10 Reasons I Don’t Use Negative 10-Point Lists in Preaching by SermonCentral .com

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10 Reasons I Don’t Use Negative 10-Point Lists in Preaching

10 Reasons I Don’t Use Negative 10-Point Lists In Preaching

By SermonCentral .com on Dec 22, 2023

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A tongue-in-cheek commentary on a popular preaching style. Have you ever used it? How'd it work for you?

Scripture: None

Tags: Preaching, Criticism, negative, criticism, preaching (view more) (view less)

A lot of bloggers and ministers like using negative 10-point lists as the basis for blog posts and sermons.

Some that I’ve run across include:

"10 Reasons Your Church Isn’t Growing"

"10 Practices Healthy Pastors Need to Avoid"

"10 Habits of Highly Ineffective People"

"10 Attitudes that Will Ruin Your Marriage"

"10 Ways to Raise a Boy You Wouldn’t Want Your Daughter to Date"

There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing or speaking that way, but I’ve never been a fan of it.

Here are my 10 reasons why:

1. It’s easy to say what's wrong with something without offering solutions.

2. The inside-out logic can be hard to follow.

(So you want me to do that or you don’t want me to do that?)

3. Lists can hide lazy writing.

(Not that I’d ever…)

4. Negative posts trigger negative responses.

5. They can be more discouraging than motivating.

6. I prefer knowing what to do rather than what not to do.

7. I get enough criticism; why should I sign up for more?

8. Some people are sarcasm-impaired.

(For an example, check out the smartly-written, tongue-in-cheek, "3 Reasons Why Rick Warren Is a Heretic," by Stephen J. Bedard, then scroll through his comment section. The sarcasm-impaired comments on Facebook were even worse. Ugh.)

9. Most people only read the 10 bullet points.

(But you wouldn’t do that, would you?)

10. The last point is usually filler.