Vital churches scored high on measures of Worship Service quality and preaching quality in the 2001 and 2008-09 U.S. Congregations Study conducted by Deborah Bruce and Cynthia Woolever. When they asked newer members what brought them back to their church for a second time 36% percent said it was the quality of the sermon, 32% cited the friendliness of the people, and 30% noted the overall worship experience. (Article.)

This confirms the Center for Excellence in Preaching’s emphasis on developing quality preaching, which they link to five key criteria that both clergy and laity should be attuned to improving. Quality sermons are: biblical, authentic, contextual, life-changing, and situated within effective worship services.

Sermons are biblical because the Word of God lies at the center of preaching. Good sermons are built out of the Bible, not imported into it. They reveal God’s active presence and saving grace both in every part of the Scriptures and in the particular passage(s) from which the sermon is taken.

A poor sermon will begin with some conviction of the preacher rather than with a tenet of the Bible, and will exhibit elements of proof-texting, rather than exegesis. Proof-texting is the practice of picking phrases and verses that, out of their biblical context, can be misconstrued to support a prior position of the preacher. In this way the Bible falsely “proves” the rightness of the preacher’s ideological commitments. Exegesis is the process of understanding the original meaning of the biblical text in its original context, and reflecting on its implications and application for today. A poor sermon will tend to make the Bible (hence God) conform to and affirm the predilection of the preacher and, perhaps, the congregation; a good sermon will result in both the preacher and hearer being more closely conformed to the Word of God.

Sermons are authentic when they reflect the life of the preacher and the lives of the congregants. A good sermon will not only be based closely upon Scripture, but will reveal the commitment of the preacher to the faith, and to Christ who is at that faith’s core. Even the preacher should be called to account by the truth preached, and should be able to indicate how s/he struggles along with the congregation to live a Christian life.

A poor sermon will exhibit some negative tendencies. It might involve the use of abstract or third-person illustrations that don’t have a vital and immediate connection to the life of the congregation in which it is preached. It might involve a subtle or overt “talking down to” the congregation, as though the preacher is standing at the pinnacle of virtue or knowledge, or is somehow more holy than the parishioners.  It might rely on manufactured emotions engaged in for the effect they produce, rather than articulate the genuine emotions that are experienced by the preacher and/or members of the congregation. Or, it might fail to show a pastoral sensitivity to the challenges that face all believers who strive to be faithful.

Sermons are contextual when they demonstrate an awareness of the general culture, the issues of the day, and the particular life of the congregations in which they are preached. The Word of God is meant to be an applied Word that sheds light on the big and small issues of everyday life.

A poor sermon will over-emphasize scholarly research, word studies, or abstract principles with little or no linkage to the daily life of the congregants. As Gerhardt Forde has said in the title to his great book on contextual sermonizing: “Theology is for Proclamation.” If it doesn’t add light to contemporary events, it’s not a sermon; it is a lecture more suited to the classroom than the pulpit.

Sermons are life-changing when they change lives. A good sermon is powerful because it proclaims in words and illustrations the very “power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16).  It conveys to outsiders the joyful Call of Christ to believe, and energizes longtime believers for service while reinvigorating their hope and joy.

A poor sermon may offer a series of “truths” or “propositions” and invite members to merely agree in principle with the principles of the faith, while a great sermon will invite, encourage, and challenge listeners to live as they have never lived before: as joyful believers in their risen Lord. Or a poor sermon might confirm listeners in their current lives, as though there is no need for continual renewal and restoration, while a great sermon will both show the hearer how far s/he stands from Christ and how Christ has bridged the gap and drawn close to the listener.

A good sermon will present the living Christ as the bearer of a grace that produces hope and joy and motivates a desire to follow. A poor sermon does not exhibit the good news in a way that challenges the hearer to new obedience and a strengthened commitment to serve Jesus.

Sermons are also an integral part of the Worship Service. The Service should be designed to build a Scripture-guided theme from the opening words to the concluding sentences, with the proclamation of the Word situated at the very center as the high point of the Service. That’s why the sermon is so important. It is also why the entire Worship Service needs to be carefully constructed and confidently executed.

The Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary has developed a Sermon Evaluation Form focused on these five criteria. Its primary purpose is to help seminary students evaluate one another’s student sermons, and to help congregations that host student seminarians provide feedback on the developing preaching and worship leadership skills of students.

But because a good worship and preaching experience is a crucial determiner in whether a visitor returns to your congregation, the Sermon Evaluation Form can be an important tool for your faith community. Current members could use it as a way to provide anonymous feedback on the pastor’s worship leadership and preaching abilities. It could be provided to visitors as part of a Visitor’s Package with a prepaid envelope, in order to learn how your worship service is viewed by outsiders. And clergy could use it as a checklist as they prepare their weekly messages and services.

Knowing what is and what is not working is the first step in improving your congregation’s ability to attract and keep new members. Investing the time to evaluate your congregation’s perceptions, and to solicit the perspective of interested non-members, is the only way to get a handle on what needs to be improved.

(When you solicit your congregation’s perceptions, be sure to have all members – or all in attendance at a particular service – complete an evaluation. Otherwise you may discover that only those who are dissatisfied will take the time to fill out the form, resulting in a false perception. There is an important value to inviting peripheral or lapsed members to participate: their input can give you crucial information about whether the worship service contributes to their limited participation, and if so, what aspects are in need of remediation.)

Remember, it’s just as important to know what not to change as it is to know what must change. This evaluation tool from The Center for Excellence in Preaching can help. (But don’t mail it to Calvin Seminary, even though there is a “Business Reply Mail” flap included!  Instead, remove the mailing portion and make the survey available to your congregation and guests, along with a means to anonymously submit it to your Leadership committee.)