Every church wants a great preacher. So much so that congregants often ask their pastors to “grow in their preaching.” Preaching, the microphone and microscope of ministry, is the area where pastors get the most feedback. However, it’s not exactly clear what “great” preaching is and how one can “grow” in this area.
Dynamics of Preaching
Crafting impactful sermons requires balancing complexity with focus and beauty. Pastors weave together theology, exegesis, history, and cultural insights to make ancient texts relevant. They connect the “fallen condition focus” (see “Christ-Centered Preaching” by Bryan Chapell) to current issues, and then distill all this research into a clear, scripturally faithful, and gospel-focused sermon.
Most pastors today preach for approximately 35 minutes, which doesn’t give time to delve extensively into every facet of a text. Pastors must be selective when crafting sermons that are understandable, memorable, applicable – and short.
Emphasis on short. The capacity to listen is less than half what it was before the days of technological media. In 1841, President William Henry Harrison’s inaugural speech was 8,460 words. Since the dawn of the 21st century, President Joe Biden’s inaugural speech is the longest on record at 2,551 words. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” has 29,551 words; the average two-hour movie has about 9,000.
Sermons are not excluded from this trend, which means that hearers have the opportunity to grow in listening just as pastors do in preaching.
Communication Differences
When search committee members say they want a “good preacher,” they usually start by naming preachers they like and dislike, what their last pastor lacked in preaching skills, and what they want in the next pastor. Yet, they universally struggle to define what specific (technical) elements make “good preaching.”
Part of the challenge lies in the complexities of sermonic elements mentioned above. A larger part lies in our unique approaches to communication. Social scientists have identified two primary sources of information processing: left brain and right brain. These cognitive functions have two typical expressions: direct and indirect. Personality assessments categorize these dichotomies in a variety of ways:
- Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Sensing versus Intuition
- The RightPath: Concrete versus Abstract
- Highlands Battery: Spatial Relations Visualization, High or Low
- DISC Test & Birkman: Direct versus Indirect
The Gospel writers’ approaches reveal these differences. Luke is meticulous in detail and chronology (Sensing), including specifics that may seem extraneous to the text. On the other hand, what John lacks in specificity he makes up for in artistry, clustering historical narratives according to themes (Intuition) to portray explicit motifs, like the “I am” statements of Christ.
Both accounts are factual, historical, and divinely inspired. Luke’s focus is literalism, while John’s is symbolism. Where the synoptic Gospels emphasize the nature of discipleship as a response, John emphasizes belief. Noting these differences, John Calvin wrote that while all the Gospels “had the same object in view, to point out Christ, the three former exhibit his body, if we may be permitted to use the expression, but John exhibits his soul.”
Preachers also fit into these categories. J. Gresham Machen preached deeply theological, logically-structured sermons, often using no illustrative material at all. Charles Spurgeon loaded his sermons with stories, analogies, and metaphors drawn from fields of industry, business, nature, farming, literature, nautical science, and history. We need both kinds of communicators, though most of us remain naturally drawn to one over the other.
Case Study: John 3:16
For a quick look at communication differences in preaching, let’s compare sermons on John 3:16 from six PCA pastors: Bryan Chapell, Kevin DeYoung, Ligon Duncan, Tim Keller, Lloyd Kim, and Thurman Williams. While preached in different contexts with different constraints – Kim preached at a missions conference with rigid time strictures, and Williams preached with an interpreter – these sermons provide some basis for comparing and contrasting the diversity in excellent preaching. (These numbers are close approximations, with potential variation due to software analysis.)
| Sermon Length
(in minutes) |
Word Count
(total) |
Different Words
Used (lexicon) |
Words Used Once (hapex legomenon) | |
| Bryan Chapell | 40:08 | 5,730 | 957 | 455 |
| Kevin DeYoung | 50:22 | 7,049 | 1,156 | 568 |
| Ligon Duncan | 44:12* | 5,154 | 1,026 | 549 |
| Tim Keller | 41:44 | 7,413 | 1,157 | 577 |
| Lloyd Kim | 19:56 | 2,550 | 706 | 426 |
| Thurman Williams** | 40:20 | 3,703 | 574 | 265 |
* Audio unavailable; the word count is an estimate based on the average length of three other sermons.
**This sermon was preached with an interpreter.
The sermons range from 20 to 50 minutes, contain between 2,550 and 7,049 words, and utilize lexicons from 574 to 1,157 words. Notice that Keller spoke much faster than Chapell to get in 1,600 more words in just 96 additional seconds. Also, DeYoung, Duncan, and Keller had broader lexicons than Chapell, Kim, and Williams. Chapell presumably does this to illustrate his concept of “expositional rain,” where a preacher intentionally repeats key terminology to help the audience remember it. Chapell literally preaches what he teaches.
Along with sermon length, repeated terminology ranged widely from one sermon to the next. Here are some of the most repeated words:
| Bryan Chapell | Kevin DeYoung | Ligon Duncan | Tim Keller | Thruman
Williams |
Lloyd Kim |
| World (31) | Faith (128) | Eternal (85) | Wrath/Wrathful (44) | Love (81) | World (49) |
| Great (19) | Believe (51) | Everlasting (17) | Understand (26) | World (39) | Love (26) |
| Believe (18) | Christian (30) | Teaching (16) | Believe (25) | Light (32) | Son (18) |
| Sin (16) | Gospel (16) | Glory (16) | Sin (25) | Condemn (10) | Mission (14) |
| Child (14) | Receiving (13) | Believe (15) | Cross (20) | Darkness (10) | Church (9) |
Finally, here are some of the most unique words used only once by a preacher—hapex legomenon—and not used by the other preachers:
| Bryan Chapell | Kevin DeYoung | Ligon Duncan | Tim Keller | Thurman Williams | Lloyd Kim |
| Antelope | Empire | Billy Joel | Airbrushed | Advocate | Assyrians |
| Cigarette | Forest Gump | Chronologically | C.S. Lewis | Angel | Chivalry |
| Diagnosis | Invented | Diminution | Hinduism | Basket | Funeral |
| Gambia | Monster | Herman Witsius | Orphan | Lonely | Korea |
| Lightning | Suicide | Implanted | Xenophobia | Prison | Martyr |
Comparing these lists, it is apparent that John 3:16 generates sermons that vary in length, grammatical composition, lexicography, complexity, explanation, illustrative material, and contextual application. All are expository, theologically accurate, exegetically sound, Christ-centered, true to the Reformed tradition—and substantially different from the others.
I see these sermons as examples of good preaching by gifted orators. I know people who think otherwise, illustrating my main point: attempts to define “good preaching” eventually extend beyond objective metrics to include personal preference for a specific communication style.
Homiletic Feedback
We must recognize how our personal preferences influence our judgment of a pastor’s preaching. Good preaching takes many forms, and we benefit from that diversity. During my doctoral research on churches without a senior pastor, I found that congregations with a variety of guest preachers who use diverse communication styles had the smoothest transitions to their new pastor.
Communication style is a significant factor when choosing a church, but I do not think we should change churches simply because of a change in this style. Paul has some stern words to say to the Corinthian church for that type of preferentialism (1 Corinthians 3:4–9).
Acknowledging natural communication differences and preferences should lead us to appreciation. As our appreciation grows, so does our capacity to express gratitude and encouragement. Encouragement is what all pastors need but many do not get.
The pastorate is one of a few vocations in which 90% of evaluation and feedback is based on 10% of performance: the sermon. Most pastors want to grow in their preaching but often lack the time and resources.
Congregations can do something about that; they can invest in him. The Charles Simeon Trust hosts regular homiletic workshops, and Covenant Theological Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry program recently launched its Compelling Preaching Cohort. Your church could support your pastor (both financially and prayerfully) in pursuing this kind of ongoing training.
Next Sunday
Here are four ways congregants can pray as they reflect on last Sunday’s sermon and prepare for next week’s sermon.
- Lord, prepare my heart to receive the preached word (Ephesians 1:15–21).
- Lord, speak through the preparation of my pastor (Ephesians 6:18–19).
- Lord, encourage my pastor in all aspects of his ministerial vocation (Ephesians 4:29).
- Lord, build your church through the worship of your people.(Ephesians 4:11–16).
Joel Hathaway works at Covenant Theological Seminary as the director of alumni and career services and director of the doctor of ministry program. He is the author of “Finding a Pastor “and “How to Find and Get Your Ideal Ministry Job.”