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Richard Allen Farmer

PO Box 540997
Grand Prairie, TX 75054-0997
972.642.7962
Email: raf51@sbcglobal.net
www.richardallenfarmer.com

Preaching to be Remembered

I spoke with a mentor of mine recently about this topic. I asked him if he, having
pastored one church for 42 years, ever prepared his sermons with the thought of being
remembered in mind. He referenced Harry Emerson Fosdick (late pastor of the Riverside
Church in NYC) who said that sermons are like rain. They water the soil while falling.
Then the sun comes and dries them up.
Maybe sermons are only to live for a few minutes or hours. Maybe sermons are like daily
meals. We don’t remember each one but we remember that while we were eating, we
were nourished. So, let me change the metaphor. Suppose our sermons were like
extraordinary meals. Culinary feasts. Suppose we set a table every Sunday morning,
heavy laden with the choicest of meats and vegetables and desserts. Perhaps we could set
a table at which the saints would sit down and eat a meal they’d not soon forget.

I have heard sermons that I have remembered for more than 25 years. In response, a few
years ago I began to pray a prayer in my study: “Papa please give me insight to this
passage and a way to communicate it that will last in the hearers’ ears for twenty years.”
Is that an inappropriate prayer? I think not. I work hard at the task of writing and
assembling the sermon. I do not want it forgotten by Sunday afternoon.

So, what does one do, if one buys the thesis that memorable homiletical feasts can be
prepared and delivered? How do we change the quality of our sermons so that they last in
the memories of the hearers? Note that I am not suggesting that we must always improve
the sermon. Some sermons are very good, but not memorable. That is, they are faithful to
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scripture and well constructed. However, they are full of tired language and delivered
without passion. What can we do?
1. Be done with clichés.
List the clichés that are seemingly ever-present and then avoid them.
 At the end of the day
 Take it to the next level
 This is your season (or destiny)
 The bottom line is…
 Thinking outside the box
 Win-win situation
 Paradigm (paradigm shift)
 Push the envelope
 Living on the edge
 ???
2. Turn a phrase
That is, change the order of words in a sentence. You may also change the word itself
and, via word play, give it freshness.
This makes your sentences memorable. Some I’ve heard:
“It’s hard to be optimistic when you have a misty optic.”- Vance Havner
“During the Lewinsky scandal, Hillary Clinton switched from defending the Bill of
Rights to defending the rights of Bill”- comedian on XM radio
“We sing, God, Bless America. America, bless God.”- Anonymous
“Our preaching is not a matter of the blind leading the blind. It’s the bland leading the
bland.”- Anonymous
“He didn’t say things in a big way, he said big things”- Speechwriter Peggy Noonan
on Ronald Reagan

3. Describe items and people and events with more colorful language.
Exercise: Describe the wealthy farmer in Luke 12. Write a paragraph or two that
helps us see him.
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Illus. Read John Ortberg’s description of the same in It All Goes Back In The Box. I
have a recording of a sermon John preached from Luke 12 on this parable. I will
remember that sermon for a long time.
Illus. Gardner C. Taylor on Acts 7:56: “Standing! Standing! Heaven on tiptoe.”
Illus. “It was about as poetic as a broom”- Peggy Noonan on one of Reagan’s
speeches
Illus. “There is a temptation to rush to canonize your memory. There is no need to do
so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities, you do not need to be
seen as a saint. Indeed, to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very
core of your being- your wonderfully mischievous sense of humor, with a laugh
that bent you double, your joy for life transmitted wherever you took your smile,
and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes, your boundless energy which you could
barely contain.”- Earl Spencer in his eulogy of his sister, Princess Diana
4. Use rhetorical rhythm
Caution: this can be overdone very easily. Use sparingly.
The rhythm is created by the use of similar word endings, actual rhymes or measured
cadence.
Illus. “Why have a religion that is unquestioned when you can have a religion that
has been cleansed, corrected, fortified, clarified, purified, rectified, sanctified,
beautified, magnified, qualified…”- Charles G. Adams
Illus. My passage from Experience God in Worship.116
Illus. Psalm 19:7-9 (“the___of the Lord is…)
5. Use alliteration- the use of the same letter or sound in a sequence of sentences
Caution: this can be overdone very easily. Use sparingly
Illus. What God does with our sins. He puts them
1. Behind his back,
2. Beneath his blood,
3. Beyond his beckoning. - Donald Hubbard
“He (the Lord Jesus Christ) converts you from corruption. He cleanses you from guilt
and self-condemnation. He communes with you through prayer. He counsels you with
his word. He commissions you to serve him in a compassionate ministry to those who
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need help and healing.”- J. Alfred Smith, Sr.

6. Use anaphora-the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive

clauses. This is a very common device in African-American preaching. Like
every other rhetorical device, it can be overdone.
Illus. MLK, Jr’s “I Have A Dream”.

7. Use triads
“A triad is the expression of related thoughts or ideas in a group of three, often with
the initial words or sounds the same for all three, and almost always with each
element of the triad using the same grammatical form. The elements of the triad can
be single words- nouns, adjectives, adverbs or verbs. They can also be phrases,
clauses, even sentences”- Richard Dowis in The Lost Art of the Great Speech. 117
“There’s something almost mystical about the number three. It’s as if two are not
enough and four are too many.” Ibid. 116
Illus.
• Earth, wind and fire
• Blood sweat and tears
• …that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth.
• Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
• “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.”- I Cor. 13:13
• For everything in the world- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes
and boasting of what he has and does- comes not from the father but from the
world”- I John 2:16
• “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”-
Attributed to Augustine
8. Use illustrations that are dramatic, very humorous or otherwise compelling.
Avoid illustrations that are merely cute, overused or irrelevant. If you have to
work hard to make it apply, it is the wrong illustration for that presentation.
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Where do we find such illustrations?

• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Reader’s Digest
• Compilations of quotations, anecdotes and illustrations
• Your little black book

Bibliography
1. Allen, Ronald J. The Teaching Sermon (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995)
2. Broadus, John A. On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons (San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1979)
3. Elliot, Mark Barger. Creative Styles of Preaching (Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press)
4. Freeman, Harold. Variety in Biblical Preaching (Fort Worth: Scripta, 1987)
5. Liefield, Walter L. New Testament Exposition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984)
6. Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972)
7. MacArthur, John, Jr. Rediscovering Expository Preaching (Dallas: Word, 1992)
8. Massey, James Earl. Designing The Sermon (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980)
9. Olford, Stephen F. Anointed Expository Preaching. (Nashville: Broadman& Holtman
Publishers, 1998)
10. Robinson, Haddon W. Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980)
11. Robinson, Haddon W. Ed. Scott M. Gibson. Making A Difference In Preaching
(Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999)
12. Stott, John R. W. Between Two Worlds (Grand Rapids: William B.Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1982)
13. Wilson, Paul Scott. The Four Pages of the Sermon (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999)