuller, truer range of human experience
Not sure where to start? The Belmont Library Guide is a treasure!
Under “Religion,” you can head to their “Underrepresented Voices” page where you’ll find categories in Feminist, BIPOC, Queer, and International theology.
There’s also a “diversity and inclusion” page for religion.
Learn from Social-science Commentaries to enter “the room where it happened”
When we read in a book that a character “drank a Coke,” we don’t wonder what that is. We know it’s a sweet, dark brown, carbonated beverage, usually served cold in a can or bottle.
The author doesn’t need to describe it to us—so they don’t.
Social-Science Commentaries unpack the biblical “Cokes”: those things the authors didn’t need to waste valuable papyrus describing because everyone at the time knew what they meant.
But we’re not “at the time,” so we could use those descriptions.
Social-science commentators get us as close to being in the room where it happened as we are gonna get.
For example, understanding the critical nature of the honor/shame societies that motivate nearly every action of every biblical character gives context to:
James and John’s desire to rain fire down on the Samaritans who denied them hospitality (Luke 9:54)
the challenge-riposte public arguments between Jesus and the religious authorities
why Jesus so often tells people not to spread the word about his ministry.
I recommend the Social-Science Commentaries by Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, which are sure to surprise, delight, and nearly bruise your forehead from all the “face palm” moments of enlightenment.
Play with your sermon composition
You can also create simple but fun challenges for sermon compositions
adD rich imagery like a children’s book author
Imagery in sermons helps listeners experience the message. Sensory language draws people closer to the story so they relate, connect, and keep listening.
Instead of saying, “Imagine how thirsty Jesus was as he approached the woman at the well,” you might experiment with ways to show how thirsty he was: “Jesus’s throat felt as brown and grainy as the road he walked on as he approached the solitary woman lowering her bucket in the well.”
Children’s authors are masterful in their use of imagery. On this educator’s website, “Writing with Imagery,” portions of three children’s books are shown and read aloud to illustrate how the author incorporated imagery.
If you prefer more grown up material, here’s a Goodreads’ list of recommendations of novels with the best use of imagery.
Experiment with the Sermon’s Structure
Another challenge might be to apply a simple sermon outline like this one, then systematically rotate the order each component appears in the sermon each week for a new structure each time.
Describe the inciting incident (from the text or in our world)
Describe the real issue that the incident reveals
Describe God’s intervention or hopes as revealed in the text
So what? How does this matter to us today?
We all have a lifetime of learning ahead of us to improve our preaching craft, so make it fun!