Sermons can always be better, that is, more effective. Improvement does not happen by accident, but by the deliberate process of understanding key elements of sermon effectiveness and constantly evaluating one’s performance based on these criteria.

Three key elements, or criteria, are suggested by the ancient writer Plutarch’s likening of public speaking to the successful exercise of playing catch (On Listening, 3). One, something worthwhile is thrown, or related (i.e., the content). Two, what is thrown must be aimed with proper trajectory (i.e., delivery). Finally, what is aimed and thrown must be caught (i.e., the receptivity of the audience).

The effectiveness of a sermon can thus be surmised by answering the question: How well are the preacher and hearers playing catch with the Word of God? We will consider the three elements above in reverse order to arrive at an answer in a constructive way.

Evaluation One: Audience Receptivity

While the preacher cannot control how the hearers will receive the sermon, he must be acutely responsive to the audience’s receptivity to have any hope of effectiveness. To small children, you lob a softer ball underhand at close range. To older children, you graduate to faster velocity a little farther away. To mature adults, you hurl a hardball at different angles to challenge their abilities.

No matter how logically constructed and theologically sound, or how perfectly enunciated with appropriate gestures, if the hearers cannot, or are not prepared to, receive the sermon, then positive results will be few. After all, the hearers’ progress in the Kingdom of God is the ultimate intended result of any sermon!

All master orators down through the ages have taken the state of the audience as first concern. Are the hearers older, younger, or a mixed crowd? Are they sympathetic, hostile, or apathetic to the speaker and/or message? Have they attentively prepared to listen through prayer and the reading of Scripture and the Fathers, or have they arrived at Liturgy by habit after a long night of partying, drinking, or worse? The Roman Cicero states that the first task of an effective speaker is to prepare the mind of the hearers to receive his words, either by waking them up, putting them at ease, or engaging them as persons in need of what he’s giving, adjusting the introduction to the state of the hearers.

The careful preacher will evaluate his sermons based on audience receptivity before, during, and after the actual delivery of the sermon. Experience teaches the Parish Priest who the recipients are from week to week, their intellectual abilities, their emotional perceptions, their pet peeves, and their willingness to listen. Preachers have to adjust their sermon(s) on the spot based on whether people are sleeping in the pew, yawning, fidgeting, nodding in agreement, sitting meditatively, gazing in rapt attention, etc. If the preacher doesn’t care about the audience and develops no real-time visible or oral empathy with the hearers, then the people will tune him out. All these factors must be the focus of reflection when evaluating sermons for effectiveness, especially when preparing for the next encounter.

Evaluation Two: Preacher Delivery

The sermon is a multi-sensory, interactive event involving sight, sound, touch, memory, and emotional and intellectual awareness. The delivery of an effective sermon takes advantage of all these means. Consider the Orthodox platform of the sermon: spoken by a vested clergyman, surrounded by icons, candles, and incense smoke, and encased in hymns, prayers, and the readings from Holy Scripture. The sermon is delivered in an atmosphere of the holiness of the age to come as exemplified by the assembly of the Body of Christ in the Orthodox Temple.

Cognizant of the physical setting (whatever it is), the sermon must still be delivered, and the primary delivery system is the preacher. Certain aspects of delivery are absolutely essential: words must be pronounced clearly and audibly with understandable grammar, and the speaker preferably needs to see, and be seen by, those listening – this enables eye contact and gestures to be used. Preaching in a foreign language (including unfamiliar theological jargon), whispering, not projecting in consideration of the space (is there a sound system?), and reading the sermon in a monotone represent extremes to be avoided at all costs.

From an effectiveness perspective, it is better to preach extemporaneously while looking the hearers in the eye, even if somewhat less prepared, than to read a sermon word-for-word thus having, basically, no interaction with anyone else present. The preacher needs to demonstrate confidence with the subject matter, honesty of conviction, and care for those listening. These are accomplished during a sermon by relating conversationally with people, sometimes asking questions, raising and lowering the voice for emphasis, and utilizing movements of gesture and changing location to draw attention to salient points.

The delivery of the sermon needs to be natural, not forced. So the preacher must resist all temptations to trivialize the opportunity, for instance, by excessive joke-telling or bizarre actions. Sermons are not occasions for entertainment and histrionics lest the message be overshadowed by the performance and a cult of personality develop. Likewise, preachers learn to overcome nervousness to be effective. Refer to a note card to remember key ideas! The majority of people there to hear are there because they want to learn and be fed by their spiritual father placed there to feed them. A genuine pastoral relationship between Priest and Parish generates ease when preaching.

Evaluation Three: Content

“Every teacher, in order to edify all in the one virtue of charity, must touch the hearts of his hearers by using one and the same doctrine, but not giving to all one and the same exhortation” (St. Gregory the Great; Pastoral Care III, Prologue).

The preacher throws, and the hearer catches. What is being thrown? – charity (i.e., love) with doctrine in the form of exhortation suited to the hearers. To state things a different way, content contains the so what (love), the what (doctrine), and the how (form of exhortation).

Public speaking transfers ideas using an oral medium, and the medium (the how) becomes part of the message. An understanding of oral quality leads to more effective strategies of how the sermon is crafted. The preacher can implant ideas in the memory by the use of repetition of key words and phrases, building on them during the course of the sermon in a spiral pattern of presentation, introduction of a new idea, and return to a previous notion now with additional implications. Concepts which evoke concrete images, word pictures, and illustrations from common life are superior to abstract vocables (cf. the parables of Christ). Certain words and gestures (e.g., a smile, or frown) convey emotion, compassion, or haughtiness regardless of intent, so they must be placed deliberately within the framework of the discourse, or not used at all.

The sermon provides the crucial teachable moment in the life of a parish. The people are “captive” for 15 to 20 minutes, present to be edified. They need to learn, and the preacher is the teacher of what they need to know for life and salvation. Sermons usually employ two methods of instruction, the expository and the topical. An expository sermon explains one of the Scripture readings of the day verse by verse, or unit by unit, weaving doctrinal themes from and into the outline of the text itself. Topical preaching expounds a chosen theme by arranging it into related points connected to the three chief doctrines of the Church: the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Church, the Body of Christ. Preaching in the Orthodox Church always has a liturgical context, so references to the hymns, prayers, and actions of the Church services unite every sermon to its ongoing matrix of truth and knowledge.

Effective preaching progresses from week to week in planned series drawing the audience deeper and deeper into the mysteries of God and the Church. The preacher has the task of imparting not just the rudiments of the Faith – often done with a simplistic, patronizing, and platitudinous tone – but the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Ongoing personal theological study and weekly conversations with parish members concerning doctrinal topics keep the what of sermons fresh and relevant.

Finally and ultimately, the so what of preaching drives the what and how, shaping the sermon from being a dry lecture or oratorical show into an edifying, life-changing, transformative event. Does what is heard enable the hearer to better love God and their neighbor? Does what is heard help the hearer lead a genuine Christian life of faith, hope, and love amid the trials and temptations of this world? Ultimately, truly effective preaching moves the hearer away from a sentimental, legal, or intellectual understanding of their religion toward an all-pervasive experience of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. Toward this end, effective preaching doesn’t just talk about the desired spiritual goal; sermon content actually provides the tools for attaining it: how to give, how to fast, how to pray, how to overcome passions and sins, how to defend the Faith, etc.

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Anyone who wants to grow in a discipline must seek evaluation. Preachers should always seek critique to become more effective in their craft. They need to engage in self-criticism (automatic feedback and self-evaluation). The preacher should ask his hearers what they heard and what they think it means, and not just the people who say, “Good sermon, Pastor.” Rather, ask in return, “What was good about it?” – you may be surprised what they caught with their ears. Particularly helpful are the comments of other preachers. Hopefully with these three things in mind – content, delivery, and receptivity, you can begin to evaluate your own efforts in homiletics in a structured way and become a more effective preacher.

The Rev. Jonathan H. Cholcher is a priest of the Orthodox Church in America.He is pastor of the St. John the Baptist Church in Warren, OH, and is the former Headmaster of the St. Nicholas Orthodox Classical School in Mogadore, OH, the first of the Orthodox Christian Schools of Northeast Ohio.

© 2009, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved.

Orthodox preaching needs to be good preaching. To be good, Orthodox preaching must not only deliver good content, but it must strive to make the hearers good. Therefore, good Orthodox preaching is the Gospel (lit., good news) proclaimed and lived.

Four characteristics mark good Orthodox preaching:

1. Christ crucified and risen;
2. the language, or rationale, of Scripture;
3. plain discourse; and
4. attention to the experience of salvation through the Gospel.

All Orthodox preachers exhibit these traits beginning with Christ Jesus, the apostles, and the prophets. They only preach what they themselves have come to know.

First, Orthodox preaching is the Word, the Logos incarnate Who was crucified and raised to redeem the world from sin, death, and the power of the devil. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:1-2). Our Lord instructed after the Resurrection: “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47).

The Gospel encompasses the entire plan of salvation from creation to Second Coming as it hinges on the Cross, Burial, and Resurrection. The preaching of Christ comprises the narrow gate to God’s Kingdom, composed from the Creed, the prayers of the Divine Liturgy, and the Church’s great festal hymns. So Orthodox preaching is doctrinal preaching, the revelation of the saving Mystery of Christ (cf. 1 Tim. 3:16).

Second, good Orthodox preaching always weaves a tapestry from the language of Scripture. Read the Old Testament prophets, the apostles, and the words of Christ Himself – always alluding to the holy words spoken before. More than that, though, good preaching thinks Scripturally, not just verbally quoting the Scripture, but with the rationale of the Holy Spirit.

Preaching has to make sense. Words have to match reality, hence, the constant use of Scripture which is an unfailing guide to the Truth of God and man. The preacher must know the Scriptures and be prepared to apply their truths in a proper, logical way.

Third, the proclamation of the Gospel should take place with plain discourse. Good preachers get to the point. Fancy expressions and circuitous reasoning transform preaching into a performance, either for entertainment or a demonstration of the orator’s skill; however, neither serve the Gospel well. Of course, Christ taught in parables and used expressions not always, or easily, understood by those who heard Him (cf. Matt. 13:11-13). But Jesus’ language was plain. People knew what He was talking about even if they didn’t always understand. Plain discourse conveys the message that the hearer should understand, and if they don’t, then they should pursue the meaning further.

Thus good preaching connects the Gospel in the language of Scripture to the everyday life of the hearer and addresses the hearer to see his, or her, life in a different way, God’s way. It is a message “for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). In order to warn, encourage, educate, and edify, Orthodox preaching will state the unequivocal truth with courage, with love, and with certainty in the power of the Gospel by the working of the Holy Spirit.

Fourth, and this is the core of the Orthodox Tradition, good preaching focuses attention on the experience of salvation through the Gospel. “And with many other words [Peter] testified and exhorted them, saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation’” (Acts 2:40). Does the sermon draw the hearer to purification from passions, to illumination in the knowledge of Christ, and to glorification in the grace of the Holy Spirit? Then, it is good preaching: “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18).

There are no human guarantees with preaching. People refused to listen to Christ. The most carefully constructed sermon can still fall on deaf ears. Sometimes the most poorly delivered sermon surprisingly produces the best results.

Precisely here ring the words of the Word, The Preacher: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). Orthodox preaching, ultimately, is all about the results. It expects a change, a transformation, in the hearer as with the speaker. Every good sermon provides not only the who, what, and when of salvation, but also the how(!), leading the recipient to self-examination and realization to utilize the vast array of resources for personal salvation (e.g., the mysteries, services, disciplines, and saints of the Church).

Preaching is a exhortation to follow Christ in His Body, the Church, toward the only life worth living.

Fr. Jonathan Cholcher is the pastor of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in Warren, OH.

© 2009, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved.