January 14, 2011 (Friday)
President Obama spoke Wednesday night to a television audience of 31 million people. I’ve tried to imagine what 31 million people all in one place would look like. If we could gather up every person living in Texas, the number would be under 25 million.
Thirty-one million people is equal to 31,000 congregations of 1,000 each. That’s a big crowd by any standard.
No matter what size the congregation may be, small or large, it is vital that the speaker have something to say. I remember getting a lot of tongue-in-cheek advice about sermons when I first started preaching. I was told, “There are three parts to a sermon: “1.Tell them what you are going to tell them. 2.Tell them. 3.Tell them what you told them.” Someone else shared with me some easy outlines to remember. For instance, a sermon on Lot’s wife: “1.Exalted. 2.Halted 3.Salted.” Or an outline on the Prodigal Son: “1.He got sick of home. 2.He got homesick. 3.He got home.”
When all the joking stopped, I was given some really good advice by the testimony of an old, experienced man of God: “1.I study myself full. 2.I pray myself through. 3.I turn myself loose.”
After I had been preaching for eleven years, I finally took a seminary course on sermon preparation. After that course, I understood what I was doing when I prepared a sermon. Up to that time, I had been “winging it.” Don’t misunderstand me. God had been using me and people had been blessed by my preaching, but once I learned some principles and rules about how to organize and present a sermon, it seemed to me that people found it easier to understand what I was trying to say.
I never preached to 31 million people at one time. Come to think of it, I have not preached to 31 million people, period.