Krispy Kreme. Just the mention of the name makes my mouth water. There’s nothing like a hot, fresh, gooey doughnut. I’m traveling right now, so last night I got the chance to have a couple. There’s nothing like them! This morning when I awoke, before my feet even hit the ground, the thing on my mind was: Krispy Kremes. I jumped out of bed with eager anticipation. I rummaged through the box and grabbed one left over from last night. What came next, you may already know: disappointment. Though they were still good, something was missing in the cold, day-old doughnuts. It just wasn’t what I was expecting.
This whole experience has got me thinking. A lot of our sermons/lessons/talks…whatever you call them…suffer the same fate. Whether you write your own material exclusively or you use a curriculum, it’s easy to slip into a position where you are delivering stale content. Don’t believe me? Word of Life produces some fantastic pre-school, elementary, Jr. high and high school Bible study material. Our resource is called Teacher Source (check it out by the way, if you don’t already use it, you ought to consider allowing us to partner with you). Recently I was looking at the Google Analytics on Teacher Source and here’s what I saw:
Notice the peaks? They seem pretty regular don’t they? The peaks are on Wednesdays. Guess what night most of our youth groups are meeting? You got it…. Wednesday. It looks like most ministries are downloading, studying and presenting their material all in the same day. That’s some stale doughnuts.
To make a message hot and fresh, you have to have at least three things:
- Overflow – what I mean is, your message has to be something that you have studied to the point that God has used the material to impact your heart and you are in turn teaching it to others. This is where your passion comes from. It puts the fire in your belly. Bypassing this step leads to a message that is STERILE.
- Group Dynamics – this is when you get the audience involved. Whether through object lessons, breaking into smaller research groups, panel discussions, etc. The idea is you get everyone involved. Without this, your message is BORING.
- Confidence – what I mean here is you have to be sure you are teaching the truth. You have to be sure your understanding of a passage is accurate. You have to be sure your application is Biblical and wise. Without this kind of confidence, your message will be UNBELIEVEABLE.
Here’s the thing… you cannot implement all three in one day. You can’t implement all three with only an hour or so of prep. It takes several hours and it takes forward planning. For instance, if you want to use a skit as a group dynamic, you’ll need to communicate to your actors well ahead of time.
My point is we have a lot of potential for delivering hot, fresh, mouth-watering messages. The kind that inspire action, stick in the mind, and help realize changed lives. But while that is possible, we end up serving stale doughnuts and people are left disappointed.
If you want hot, fresh, impactful preaching you must speak out of an overflow, use group dynamics, and preach with confidence. If you don’t, your message will be sterile, boring, and unbelievable. We need less stale doughnuts and more Krispy Kreme preaching.
