I still remember the first sermon I preached. A week later I received a hand written note from one of the elders wives who offered some helpful suggestions. Her advice was very encouraging. In fact, I still have the note after all these years. But then I received a lecture from her husband who possessed a Master of Divinity and had many years of experience in the pulpit. His critique was positive, but he wasn’t afraid to point out some habits not to form as I continued learning how to preach.
Sermon evaluations are helpful. They help the preacher see what he can’t see about himself. They help him touch up those areas that need tending in his preaching without him guessing, or worse, without him continuing with bad habits. But this doesn’t mean there is no value in pastors personally evaluating their own sermons. There is a way to do this that I think can help him improve his preaching. It involves humility, honesty, and the ability to do simple math.
Numbers don’t mean everything but that doesn’t mean they don’t mean anything. Numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they do convey part of the story. For example, speed limit signs designate certain numbers (depending on the zone) to inform drivers of the speed they are not allowed to exceed. If drivers exceed the limit, they can lawfully be pulled over. The number on the sign objectively identifies who’s speeding and who’s not. Not every speeder gets caught every time. But sometimes speeders get caught, and when they do, it’s their own fault. The numbers don’t lie. They tell a story.
A scoreboard is also an objective means of measurement. In most sports (not golf) the highest score indicates who won the game. One team may play better than the other but still end up losing a particular game. So the score doesn’t convey everything about the game, but it at least serves as an objective measuring stick to determine who moves up in the standings. Otherwise, there is no means of evaluating the best teams. (I am resisting the temptation to write on the controversy surrounding how to objectively determine which college football teams deserve to be in the playoff year in and year out.)
How should we evaluate the effectiveness of our sermons? In one sense, God is the final Judge. Preachers ultimately preach to an audience of One, namely God. When it comes to preaching, it’s better to please God and displease others than to please others but displease God. On the other hand, it’s helpful and healthy to receive feedback from others concerning our preaching. Such feedback can profitably arise from a spouse, friends, fellow preachers, fellow elders or deacons, or someone in the pew. But there is also something to be said about a preacher evaluating his own sermons.
Think of successful top-notch athletes such as Tom Brady or LeBron James watching game film the morning after a big win or a big loss. Such film study inevitably makes them better athletes. It helps them see the things they do well, as well as the areas in which they could improve. I submit that preachers evaluating their own sermons would make them better preachers.
After the famous Southern Baptist preacher Adrian Rogers passed away, a cursory tour of his office revealed his determination to be the best preacher possible. He had three desks in his office. One was designated for Sunday morning sermon preparation complete with resources to enhance his study. A second desk was designated to study for his Sunday evening sermons. And a third desk was used for Wednesday evening sermon preparation. But it was also discovered that on the back of his sermon manuscripts were grades that he gave himself on each sermon. Rogers’ effectiveness in the pulpit was related, to some degree at least, in his willingness to evaluate his own sermons.
Below is a sermon evaluation scoring system that you can use to score your own sermons. My hope is that such will help you take your preaching to the next level:
1. Outline- was the sermon outline neatly organized around a clear proposition with united, but distinct supporting points (1 = bad, 10 = excellent).
Often the difference between a good sermon and a bad one comes down to the outline. Evaluate how well you outlined the passage. Were your points redundant? Were they parallel? Did they collectively support the main proposition of the sermon?
2. Clarity- did the sermon come across clear? (1 = not clear, 10 = crystal clear)
In some quarters, a sermon is considered “good” if it’s heady or difficult to understand. The assumption is that if one doesn’t know what the preacher is talking about it, then it must be “deep”. This is often a false assumption. The goal of the preacher is not to impress his audience with supposed knowledge, but to unpack God’s Word with clarity.
3. Delivery- was the sermon delivered with clear articulation, passion, and a proper demeanor? (1 = bad delivery, 10 = excellent delivery)
Delivery (homiletics) is not the most important thing, content is. However, it not only matters what the preacher says but also how he says it. Nervous habits like jiggling keys in your pocket, saying the same phrase over and over again, or reading your notes can all be massive distractions for the listeners (I know because I’ve been guilty of doing all of the above from time to time). But the preacher’s demeanor can also be distracting. For example, if you are preaching on Ephesians 2:1 where we are told that sinners are dead in trespasses and sins, you should not preach with a happy demeanor. This miscommunicates the seriousness of the truth in the text. Rather, the preacher should have urgency in his voice and soberness in his disposition. On the other hand, if you are preaching on the resurrection from I Corinthians 15, your disposition should be marked by optimism, hope, and cheerfulness rather than a sad and gloomy disposition.
4. Depth- did the sermon go deeper than merely the surface of the text? (1 = shallow, 10 = very deep).
Depth is the one ingredient that makes a sermon rich to the listener - exposing the value of treasured truth. Utilizing cross-references to support the argument being made by the author of the biblical text is one way to dig out the gold. Exploring theologial territory that causes the listener to be stretched in his meditation of the text is also a helpful method of bringing the rich oil of God’s truth to the surface. There are all sorts of ways to help you determine if your sermon has sufficient depth.
5. Gospel-is your sermon infused with the Gospel? (1= no gospel, 10 = rich with the gospel)
Charles Spurgeon famously said the following:
“I would rather be the means of saving a soul from death than be the greatest orator on earth. I would rather bring the poorest woman in the world to the feet of Jesus than I would be made Archbishop of Canterbury. I would sooner pluck one single brand from the burning than explain all mysteries. To win a soul from going down into the pit, is a more glorious achievement than to be crowned in the arena of theological controversy … to have faithfully unveiled the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ will be, in the final judgment, accounted worthier service than to have solved the problems of the religious Sphinx, or to have cut the Gordian knot of Apocalyptic difficulty. One of my happiest thoughts is that, when I die, it shall be my privilege to enter into rest in the bosom of Christ, and I know that I shall not enjoy my Heaven alone. Thousands have already entered there, who have been drawn to Christ under my ministry. Oh! what bliss it will be to fly to Heaven, and to have a multitude of converts before and behind.”
Conclusion
So there you have it: five areas to evaluate your sermons. Once you score each category, then add the numbers together and you have the total score out of a possible fifty points. If you want a letter grade, simply use the following formula:
ex. 42 (total points) / 50 (possible points) = 84%, B-grade.
Numbers don’t tell us everything, but they do tell us something. If we aren’t getting better at preaching, there is at least the possibility that we are getting worse. Therefore, some objective measurement is helpful.