My Checklist for Preaching

This is a checklist that I put together to look over as I prepare to preach. There are, of course, other things that I could have put on this list. But these are the specific things that I need to be sure to check at this point in ministry…  

• Am I preaching the good news of Jesus?
• Am I praying and pleading with God to bless my sermon?
• Am I working with a team in preparation to preach?
• Am I getting and listening to Leah’s feedback?
• Am I preparing far enough in advance?
• Am I preparing my sermon with specific people in mind?
• Am I going to bring people on the journey with me? (Am I going to peak people’s interests? Am I taking baby steps when necessary or am I making huge leaps in my logical reasoning?)
• Am I using the 6 Journalistic Questions (What?, Who?, When?, Why?, Where?, and How?) and answering what will be most helpful for the audience?
• Am I illustrating my point like Jesus would have? And am I getting the full impact from my illustrations?
• Is the sermon going to be “G rated”? (Is the sermon for a general audience or is it restricted to those with special training? Did I break it down like I need a mechanic to break it down for me?)
• Is the sermon going to create and relieve tension?
• Is my sermon focused, making one sustained point? (Am I considering what the one thing is that I want people to take away from the message?)
• Can I pass the 3am test? (If I was awakened at 3am and asked about the main point and structure of the sermon could I answer in a helpful way?)
• Will unbelievers understand and find the sermon appealing? (Not that we ever want to compromise the truth but we do want to intrigue unbelievers with the view of reality that the Bible gives)

In the future I’d like to write a blog post for each of the above points to further convince myself of their importance.