Dr. Steve Lawson (original source: http://www.onepassionministries.org/blog/2020/2/26/improving-sermon-delivery )

Whenever the word is preached, the manner with which the sermon is delivered is always important. To be sure, the substance of what we have to say is the greatest priority. Truth is king, and it must reign supremely in our preaching. But how we deliver this truth is also important. Just as no one likes to eat cold scrambled eggs, neither does anyone like to be fed a steady diet of cold preaching. The manner in which the truth is served plays a large factor in how it is received.

That being said, I want to survey ten keys to improve the delivery of your preaching. Each of these should help you to reflect upon your preaching and to incorporate these into your delivery, as they are needed. 

Clarity and Passion

First, clarity. Clarity is never overrated. When you stand to preach, people should be able to easily understand what you are saying. They need to be able to follow you without laboring to grasp your point. You need to be a linear thinker, not a circular thinker. Structure, development of thought, and correct pronunciation of your words are all important parts of a lucid delivery.

Second, passion. When you are excited about something, it causes others to be enthusiastic about it. On the other hand, when you are bored with a matter, other people will tend to be bored. Passion is contagious. A fire in the pulpit will soon spread to the pew.

For your preaching, there needs to be a fire in your bones. There needs to be a holy enthusiasm for what you proclaim. There must be an excitement in your soul for what you say. Passion conveys to the listener the importance of what you are expositing.

Eye Contact and Tone

Third, eye contact. One of the greatest hindrances in sermon delivery is when the preacher is staring at his notes. If you are not looking up at the people to whom you are speaking, they will probably not listen to you. 

We call that kind of preacher a “bubble preacher,” because it is as if he is standing in a glass bubble, separate from the congregation. It is like he is in a remote sound booth, and the people are in another room. Without eye contact, this preacher is disconnected from the people to whom he is speaking.

Think about your own preaching. Eye contact is critically important to you being heard, because it helps you establish rapport with the people to whom you speak.

Fourth, tone. The warmth and volume with which you speak is critically important to the effectiveness of your sermons. Depending on the size of the room and the number of people you are addressing, it needs to be appropriate for the setting. 

There are many different settings in which we preach. There is Sunday morning in the worship center to the largest group. There is Sunday night to a smaller congregation. There is Wednesday night to a yet smaller group. There is Sunday School in a classroom. There is a men’s discipleship group in a more intimate setting. There is an elders’ or a deacons’ meeting in a boardroom setting.

Each of those venues influence the tone with which we speak. I have a louder, more demonstrative tone when I am speaking to 5,000 people at a national conference. I have a more pastoral tone when I am speaking to a smaller group of fifty people. A part of effective delivery is to be conscious of your setting and use the proper volume of your voice.

Volume and Gestures

Fifth, variance. You should learn to raise and lower the volume of your voice. You should not be blaring and loud for the entire forty-five minutes of the sermon. I will admit that I can be loud for too sustained of a period of time, but that is a personal weakness, not a strength. To use an airplane metaphor, you cannot step into the pulpit, soar immediately to 36,000 feet, stay at that altitude for almost an hour, and then abruptly end the message. That kind of prolonged intensity does not make for effective communication. 

For example, when I highlight my sermon notes with a yellow marker, if every word in my sermon notes is highlighted in yellow, nothing stands out. In like manner, if you are loud the entire sermon, nothing that you say stands out. You need to have peaks and valleys in your delivery, with an alternating loud and soft volume, as is appropriate.

In fact, some of the most impactful things you will say may be when you lower your voice. Varied volume is an important part of effective delivery. 

Sixth, gestures. You are speaking not only with your voice, but with your hands. How you use your hands in the pulpit to gesture is another critical factor in preaching.

You should not stand in the pulpit with your hands in your pocket for the entire sermon. You should not stand there with two hands tightly gripping the pulpit. There needs to be a natural freedom with the use of your hands as you preach.

At the same time, there should be a diversity with the kind of gestures that you use. You should not stand in the pulpit, and every gesture is a repetition of the same one. You should not repeat the “first down” gesture. Nor should every gesture be the triumphant “touchdown” gesture. You should use your hands in a variety of ways as you speak.

Natural Disposition and Vocabulary

Seventh, be natural. When you preach, you must be yourself. You should not be an imitation of another preacher, in which you try to mirror their delivery. It would be unnatural for you to preach like someone else. You should sound like the same person in the pulpit as when you step out of it.

You must be you. You are an original creation of God, that He has made uniquely. Use your own God-given temperament, personality, and vocabulary as you speak. 

Eighth, synonyms. You should learn to vary your vocabulary. Do not repeat yourself, using the same word over and over. There is a point of diminishing return when you use the same word again and again. After you have used a word four or five times, it begins to lose its effect. It could even lose its luster after two or three uses, especially if it is within the same sentence or the same paragraph.

I try to vary my word choice and use multiple synonyms. I also try to layer out my synonyms so that some words are accessible to teenagers and still others are for businessmen. All the while, though, I am communicating the same idea, but with different synonyms that connect with different people.

Vary Verbs and Maintain Energy

Ninth, verb moods.

Verbs are used with various moods. There is the indicative mood, which is a statement of fact. Most of the sermon will be given in the indicative mood. Then there is the interrogative mood, which is the sentence that ends with a question mark. It is where you are asking a question, which causes the listener to think and search for the answer.

Moreover, the imperative mood issues a command. It charges the listener to follow a particular course of action. In addition, there is the exclamatory mood, which is the sentence that ends with an exclamation point. It is intended to excite the hearts of those to whom you are speaking.

As I write my sermon manuscript, I am consciously aware of shifting the moods in my notes from the indicative, to the interrogative, to the imperative, to the exclamatory. Read your Bible and you will notice the same verb moods.

When I am in the pulpit, I may not be looking down at my notes, but I am still mindful to not be stuck in one mood with my verbs.

So many preachers stay in the rut of the indicative mood and never use the other moods of verbs. Their sermon sounds like this: statement of fact, statement of fact, statement of fact, statement of fact, statement of fact. This is why their preaching becomes very monotone and becomes little more than a data dump.

Tenth, energy. In the pulpit, there needs to be an energy level that comes through with your voice, eyes, gestures, and countenance. It conveys you are alive and awake, not tired or listless. When you are full of the Holy Spirit, there is a dynamic force in your preaching that will penetrate the soul of the listener.

Distinguished Delivery

For your part, make sure you have enough sleep the night before you preach. Make sure that you have had a proper breakfast. Make sure if you are a coffee drinker, that you have had enough caffeine. Whatever helps you to be energetic in the pulpit, you need to follow that path.

All this to say, your sermon delivery is very important to your message being heard and received. It is what distinguishes you from another preacher who teaches the same truth. The difference is not in the doctrine, but in the delivery. The substance of your sermon is important, but so also is the style with which it is delivered. Think about how you are coming across and how you can improve, for the glory of God alone.

Personally, I am not a huge fan of alliteration. It is not something I attempt to do in my sermons. This is not to everyone’s taste, and I understand that. Some love alliteration; some feel they need it and others go further by saying that a lack of alliteration amounts to a lack of preparation on the preacher’s part. I don’t buy that. May I say, I find alliteration:

Forced

Frustrating

Feeble

Fatiguing

While I am all for anything that helps a congregation remember the main parts of a sermon, I am not convinced that alliteration is always a helpful and useful tool. I don’t believe a sermon without alliteration is a failure. My observation is that alliterated sermons often feel very forced, and, dare I say it, make me feel the preacher is trying to impress me by his rhetoric (the very opposite of the Apostle Paul’s motivation described in 1 Cor 2:1-5) rather than help me. In balance, sometimes alliteration can be useful, but I am yet to be persuaded that it is an essential component of preaching.

I believe that the following article “The Rules For Alliteration” by Tim Challies is a good resource for those who do use alliteration (original source – https://www.challies.com/articles/the-rules-for-alliteration/).

Tim Challies writes:

Strictly speaking, to alliterate is to provide a list of words that begin with the same letter or sound, as in “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” In a broader sense, to alliterate is to form an outline using similarly-sounding words or phrases. It is a device that, in theory, helps readers to follow along with a book or that helps listeners to follow along with a sermon.

So, for example, Steven Lawson’s little work on Jonathan Edwards has chapters titled “The Prerequisite of Faith,” “The Priority of God’s Glory,” “The Putting Away of Sin,” “The Precipice of Eternity,” and so on. Sometimes a whole sermon series will be alliterated, as in Colin Smith’s “Faith that Lasts” which was made up of three sermons titled “Firm Foundations,” “False Assumptions,” and “Full Assurance.” But we see it most commonly in individual sermons where, as often as not, it is used to form a three-point outline. Lawson once again provides an example with his sermon on Ephesians 1:21-26 which follows this outline: Paul’s Dedication, Paul’s Dilemma, and Paul’s Decision.

(Here, for your reading pleasure, is an alliterated defense of alliteration in preaching. Or you can read Jared Wilson’s alliterated “5 C’s of Preaching.”)

Over the years I’ve seen and heard some truly wonderful examples of alliteration. I’ve also seen and heard some truly awful ones. Most recently, a book I attempted to read had maddening alliteration for its chapter headings—the kind that stretched the meaning of words far beyond the breaking point, all for the sake of maintaining a common first letter. Based on that book and a handful of recent sermons, I thought I’d share some pointers for doing alliteration well (or, at least, not doing it poorly). And, as I do so, I admit that on various occasions I’ve doubtlessly violated each of these rules.

Rule #1: Know what it’s for. Alliteration is meant to add clarity to a sermon or book by providing a simple, memorable outline. It is not meant to show off the communicator’s expansive vocabulary or clever rhyming ability. It is, at best, a minor component of a sermon and one of the least important steps in preparation. This kind of outline is only helpful if it adds clarity; it can be harmful or wasteful if it reduces clarity. Unless each alliterated heading is clear enough that it could stand on its own even if it wasn’t alliterated with the others, it is likely to hinder communication more than help it.

Rule #2: Don’t despair. Don’t despair if you aren’t good at alliterating or even particularly good at creating an outline. There are some wonderful preachers who rarely create a highly-developed, three-point outline and some who rarely alliterate (John Piper comes to mind). Many of these are still clear, powerful preachers, even though they don’t follow what some may hold up as rules for sermon preparation. They have done lots of study, they have organized the sermon in their own minds, and they are more than able to make it all make sense to their listeners.

Rule #3: Don’t give it too much time. A great outline can be a great help to a listener. You’ve heard the rule of effective communication, I’m sure: Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you’ve said. An outline can help listeners understand where you are going, then remind them where you’ve been. However, the great power in preaching is not in the outline, but in the faithfulness to Scripture. Don’t put a ton of time into alliterating an outline if it is going to detract from the time you’d take to search the Scriptures and prepare to faithfully exposit them.

Rule #4: Don’t use a thesaurus. If you’ve prepared a three-point sermon with two words beginning with T, there can be a great desire to find a third T-word to complete the alliterated outline. But almost invariably, turning to a thesaurus will lead you to words that are too obscure to be helpful. In general, if you can’t come up with the word on your own, it’s not a word you ought to use to frame a whole section of a sermon. A thesaurus may occasionally remind you of a word you simply forgot, but more often it will lead you to words that are too uncommon to fit the purpose. It’s better to break the alliteration than to use a word no one has spoken in 400 years.

Rule #5: It’s better not to stretch. As in rule #4, a nearly-complete outline can drive you to a kind of desperation to get that final word or two in place. If that doesn’t drive you to use a thesaurus and dig up an obscure word, it may drive you to words you know, but that aren’t quite right. You may use a word that kind of means what you want it to mean, but you would never actually use if it didn’t begin with that particular letter or have that number of syllables. It is far better to be clear than cute. If the purpose of alliteration is to help with comprehension, you’ll be working against that goal by stretching words beyond their natural meaning or usage.

The big point is that alliteration is meant to serve a purpose, and the purpose is to add clarity to the mind of a reader or listener. But done poorly, it can actually detract from clarity and hinder the understanding of a reader or listener. So my counsel is to use alliteration only when it can serve that bigger purpose (which is to say, only when it obeys at least a few of those five rules).

Kevin DeYoung writes (source: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/what-is-preaching-and-who-does-it/):

One of the best books I read last year was Preaching in the New Testament (IVP, 2017) by Jonathan Griffiths. As part of D. A. Carson’s series New Studies in Biblical Theology, I expected the book to be exegetically rich and the cover to be slate gray. I was not disappointed on either account. Griffiths, a pastor in Ottawa, Canada, makes a compelling case that there is such a thing as preaching and that not every Christian is called to do it.

At the heart of Griffiths’s examination is this well-defended conclusion:

Preaching in the New Testament is a public declaration of God’s word by a commissioned agent that stands in a line of continuity with Old Testament prophetic ministry. (128-129)

Building on the work of Claire Smith, Griffiths argues that in the New Testament euangelizomai, katangello, and kerysso are semi-technical terms referring to the proclamation of the gospel. Griffiths charts all 54 uses of euangelizomai (“announce good news”), all 18 uses of katangello (“proclaim” or “announce”), and all 59 uses of kerysso (“make proclamation as a herald”). While the three terms are not employed in a uniform sense, they are “semi-technical” in that they normally refer to preaching by some recognized authority. Of the three verbs, kerysso is the most specialized term with the narrowest range of meaning. But even with the other terms, Griffiths notes, there are no examples in the New Testament where believers in general are commissioned or commanded to “preach” (36).

Preaching is a certain kind of speech carried out by certain kinds of people. Of course, there are other kinds of word ministries given to all believers (Eph. 6:13-17; Col. 3:16; 1 Thess. 1:8; 1 Pet. 3:15) but preaching (especially the speech signified by kerysso) is a ministry set apart. Paul’s charge to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:1-2) indicates not only that preaching is a task for one with commissioned authority, but also that the preacher is a man of God (2 Tim. 3:17) like the prophets of old (61-66). Likewise, Romans 10 assumes that New Testament preaching stands in continuity with the Old Testament prophetic ministry of Isaiah. We also see that being commissioned (i.e., sent out) is an essential prerequisite for preaching ministry.

As Griffiths moves through 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 2-6, 1 Thessalonians 1-2, and Hebrews, he reinforces the main themes of the book: that New Testament preaching is powerful, that God speaks through gospel preaching, that God expects people to respond to preaching with faith and obedience, that preaching requires a commissioned speaker, that preaching stands in continuity with Old Testament prophetic ministry, and that preaching is, therefore, a unique word ministry.

Concluding Thoughts

So what does this mean for the church today? Griffiths offers several points of application, let me mention three of my own (which overlap with some of his).

1. Preaching is not what every Christian does. The work of heralding is related to other word ministries but is not identical with them. There are no instructions for non-leaders to preach or proclaim the gospel. Obviously, the Bible was written in Greek not in English. The apostles never used the word “preach,” but the words they did use under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit mean something distinct from bearing witness, one-to-one discipleship, or leading an inductive Bible study. There is such a thing as preaching, and not every Christian is called to do it.

2. The act of preaching is inherently authoritative. For some reason, I had not seen before how clear this is in Romans 10. Preachers preach the gospel. Yes, that’s clear. But what is also clear is that preachers don’t just decide themselves that they want to preach. They must be sent. Preaching implies a commissioned agent authorized to preach. Rightly understood, there is no preaching that does not come from an authority in the church and no preaching that does not carry with it God’s own authority. A corollary to this point, then, is that complementarians should not speak of “women preachers,” nor should we describe the word ministry of women as “preaching.” The use of such terminology is unwise and unbiblical.

3. Preaching is meant to lead to an encounter with God. The word of Christ preached is not only a word about Christ; it is a word from Christ (Rom. 10:17). Though coming from human lips, the preached word is nothing less than the divine word of God (1 Thess. 2:13). Think of the book of Hebrews, a word of exhortation (13:22) that most scholars now think is the earliest extant full-length Christian sermon. We see that preaching comes from a congregational leader (13:7-24). We see that preaching is an exposition of Scripture. And we see that in preaching we come face-to-face (or ear-to-ear, we might say) with the living God (3:7, 15; 4:7). God’s voice is heard in the Sunday sermon, which is why we are right to give preaching the central place in our worship services and why we should pray regularly for the powerful preaching of God’s Word.