The Theology of Sermon Design

Current homiletic approaches did not materialize in a vacuum. Their ascendancy to popularity did not just happen. Today at least three winds of influence swirl around contemporary homiletic discussion: theology, literary criticism and culture. Pastors who would think deeply about the form of their sermons and who care about faithfulness to the gospel must wrestle with the issues raised by each of these areas of thought.

If we are to understand the roots of sermon design, we must engage sermon form theologically. Form is not just a matter of practice but of theology.

The first question that must be addressed in prelude to any investigation into sermon form is: Does it really matter? In other words, should preachers care about sermon form? Thomas Long notes, “There has always been the nagging suspicion, surfacing from time to time, that it is unbecoming for the preacher . . . to be concerned in a significant way about the sermon’s design.”¹

Some would make a case that form should flow so naturally from the content of the gospel that any discussion of design should be unnecessary. After all, they contend, the New Testament preachers and apostles did not concern themselves with questions of inductive or deductive design, introductions or conclusions. Neither should the preacher worry much about the structure of sermons. The preacher should just, well, preach. Like the baseball player who, overly concerned with the technicalities of his swing, becomes an ineffective hitter, the preacher who becomes too concerned with sermon ructure.⁶ H. Grady Davis comments that the difference between “chaotic thought and ordered thought is not the difference between no form and form; it is the difference between confused form and organized form ...the only question is, what form?”⁷

Yet it is proper to raise concerns about the current focus on form. Issues of design and structure cannot be allowed to over-shadow the content of the word to be spoken. The goal of the sermon can never be eloquence or aesthetics; the goal must always be to speak the gospel well. Sermonizing may be an art, but it is doubt­ful whether sermons are intended to be works of art.

Perhaps a balance can be found. Sermons must always be designed and thus must be concerned with issues of form. The preacher must always wrestle with questions of structure. And yet such matters must never be allowed to take precedence over the content of the gospel we preach. Indeed, form must always flow from content. Sermon form must be the servant of the text, not its master. It is right, then, once the preacher has done the work of exegesis and study and has a message to speak, to carefully consider the form of the sermon.

THEOLOGY

There remains a deeper concern: the suspi­cion that theological issues are tied up in this business of form. Perhaps form is more than an issue of practice. Maybe sermon design is also a matter of theology. If so, more may be at stake than mere effectiveness in homiletic delivery.