Sermon Analysis - A Tool to Become a Better Preacher | Journal Entry

I'm sure I'm not the first to try this, but I'm really excited about it and I think it will help me grow a ton as a preacher. I am finding great sermons, by preachers that I believe preach well and faithfully, and before listening to them I'm reading the biblical text they're going to preach on and coming up with my own outline of what I would bring out of the text in a sermon. Also the main point (telos), and the sub points. Then I listen to the sermon and write down their outline and how they organized the sermon and how they taught from the text.

I'm only halfway through doing it with a sermon by my own pastor but I am learning so much about his process. I'm also gaining so much respect for his amazing preaching skills! Not just his delivery, but the way he constructed and organized his sermon, and what he chose to focus on and how he illustrates the text. Oh man, so good! I'm learning so much! I'm going to do this until I die. I never want to stop learning and growing as a preacher so I can preach better until I die.

I think this will be an awesome way to see the nuts and bolts of how a preacher teaches from a specific text and to see the differences from how you would go about it. Also in doing this I'll be looking at tons of bible passages and trying to study them and construct an outline. I'll post my notes from these exercises with the label Sermon Analysis so they'll be easy to find. Great practice to become a better preacher! I'm excited! Try it out yourself and leave a comment to let me know if it was beneficial to you.

Here is my method broken down into bullet points for easier consumption:

Sermon Analysis

• find a sermon by a good preacher
• before listening study the text they're preaching on
• decide what the main point (telos) of the passage is
• decide what the other points are
• write up an outline of how you would preach the sermon
• listen to the sermon
• take notes of their telos and outline
• take note of how they work their way through the text
• what was their intro?
• what's their telos?
• did they have the same main points?
• how did they teach those points from the text?
• learn like crazy from someone who has been preaching much longer than you
• get better at writing your own sermons