What is a Predictable Sermon?

Predictability is foreseeing an expected outcome. In the case of a sermon, it becomes predictable when listeners can generally foresee what the preacher is going to say. It may be due to the sermon’s obvious content. Or it may be because the sermon is not only about a well-known Bible subject or text, it is also approached in a rather usual or common way. Or it may be because the preacher has already disclosed the sermon’s main point or points very early in his presentation. All the above scenarios make the sermon predictable.

An example of a predictable sermon comes from the fairly common sermon structure that goes like this:

• Introduction: Tell the listeners what you are going to say
• Body: Tell them in a more detailed way what you told them you are going to say (elaboration)
• Conclusion: Tell them what you just said (summary)

The above structure might be good for teaching—but not for preaching. In the main, teaching is to provide information and understanding about a biblical subject or text. Hence, the above structure is useful to give clarity to the student about what is going to be taught, what is being taught, and what has been taught. This is not to say that preaching does not provide understanding about a biblical subject or text, but the understanding is meant to inspire, encourage, challenge, and change the listener. A sermon must engage both the mind and heart of the listener. Thus, creating and maintaining the interest of the listener is critical.

What’s the Problem with a Predictable Sermon?

The problem with a predictable sermon is that it takes away the listeners’ sense of anticipation for what the preacher has to say (because they already know what he’s going to say). There isn’t a “wait for it…,” intrigue, or a surprise element. When there is little or no sense of anticipation, there will be little or no interest to listen to the sermon.

If a listener is quite well acquainted with the subject matter or has little or no immediate interest in the subject matter, the preacher would have already lost him by the end of the introduction. It is likely that the listener will only wake up when the preacher tells a story, gives an illustration, or cracks a joke! The sermon as a whole does not hold the listener’s attention (that is, interest) because he (or she) is not given any reason to listen with any sense of anticipation.

I believe it is important for every preacher to ask, as he (or she) prepares his sermon, if what he’s going to say next in the flow of his sermon, predictable?

How to Break Predictability in the Sermon?

If predictability is unhelpful to create and maintain listener-interest, then, a preacher must find ways to move away or break the listener’s sense of sermon-predictability. A good starting point is to stop using the sermon structure cited at the beginning of this article. Instead develop sermon structures that do not give away the main thrust of the sermon (namely, the message) until much later. That is to say, there is a “wait for it” element in the movement of the sermon. Some teachers of homiletics have called this movement, “tension and resolution.”

It can be easily seen that predictability is broken and interest is created when a sermon contains a tension to be resolved, a mystery to be uncovered, or a question to be answered. To maintain listener-interest, the resolution should not come too soon. The first part of the sermon should be given toward building up the tension. And the later part of the sermon, to the resolution of the tension. It is even possible to have the resolution right at the end—as the key message of the sermon.

To be sure, the tension, the mystery, the question nor the resolution are plucked from the air; they arise from the Bible text that the preacher is speaking from. In other words, Bible-centred preaching is not compromised in any way.

I believe that if a preacher wants to create and maintain listener-interest, his sermon cannot afford to be predictable. His sermon structure and presentation must be such that it causes his listeners to lean in with an anticipation of discovery.