Many preachers write about how to prepare sermons. Do we really need another one? Probably not unless you include the truth that we want our sermon prep to include creativity from the start. Some people see sermon prep as a technical process of hermeneutics and homiletics. We follow a set of steps and then later try to add some creative elements for sermon delivery.
An effective preacher can look for creative elements during the study and sermon prep steps to produce sermons that listeners need and want to hear. They might even enjoy hearing them. We’re more effective when we preach with all five senses in mind.
Updated for Logos 40 in February, 2025
Digital Sermon Preparation
Few preachers only use traditional books, commentaries, and Bibles sermon prep today. Most include a word processor and possibly some electronic books. However, it’s possible that someone pointed you to this post to help you see the value of using digital tools to prepare a sermon. What’s the benefit of using digital tools almost exclusively in the creative sermon prep process?
When I preached my first sermon at my home church at Northwest Baptist Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Youth Sunday back in 1987, almost no one could use digital tools to study the Bible. I prepared my sermon on John 15:13 using the New American Standard Bible version of The Open Bible and nothing else. I hope it wasn’t terrible for a 17-year-old kid who didn’t know what he was doing.
The process takes longer today than when I was 17, but I hope it also results in a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the passage’s meaning. During my college and seminary years in the early nineties, I had some training but still used physical books to study before writing in a DOS-based version of WordPerfect 5.1. That took me hours and hours to do what I could now do in less time.
Today, I spend more than a few hours studying and writing my sermons. Thanks to programs like Logos, I can go deeper today than I used to 34 years ago. Today, I can study as much as I did with my physical books and Bibles in less time. Now, I can go far deeper in Logos on my Mac or iPad in the same time it took to write my first sermons as a young twenty-something preacher.
An orthopedic surgeon doesn’t perform arthroscopic‌ surgery by picking up the tools and fixing a tear in the meniscus of his patient’s knee by watching a couple of YouTube videos or by trial and error. We’re not doing surgery, but sermon prep is similar. You must learn to use tools like a Hebrew Lexicon or a word study tool in Bible software. This takes time. However, once the student learns how to use them effectively, the digital versions will cut the time compared to physical books.
Creative Sermon Prep and Creative Sermon Delivery
What do we mean by creative sermon prep and delivery? We’re talking more about the sermon prep process and the final result – a creative sermon delivered with multiple human senses targeted. Creative sermon prep means preparing to preach a sermon using more innovative methods of communication. We will keep this in mind during the preparation process, so we call it creative sermon prep as a shorthand for preparing sermons with a creative preaching strategy in mind.
Image source: Jennifer Murawski on Flickr
Creative sermon delivery looks different than traditional sermon delivery. Instead of standing in front of a congregation with a Bible and maybe some printed sermon notes, we will see that you can preach a message supported by visual sermon illustrations. However, sight isn’t the only sense that makes sermons more creative. We will use other forms of creativity that appeal to all five senses. These can include things like:
- Images alone
- Slides with a few words
- Video clips
- Physical props or object lessons
- Drama
- Audiences participation
- Sound effects
- Smells used to evoke memories or feelings
- Maybe even taste
The examples will help the preacher engage the audience using multiple senses at once. Communication experts tell us that some of the five senses affect communication more than others. The five senses rank from the least effective to the most effective as follows:
- Sound – sadly, a person speaking alone is the least memorable of the five senses, but it’s the most common form of sermon delivery.
- Sight – we remember things we see more than what we hear, but sight is still the second least effective sensory communication.
- Touch – if you can touch something, your memory of the experience goes up compared to sound and sight.
- Taste – a person who tastes something will remember the experience most of the time.
- Smell – the most powerful sensory experiences include smell.
If you have a memory that is indelibly stamped on your mind, you probably can smell what you were smelling or taste the food you were eating as you remember it. However, we forget things we heard faster than things we touch.
Combining two or more of our senses into one experience increases our ability to remember. You will remember what I tell you more if you see an image with it or have an object in your hand to touch. If there’s a strong smell in the environment while we communicate, we’ll nearly always remember what the other person said longer.
As you study a passage, look for things that appeal to all five senses. Make note of elements in a passage related to smell, taste, and touch. They’re the most powerful scenes for memorable communication.
Our Plan for the 10 Steps of Creative Sermon Prep in the Digital World
Here’s our plan for 10 Steps of Creative Sermon Prep in the Digital World. We will start where the preaching preparation process should always begin, prayer and picking your passage. Then we’ll look at putting together a Big Idea for our sermon, followed by building a creative outline and plan for the sermon.
Here’s the list of the ten steps we’ll follow using Logos as it functions in Logos version 40. In 2024, Logos updated their software and did away with the Logos 10 or Logos 11 naming scheme. They now follow a new way of naming Logos with new versions every few months as they update the software.
You can get a free month of the new subscription version of Logos using my partner link.
Note that finished posts include working links below.
- Pray and Pick a Passage
- Making Observations of the Text
- Asking Interpretive Questions and Finding the Answers
- Discovering the Big Idea of the Text
- Outlining a Creative Sermon
- Putting Meat on the Bones of the Creative Outline
- Writing an Impactful Conclusion
- Grabbing the Attention of the Listener with a Creative Introduction
- Check Your Theology
- Find Creative Illustration Material