HOW TO DRESS A SERMON
Preaching involves all the components of dressing appropriately for the occasion. You would not go swimming in a three-piece suit and tie any more than you would enter the pulpit in only your underwear! How your dress your sermon will determine your ability to communicate its truth.
Appropriate Underwear
Underwear is best unseen, but vitally important! Parts of the body are not protected properly without appropriate underwear. Underwear is put on before outer wear. It is the foundation of a well-dressed individual and no one is properly dressed without well-fitting underwear!
What is the underwear of a sermon? PREPARATION! How the preacher prepares the sermon is as important as well-fitting undergarments. Your preparation will make you confident and comfortable, or unsure and underdressed! Preparation is the unseen part of preaching.
Prepare Your Heart
The well-dressed sermon is best presented by the preacher well-prepared! Making sure that your own heart is right before God is vital if you want to adequately communicate the Truth of God. Keep on “sanctifying” yourself to God, setting yourself apart to Him and for His Work. Without continuing sanctification, you will be dressed in underwear full of holes, stretched out with broken elastic. Trying to speak for God when your heart is not right is like a hand puppet empty of a hand! The puppet finds its life through the hand of a puppeteer. Even so, the preacher comes alive by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit living through a life in right relationship with God! Be like the prophet Ezra! “Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.”
(Ezra 7:10 NIV).
Make sure your heart is right with God so that your sermon is empowered by God Almighty!
Prepare Your Spirit
Before Jesus preached His first sermon (and life-defining sermon), He spent time alone with God in the wilderness. “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, ...Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.”
(Luke 4:1,14 NIV ) You must prepare your spirit through prayer if you want your sermon presentation to have impact. Yes, Jesus was tempted by the devil while there, and you will be too. You will be tempted to think you are too busy in ministry to pray over each sermon. Without prayer, even the best, most well-crafted sermon will fall flat and powerless before your spit reaches the first row of seats!
Praying over your message will clarify your purpose. Why do you want to preach this sermon? Why do you believe God wants you to preach this sermon to this congregation at this time? Can you say with confidence that God has inspired this sermon for these people to be preached at this time by this preacher?
Be careful not to preach a message just because you were moved when you heard another preacher preach it! Don’t preach a sermon hoping it will straighten out so individual! You probably won’t do anything but get that person bent out of shape! Before you preach a message, get you spirit right!
A preacher is touched by a sermon three times: before preaching while in the closet of preparation, when preaching while in the pulpit of presentation, and after preaching while practicing what is preached!
Prepare Your Mind
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
(2 Timothy 2:15 KJV)
Preparing your mind for the presentation of the Word of God to the People of God will be a life-long procedure. Like putting on your underwear everyday, preparing your mind must be done every time you preach. Even if you’ve preached this “sugar stick” of a sermon a hundred times and you know it by heart, it will sound hollow and feel naked without fresh study! You may not have to study as long or hard the more you have preached it, but always study the Scriptures and other comments so God can give you fresh oil to light a fire in the current congregation. Leftovers are only good for a short time and not repeatedly. Prepare your mind so that you can rightly divide the Word of Truth!
Preparing your mind includes proper training by formal education, ongoing learning, and honest mentors, as well as continual study in preparation to preach tomorrow. But don’t wait until you have to preach tomorrow to get prepared! Trying to prepare your mind while taking a nap is like dreaming you are preaching and waking up to discover yourself in the pulpit! Spend time in studying the HOW and WHAT of preaching.
Great preaching is HARD WORK which the congregation will never see, but they will know it if you are ill-prepared. It will feel like you are a dressed up but you forgot your underwear!
Proper Outerwear
This is the part of the sermon the congregation sees! Don’t let them see your underwear, the preparation you’ve done! Now is the time to dress up and your prep work will be unmistakable! Don’t preach over their heads; know your congregation well. “Dress” like them! In one congregation I pastored, there were 28 educators! Many of them had more degrees than me so I had to dress up my sermon to keep my audience. One congregation was full of “blue collar workers” who weren’t stupid but wanted to find practical encouragement and hope from their pastor on Sunday. Another congregation was filled with city leaders and professional people who appreciated being able to follow along by taking notes with the spoken word. “Dress” your sermon for success by asking yourself, “To this group of people, is this sermon is memorable, understandable, and doable?” If it isn’t as clear as mud (memorable, understandable, and doable), head back to the dressing room (study) for a different outfit!
Always preach your best! You wouldn’t intentionally wear stained clothes to a formal affair. Make sure your sermon is clear, without spot, wrinkle, or blemish, so that the congregation will be able to do what you preach!
Appropriate preaching is like appropriate dress for the occasion! Make sure your vocal dynamics fit the message. Know when to hit hard and when it would be better to soften the blow.
Some sermons, like funeral messages, need to be well-thought out, speaking for the comfort of family and friends. Don’t preach the deceased into Heaven or hell, no matter how they may have lived! You don’t know their eternal destiny. The family and friends of the deceased need the comfort of God, not some false security. Pave the way for the Lord to bring the funeral crowd to Himself! How you preach a funeral may change someone’s life for eternity!
Make the sermon fit the occasion!
Accessorize Tastefully
Many an outfit has been ruined by the wrong colored tie or socks, a necklace too gaudy. Many a sermon has been ruined by a joke ill-placed or not fitting the occasion, or not giving an appropriate invitation. Learn how to accessorize the sermon with just the right illustrations.
Preachers are artists painting a picture. This is a paint by number, not a picture without direction. When the sermon is complete, the congregation should say, “I see what you mean!” If they think, “I don’t get it!”, the preacher has not done his job well! Buy books of stories and illustrations. Be careful about using your wife, kids, or people in the congregation to illustrate your sermon. They may be offended and may put you out of their misery (by unemployment or firing squad)!
Personal illustrations (your own story) can be good when told with sincerity and honesty. Watch that your personal story does not make you sound “holier than thou”! Make sure your story is believable! It’s unbelievable how many, how easy preachers lie for the purpose of a “good” story!
Biblical illustrations are better. Know the story well, study the scripture, the cultural background, and emotions which can be felt. Sermons are best “felt” than “telt”!
History can provide many illustrations to accessorize your sermon. Verify the information carefully because someone in the congregation will check it out! Some people find their purpose in life as they make sure the preacher preaches right. They only exercise they get is to make excuses for their own behavior, sidestepping responsibility by volunteering others, and running down the preacher!
Accessorize correctly and your congregation will be blessed!
