Ep 11: What Actually Is Clarity in Preaching: And Why Is Everyone Suddenly Talking About It?

"Clarity" has become the word everyone in preaching circles is using right now. Coaching programs. Seminary institutes. Training cohorts. It's everywhere.

But when everyone uses the same word, the word starts to lose its meaning.

In this episode, Jonathan McClintock cuts through the noise and defines what preaching clarity actually is — and what it isn't. Not simplicity. Not brevity. Not polish. Something deeper, more structural, and more important than any of those things.

You'll learn:

• Why most definitions of clarity are too shallow to be useful
• The three-part framework behind genuinely clear preaching (Text's Idea → Abiding Truth → Take-Home Truth)
• The Tuesday Test — the one question that tells you whether your sermon actually landed
• Why clarity matters more right now than it did ten years ago
• One concrete thing to do before you finish your sermon prep this week

Whether you've been preaching for two years or twenty, this episode will give you language for something you've probably been feeling for a while — and a framework to start fixing it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

What does clarity actually mean in preaching? And why is everyone suddenly using the word? Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Clear Preaching Podcast. I am Jonathan McClintock, and today I want to talk to you about that word, that seven-letter word, clarity. It's been tossed around a lot lately. You've heard me use it quite a bit, but I've noticed now over the last several months that it is all over the internet. When people talk about preaching, when people talk about communicating God's word, that word clarity seems to be getting a lot of airplay now. I didn't notice it much when I started my doctoral work at Gordon Conwell about five years ago. And halfway through my program, I got connected with this idea of oral clarity in preaching, and I began to develop it and worked on my doctoral project and everything about oral clarity. And since graduating and beginning to develop this clear preaching academy and the clear preaching framework, I started noticing the word clarity is being used a lot. But what I've also noticed is clarity is one of those terms, and there's a lot of terms out there, that everybody has a different definition for. So I want to talk today. What does clarity actually mean when we're talking about preaching? First of all, let me tell you what clarity is not. Clarity is not simplicity. Clarity is not making things simple. Simple language is a tool, but simple language is not the destination when we talk about clarity, especially in preaching. Because you can speak in short sentences and still have no point. So clarity is not necessarily simplicity, neither is clarity brevity. Clarity is not brevity. Short sermons aren't automatically clearer. Just because you preach 10 minutes instead of 35 minutes does not mean your idea is going to land clearer. It does not mean the audience received what you wanted them to say. Length is a delivery decision, but clarity is a structural one. So clarity is not simplicity, clarity is not brevity. And thirdly, clarity is not polish. You know, AI, and we've talked about it a little bit lately, AI can make a sermon sound polished. It can craft words in a way that some humans have difficulty with. But a polished sermon without a clear center is still a muddy sermon. A polished sermon without connected structure is still a muddy sermon. Polish is surface. When you polish something, it's on the surface, but clarity, we're talking depth and structure. So clarity is not simplicity, clarity is not brevity, and clarity is not polish. So what is clarity? Clarity is in preaching one idea driving everything. Now that I that part of driving everything is a lot deeper than what I'm going to get into in this podcast alone. I've talked about some of it in previous podcasts, uh, talk about it more, but it's it's a really big subject to unpack, but I want to give you the gist of it. Clarity in preaching is one idea, one thought, one concept that drives every part of the sermon. Now we're not talking a topic, not talking a theme, we're not talking even just a passage. We're talking about one idea. An idea that's specific enough to be stated in a sentence, concise sentence. It's specific enough not only to be stated in a sentence, but clear enough that your listener could repeat it back to you on Monday morning. Now, before I say too much about that, it's not it's not just that you want to say something and so you just say it over and over and over and over and over again so somebody can memorize it and repeat it. It's not so much that they get the idea word for word that you meant to say, meant them to hear, but it's more uh delivering that concept, delivering that idea so they can internalize it themselves and they can give back to you, okay, this is what your sermon was about. And that idea they express should be similar to what you wanted to express. So if you have clearly, clearly communicated that idea of your sermon, the listener should be able to tell you what that idea is. At least the concept, at least show that they understood it and it was transferred to them. So clarity is this one idea driving everything. So we've talked about working our way to that idea. We've talked about the text idea. Every passage has one, every text has an idea. Your exegesis, your study, your digging into it, into the languages, into the words, into the message, into the into the context, that you you're you uncover that through that. That's the text idea. Then we talked about this abiding truth. It's that text idea that's translated across that bridge from the then of the text to the now of the listener. And then you get to the take-home truth, and the take-home truth is that angled applied sentence, the angle you choose to preach from the text, that idea that drives your particular sermon to your particular people that Sunday. Clarity is an idea. It's a clear idea that drives everything, that dictates everything. It's not just getting an idea and then having that kind of on the back burner and then building a sermon that's loosely connected or loosely relates. But it's it's taking that idea and letting it drive everything in the sermon. There's the Monday test for this, which I mentioned just a minute ago. On Monday morning, could someone who was in the room on Sunday tell you in one sentence what your sermon was about? Not the topic, not the passage, but the point, the idea that your sermon was about. I'm still crafting this myself. I'm still I'm still learning this myself. I understand the concept, I understand the idea, but putting it in practice takes practice. Putting into action takes practice. I felt a little better on this past Sunday when I was speaking to one of my daughters after church, and she mentioned about the sermon and my kids, my family always good at you know making me feel good after it was all over. And she's like, Dad, I was taking notes and I didn't get everything that you mentioned. I said, but I said, Did you get this though? And I showed her my take-home truth, and she said, Well, yeah, I got that. That's what I that's what um I remember. I just didn't get all those other little points that you had. And I thought, you know what? Okay, it's working at least. Uh I still got a ways to go because I I want my structure to be clear also. But she got the take-home truth. She got the sermon, I what the sermon was about. So, you know, hey, a little point for me there. But it it's it's it's a process. It's something we have to learn. I'm still learning it. I'm pushing myself. It's not something that I just teach, it's something that I am practicing and I am hopefully getting better at. But that Monday test is can somebody on Monday who was on the room in the room on Sunday tell you in one sentence what your sermon was about? If they can't, then the sermon wasn't clear. Regardless of how well it was delivered, regardless of how well you thought it was delivered, or regardless of how clear it was in your own mind, if the listener can't tell you what the sermon was about in one sentence, then we need to work on the clarity. And this is how we know every week, whether we were clear or not. Why does this matter? Why does this matter? Well, number one, your congregation is changing. The people that we preach to Sunday after Sunday is changing. Individuals are changing, individuals are growing. But there's also, and I think this is an important thing to think about, there's a lot of research from Barna and others that are telling us Gen Z is returning to church. They are young adults returning to church. But in their returning, they're skeptical. They're intellectually engaged, and they have zero patience for a sermon that wonders. This is what the research is telling us. That these young adults, they're returning to church, but they want to be engaged and they want to hear a message that's not wondering. It's not all over the place, it's not unplanned, it's not shoot from the hip. They'll sit through the hard truths, but they won't sit through confusion. So why does clarity matter? And I'm not talking about simplicity or brevity or polish. I'm talking about one idea driving everything. I'm talking about structured delivery that is structure that's connected and delivery that is purposeful so that we can connect the truth with the audience. So, why does this matter? Well, number one, the congregation is changing. If we've got young people coming back to church and a new generation that's deciding, hey, I want God, then we need to make sure the preaching is ready for them. Secondly, the tools, why this matters is that the tools are creating false confidence. The tools we've been given are creating false confidence. AI can make a sermon sound polished in 90 seconds. But pastors using AI without a clarity framework are just producing more words around the same missing center, more mud, but faster. I've told you before, I I've used artificial intelligence for some things, and man, the depth is not there. It's not there. It's useful in some settings. But if it when it comes to depth of text and depth of meaning and depth of spirituality and depth of spirit, it's lacking. And it's always, I don't care how good it gets, AI will never be Holy Ghost filled. It's never going to be spirit-led. And so we can't depend on it for some of these things. It can spit us out something that looks good and even sounds good, but it's just more fluff, it's more noise, and it's missing something. Clear preaching that is spirit-led needs that one idea that drives everything. So this matters right now. Clarity. So there are a lot of people talking about clarity. And I think one of the main reasons is it matters. But I I want I want to understand that clarity is more than what some people are are talking about. It's more than simplifying, it's more than shorter, it's more than polish. It's deeper than that. It's more than that. And to really deliver clear sermons, it matters. Some things matter. Clarity, as I said, more than simplify, more than brevity, more than polish. Clarity is not created in transit, it's planned throughout the process. Clarity is not something we just hope for. Clarity honestly doesn't stop either with that take-home truth, which that's what I'm gonna drive home here today. And that's, I think it's it's a great start. But clarity must be planned throughout the entire build, throughout the entire process. Clarity can't be created as I'm talking. Right now, as I'm delivering this podcast, I've got notes that I'm following that are clearly direct to me and are purposeful in how they're structured. It's not structured like a sermon. I wouldn't structure my sermons like this. It's a completely different delivery method here. So this is not the best of um, not the best of examples for preaching, but there's still purpose behind what I have and what I've got to refer to. Because if I don't know what I'm wanting to talk about, I've just got a vague idea and I just start talking. I'm not going to become more clear as I talk. I'll become more clear in my mind, possibly. But the more words I deliver, piling words upon words, unclear concept upon a little, clearer concept upon a little, clearer concept upon a little. To me, I get clearer, but the audience hears all this pile, and it's not clear. So you can't create clarity in transit. It has to be planned throughout that build process of the sermon. And we're talking about, and I refer to this clear preaching framework that I've been developing, still developing, clarity of thought, clarity of structure, clarity of language, clarity of delivery. So we're talking about a process where you build something purposely. First, thought, thought is clear, then structure needs to be connected, language needs to be relatable, and then delivery needs to be purposeful. And if we will do that, we will be more clear in our preaching. Thought clear, structure that's connected, language that's relatable, and delivery that is purposeful. It's more than just getting up and talking and reading your notes. In fact, simply reading what you've written does not guarantee clarity. Because written language and spoken or oral language, two completely different things. So, first of all, clarity is not created in transit, it's got to be planned throughout the process. And secondly, clarity is a skill that can be learned. I don't want to complicate it, don't want to, and I don't want to oversimplify either, because the work of clarity, it is work. It's not a template that you're going to download either from me or from some other program somewhere. And now that I've got the paper in front of me and I fill out the few little lines, I'm going to be clear. It's part of it, it's helpful, but clarity is a skill that has to be practiced, but it can be learned. It can be learned. Remember, preaching is an oral event. It's not a written one. We've practiced a lot in writing. We've got to practice our oral skills. Clarity is more than clear notes, it involves clear presentation, both verbally and nonverbally. So, one thing to do this week, before you finish your sermon prep, write the sentence at the top of your notes, that take-home truth, that concise sentence of what your sermon is about, and then ask yourself three questions. Is this sentence grounded in my text, or did I bring it to the text? Is it connected to the passage I'm preaching from, or did I impose it upon the passage? Secondly, ask yourself, does every section of my sermon serve this sentence? Or are some sections serving something else? That's the connected structure that I've talked about. And then thirdly, could a first-time visitor understand this sentence and know exactly what I was calling them to believe or to do. That's clarity of language. It's got to be relevant enough, the language relative. So you think clear thought, connected structure, relevant language, purposeful delivery. We'll be talking about more and more of this. I talk about it inside the academy. For those who want to be a part of that, join my weekly clarity email list. We'll talk about it more and more. Again, it's not something that you learn overnight. It's something I'm teaching it and I'm still working on it myself. I'm still developing it. I'm going to, until the Lord takes me home, I want to, I say this over and over. I want my last sermon to be my best sermon. We're in this together. And the cause of the truth of the gospel is worth preaching clearly. Our world needs to hear it. So do improving and growing and maturing and developing as preachers must be something we purposefully do all the time. Clarity is achievable. As I said, that take-home truth that your sermon's about, that's that involves clarity of thought, right? Thought clarity. It's the place to begin because thought must be clear before anything else can be. But here's where many programs out there, many things people are offering out there, stop. They stop at simplicity, they stop at brevity, and they call it clarity. And the truth is, it's more than that. But clarity is achievable. It'll be experienced through a structure that's connected, it'll be found in language that's relatable, and it will be received through delivery that is purposeful. If you have not yet joined the Clear Preaching Academy, invite you to do so. We do open June 1st, 2026. If this before you're listening before this, uh go to clearpreaching.com and join the wait list. Love to see you on the inside. And let's do this work of clear preaching and becoming better preachers and more clear preachers and more faithful preachers together. Again, clarity isn't a technique, it's a discipline. And like every discipline, it gets stronger when you practice it consistently and when you don't practice it alone. I'm pulling for you. I'll see you next week. God bless.