Ep 8: Simpler Than You Think: Simplifying Sermon Preparation

Sermon prep doesn't have to feel like chaos every week.

Most preachers sit down to prepare without a clear, repeatable process — and it shows. They read, study, collect ideas, stare at a blank page, start over, and patch something together by Saturday night hoping it holds. That's not a character problem. It's a framework problem.

In this episode, Jonathan McClintock makes the case that the Clear Preaching Framework doesn't just help you preach better — it simplifies the process of getting there. Not simpler as in less work. Simpler as in less chaos, less second-guessing, and more confidence that what you're preparing will actually land.

And here's the conviction underneath it all: simple doesn't mean shallow. Focused doesn't mean thin. The most complicated sermons are often the least memorable. The preacher who says one thing clearly — one biblical, focused, landed idea — gives the congregation something they can actually carry out the door.

Jonathan walks through all four domains of the Clear Preaching Framework and shows exactly what each one removes from the prep process — not just what it produces.

What you'll walk away with:

• A framework that gives you a clear, repeatable process from text to pulpit
• An understanding of why complexity and depth are not the same thing
• What each of the four domains eliminates from your weekly prep chaos
• One diagnostic question to ask before you finalize every sermon

Your congregation doesn't need a more complicated sermon. They need a clearer one.

Transcript

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Sermon prep can be exhausting. You read, you study, you collect ideas, you stare at a blank page or a blank screen, have some things written down, not happy with it, trash it, start over. The process can be on and on, and then finally, oftentimes we find ourselves on Saturday night patching something together, hoping it holds on Sunday. It's usually not a did I work hard enough problem. It's a framework problem. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Clear Preaching Podcast. My name is Jonathan McClintock, and today I want to talk to you about making the preparation process simpler than you might think it can be. And how the clear preaching framework that we have talked about over the last several weeks, how it can uncomplicate the sermon preparation process. Now, we're not talking about simpler work, we're not talking about easier work. It's always going to be a difficult and a tough process at times building good sermons. There's no shortcut to that. Well, there is. We'll talk about that in the next podcast, but that's not the shortcut you should take. You need to avoid that shortcut. We're not talking about simpler work. What we're really talking about is uncomplicating. We're talking about less chaos. You see, without a framework to work from, I don't know how your sermon preparation process is. You may have a way that you do things all the time. If you do and it's working really well, awesome. That's great. A lot of people, I even found myself until this clear preaching framework was developed. I found myself changing it up about every time, just depending on the text, depending on the topic, depending on what I was feeling. And it almost felt like I was starting over all the time, and there was a frustration. You see, without a clear framework that you adopt, that you use, you're second-guessing decisions. You're starting over midweek after you spent maybe a day or two preparing, prep prepping, and you start over and you start again. You're hoping, without a framework, you hope it holds together. You hope you landed somewhere. You're unclear sometimes what the sermon is even about. And I can say I, for a couple decades of preaching, there would be times in the middle of sermon prep process, I've got stuff on the paper, I've been studying a text, and I'm like, I kind of know what the sermon's about, but if you kind of know, you don't know. If we got an idea of what it could be, you don't know. I've learned that. It's got to be something that is clear, something that is expressible with words, like clear, not and not expressible in four, five, six, seven sentences, not expressible in 10 minutes. I'm talking about expressible in less than 15 words, in a clear, concise, concrete sentence that encapsulates what the sermon's about. With a framework, you get that. With a framework, you have a clear, repeatable process that works no matter what kind of sermon you're building. Narrative, textual, topical, doesn't matter. Expository, it does not matter. A clear, repeatable process. It simplifies, gets rid of the chaos. There's still work that's going to have to be done, but at least you've got a direction. Less chaos, more confidence. You know where you're going. And the sermon prep stops being a search, sometimes blindly, it seems, and starts allowing you to truly build. There is a myth surrounding the complexity of sermons. The lie is that a good sermon is a complicated sermon. A good sermon has all kinds of branches and arms that reach out and it grabs a million different verses and it ties us all together, and then a good sermon at the very end surprises everybody with a punchline like it like a joke does. And it's complicated. It's complex. I'm calling a lie on that. I'm calling a myth on complexity. A simple focus message, these would say, is a simple focus message is less serious, it's less scholarly, it's less faithful to the text. I'm sorry, that's all backwards. In fact, the most complicated sermons are often the least memorable. Oh, there may be some statements in there you remember, but it's impossible to walk away from a complex sermon most of the time. And be able to summarize that thing in one short sentence. It had too much going on. It was too complex. It was too chaotic. The most elaborate outlines are often the least actionable. The important thing is get that truth landed in the hearts of the people and get them to act and respond on it. But when it's complicated, when it's chaotic, you can't even act on it. A preacher who tries to say seven things says nothing. There's a conviction I have behind this framework. It's not the only way, it's not the ultimate way. I am the things that I teach, the things that I say, I am, I am not putting myself as saying, I have found it and it's the only way. Only thing I say that about is Jesus. I found him and he's the only way. When it comes to preaching, there's a lot of different pathways. But I have such conviction behind this framework because it has helped me make things less complex and less chaotic. Complexity is not the same thing as depth. A sermon can be theologically rich and structurally simple at the same time. In fact, the best ones usually are. When there's one idea clearly developed, faithfully delivered, it does more than ten ideas loosely connected. Say seven things, the congregation remembers nothing. Say one thing clearly, the congregation can take it out the door. Here's what the framework actually does. And let's I've gone through each of these domains in separate podcasts, but I'm just gonna I'm gonna fly through these because I just want you to see what I'm talking about here. When you apply these domains to the sermon preparation process, clarity of thought, finding that one idea, clarity of structure, knowing the shape, clarity of language, writing for the ear, clarity of delivery, helping serve the congregation, the comprehension of the congregation. When you have clarity of thought, which is really where most preachers get off the rails, get lost, not taking enough time to get that murky idea or what we think is a good idea, what we think is a solid, clear idea. We haven't spoken it, we haven't, we haven't, we haven't gotten it off our out of our brain and off our lips and off our tongue yet. We haven't crafted it. We've just got kind of an idea of where we're going. If you've got kind of an idea, you don't have an idea. If I've got a muddy thought, I don't have a thought. Talking about starting with the text and what's the passage actually saying and crafting that, understanding exactly what it's saying, and then taking this bridge of the abiding truth and understanding what that truth means for all people at all times, what's that uh truth that spans the eons? And then landing on that clear sermon idea, that take-home truth, that one sentence that the congregation can carry out the door. And when you know what the sermon is about, when you do this work here, this has revolutionized what I do in preaching. It's revolutionized my own pastry and preaching. When you know what the sermon is about, before you start building, everything gets easier. Oh, everything gets easier. Doesn't mean that the preparation isn't still hard. It doesn't mean that you don't have to dig through the scripture and meditate and wrestle with some things. Doesn't mean that all goes away. No. But the the preparation stops being a search and starts allowing you to build something. Clarity of structure, same way. When you understand the three movements, the open, the build, the close, or old language of introduction, body, and closing or conclusion. When you know those three movements and each of them has a job, then you begin whether you start in the build or whether you start at the close or whether you start at the open, whatever your philosophy is. Some people say you got to start with introduction if you know where you're gonna go. Others say you got to start with the close so you know where you're going. Others say that it doesn't matter. Personally, I probably start with the open, the introduction more often than not. But again, as long as you understand the clear idea, start where you need to. That's fine. But understand each of these three movements of the sermon, the open, the build, the close, they all have a purpose. That open is all about uh hooking the audience, um, get grabbing their attention. It's about bridging from this opening idea or thought that you're gonna start with, and bridging that from the text to present day and landing that take-home truth. What's your sermon going to be about? You begin to introduce that in the open. It prepares the congregation to hear, grabs attention, secures interest, and introduces the take-home truth. That's that's the movement of the open, understanding that, got that structure. Okay, now I know what I'm doing, the build, uh, that body, you a logical flow, an argument, because really what you're trying to do is you're trying to build this argument for people to believe the truth that you are sharing, this take-home truth. Build this logical argument, and sometimes you're gonna follow the text because the text builds the argument out. Other times you're gonna have to pull in things just like um just like you would in a topical sermon, pulling from all over, building, but you're building this logical flow and this argument because but the purpose is you're driving home this take-home truth. You're driving home this sermon idea that you want to deliver. And then understand the movement of the clothes, that you land the truth there, that you press this truth one last time on your audience. And the idea is to go through the head, the heart, and then into the will and press action. Give them something actionable, something relevant to put that truth to practice in their life. When you know the, when you know these movements, it simplifies. There's still hard work to do, but it simplifies, it tells you where to go. Domain three, clarity of language, where you're you're making sure you're writing for the ear, not page, not the written word. This is a this is an oral exercise that we're doing. So active verbs and concrete images, short sentences, you're building, you're making sure you're you're explaining the theological ideas. Don't get don't get too off the rails and make it so much that you that the audience doesn't understand it and they can't grasp it. It makes it understandable. And then the last the last uh domain, the clarity of delivery. And we talked about uh principles of oral clarity here, you know, the restatements, your passage, passage preview, your intentional pause. And these are things that have to be developed. But when you know that, and you've if you have not yet listened to that podcast that we talked about oral clarity, or um join the join the Clear Preaching Academy. I've got a whole uh six-lesson uh video course on oral clarity and these principles that we can learn so that as we deliver the sermon and as we speak the sermon, these verbal and nonverbal cues that we give that help people comprehend, understand, and follow along. See, when you have these tools of these domains, when you understand, again, it simplifies the process. It gives you a framework to work with. You can sit down and know, okay, this is what I need to do first. This is what I need to do next, and it helps you follow that along. Clarity of thought removes that confusion of not knowing what the sermon's about. Clarity of structure removes that blank page and it gives you what comes next. Clarity of language removes that gap between what you meant to say and what the audience actually heard, and then clarity of delivery removes that assumption that the preparation stops at notes, and that preparation doesn't stop until you are ready to verbally and nonverbally deliver the message. So it helps you with that. So, what simple actually looks like. Simple does not mean a stripped-down sermon and a shallow sermon and a boring sermon. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what simple looks like. Simple means the congregation knows what it's about, knows what the sermon's about. And that's my goal. I want the congregation to know what it's about. And if that means I have to make things simple in my prep process to help me stay focused, that's what I want to do. I want the congregation to know what it's all about. They can tell you in one sentence what they heard. They they they because they heard that come clearly through in your message. Simple means the application isn't buried in point four, it's woven all throughout. Simple doesn't mean the illustration is a detour, but the illustrations you use actually illustrate and clarify the truth being spoken. And simple doesn't look like the close being a summary. The close ends up being a place where that truth is landed in the hearts of the hearers and they know what action to take at the end of the message. In fact, here's the truth simple is harder to preach than complicated because it takes work. It requires you to do the hard work of clarity before you get to the pulpit, not daring. We don't become more clear as we are speaking. It doesn't happen. You have to be clear on the front end. Clarity is not created in delivery. Clarity has to be created before delivery ever happens. Now, the framework doesn't do the work for you. As I said, it makes the process simpler, the hard work's still there, but it tells you, the framework tells you exactly what work to do in what order and why you're doing it. When there's chaos, it's an open-ended search. There's no clear process. Saturday night patchwork putting things together. But when there's a process, you got clear steps, a clear order, clear purpose, and you've got confidence heading into Sunday. So, one question for you this week this last message you preached, could someone in your congregation, after hearing that message, tell you in one sentence what it was about? If the answer is no, then the work wasn't completely done. Not because the content wasn't there, and not because you didn't even try, didn't even work hard. You worked hard, but because the clarity wasn't there. I invite you to visit clearpreaching.com, learn about the academy that's launching on June 1st. If you're listening to this after June 1st, the academy is already live. In that academy, there is a there is a community of preachers just like yourself who are working this work week in and week out, who you can connect with and and build with and encourage and strengthen and learn from one another. There's also inside that academy, there are some courses, some things that I've taught that you can listen. But this is a the academy is for preachers who are serious about their craft, where they can have that encouragement of the community and the training of the classes, whichever one, both of them, whichever one they want to want to take advantage of, it is there for them. And I invite you to check it out. Because your congregation doesn't need a more complicated sermon, they need a clearer one, not simple ones, focused ones. Hope you have a great week. Thank you for joining me on the Clear Preaching Podcast. God bless you.