How long should a sermon be?
There is great debate on how long a good sermon should be. Personally, I am not a fan of sermonettes that sound more like feel-good devotional thoughts than meaty sermons one can wrestle with all week long. But I am also not a fan of sermons that are so long that no reasonable person can remain focused on what is being taught. Here are some ideas to help you find the sweet spot of crafting a sermon that’s neither too long nor too short.
Create a series
On more than one occasion I have sat through verse-by-verse sermons that covered an entire chapter of the Bible. An exposition of 25-30 verses is just too much for one sitting. In most situations, an in-depth discussion of four to seven verses is all people can handle at one time. Instead of preaching on a whole chapter, break up those 30 verses and develop a series. Church-goers will be able to understand and apply the Word more effectively if preachers refrain from dropping a whole truckload one knowledge at one time.
Have a concise central point
Have a central point that can be expressed in one sentence and make that point early. I once listened to a young energetic pastor preach for 42 minutes (yes, I timed him!) before he made his first point. He gave us a lot of context, read a lot of quotes from people about what the passage meant, told a couple of stories about things that had happened to him that week (I never could figure out how they related to the text), and prayed a long pastoral prayer over the Scripture that seemed more poetic than spiritual. By the time he made his first point, 42 minutes into the sermon, my mind had already checked out.
Get to the point quickly, then reinforce the point with the rest of the text, tell us what to do with the point, wrap up the point, give the audience a chance to consider the personal implications of the point and sit down.
Don’t pad your sermon
When it’s appropriate, use a short sermon. As I have already said, I am not a fan of sermonettes. But there are certain occasions when shorter is better. If what really needs to be said about a text produces a shorter than normal sermon, then have a shorter sermon on that particular week.
Sometimes it feels like a pastor had one good thing to say but did not think that was long enough, so he added a lot of filler to make himself feel better. Trust me, the filler might have made the pastor feel better, but it did not make the sermon better. In fact, it probably made it weaker because people can recognize filler when they hear it. Some sermons will be shorter than others, and that’s okay. Though a steady stream of ten to fifteen minute sermons may not be appropriate for building strong disciples, having one every so often because that is all that is required can be more powerful than we think.
In my years as a pastor, my Christmas Eve sermons rarely lasted longer than 10-12 minutes because I knew that the vast majority of the people already knew the context and details, after all, it was the same story every year. I would try to focus on one aspect of the story that would make some fresh point people might not have considered before. People always seemed moved by these services, and not once did anyone complain that the sermon was too short.
Dr. Terry W. Dorsett serves as the executive director of the Baptist Convention of New England.