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Spurgeon’s 9 Tips for New Preachers
Through the Pastors’ College, Spurgeon trained and helped hundreds of men become faithful and effective preachers.
Charles Spurgeon was a great preacher and a great trainer of preachers. Through the Pastors’ College, Spurgeon trained and helped hundreds of men become faithful and effective preachers.
I took his lecture titled “Sermons” and came up with nine summary statements that can be labeled as Spurgeon’s tips for new preachers.
1. Be Continually in the Text
Have you seen the kind of sermon where a verse or passage is read, and then never mentioned the rest of the morning? What a crime. Spurgeon saw this too. He says:
Some brethren have done with their text as soon as they have read it. Having paid all due honour to that particular passage by announcing it, they feel no necessity further to refer to it.
Let’s be the kind of preachers who have people nodding their heads, because we keep inviting them to look down at the text. “Look at this word in verse 17 …” 6 minutes later. “Now look at verse 20 with me.” This is a hallmark of great preaching. Stay in the text.
2. Be Organized
When you read Spurgeon’s sermons, you can see his main points and sub-points. His stellar content, illustrations, and applications are given a clear structure. Spurgeon says:
In preaching, have a place for everything, and everything in its place … Do not let your thoughts rush as a mob, but make them march as a troop of soldiery … Our matter should be well arranged according to the true rules of mental architecture.
Brothers, do the hard work of outlining and organizing your sermon. It’s not unspiritual to outline. It helps people follow along, and it helps you stay on track. It’s a blessing to everyone.
3. Be Instructive
Spurgeon wants you to assess the actual content of your sermon. What are you giving the people? Is there solid biblical teaching and doctrine that will help them know, love, and follow Christ? Or is it just talky talk?
Sermons should have real teaching in them, and their doctrine should be solid, substantial, and abundant. We do not enter the pulpit to talk for talk’s sake; we have instructions to convey important to the last degree, and we cannot afford to utter pretty nothings.
It’s right to talk about issues in the world and in our lives—the Bible addresses these things—but make sure you aren’t simply doling out spiritual platitudes. Give your hearers sound doctrine and robust biblical truth that helps them love God and neighbor. Feed the people God’s truth. Don’t hold back. Quoting a French philosopher or a study from Harvard might be helpful and interesting, but God’s people need God’s word more than intellectual roundabouts.
Unless we are instructive preachers, and really feed the people, we may be great quoters of elegant poetry, and mighty retailers of second-hand windbags, but we shall be like Nero of old, fiddling while Rome was burning.
4. Be in Balance
We all have topics or areas of theology that interest us more than others. Spurgeon encourages us not to get out of proportion in what we preach from the pulpit. I bet you know the kind of preacher who seems to be easily distracted by that one rabbit trail. I imagine Spurgeon laughing when he said:
A nose is an important feature in the human countenance, but to paint a man’s nose alone is not a satisfactory method of taking his likeness: a doctrine may be very important, but an exaggerated estimate of it may be fatal to an harmonious and complete ministry.
Spurgeon knew this kind of preacher, too. It’s the kind of guy who could tell you all about Daniel’s 70 weeks, but couldn’t tell you anything his people face from week to week.
I know a minister whose shoe-latchet I am unworthy to unloose, whose preaching is often little better than sacred miniature painting—I might almost say holy trifling. He is great upon the ten toes of the beast, the four faces of the cherubim, the mystical meaning of badgers’ skins, and the typical bearings of the staves of the ark, and the windows of Solomon’s temple: but the sins of business men, the temptations of the times, and the needs of the age, he scarcely ever touches upon.
Our preaching needs balance. We preach the whole counsel of God, not just our favorite topics.
5. Be Selective
I think most preachers find their weekly sermon prep follows this pattern:
- Sunday: Thank You, Lord.
- Monday: I’m tired.
- Tuesday: What am I going to say? I’ve got nothing.
- Wednesday: This makes no sense.
- Thursday: I see it! This is amazing.
- Friday: This is terrible.
- Saturday: What am I going to cut!? I have too much.
There is a temptation to put too much in your sermon—too many stories, too many illustrations, too many cross-references, too many points, and too many conclusions. Great preachers are the ones who learn to cut great stuff out and save it for next time. As Spurgeon encouraged:
Do not overload a sermon with too much matter. All truth is not to be comprised in one discourse. Sermons are not to be bodies of divinity (a systematic theology). There is such a thing as having too much to say, and saying it till hearers are sent home loathing rather than longing.
6. Be Clear
Can you explain your sermon in 30 seconds? If not, I don’t think you know what it’s about. A collection of insightful, biblical, and helpful thoughts does not make a sermon. This is why outlines, manuscripts, and the intentional titling of the sermon can be helpful for you and your hearers. Spurgeon says:
Some men think in smoke and preach in a cloud. Your people do not want a luminous haze, but the solid terra firma of truth.
The famous professor of preaching, Howard Hendricks, once said, “A mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew.” Bingo. Pray and study till the text is clear, write and edit till the sermon is clear, all so that you can preach Christ loud and clear.
7. Be Fresh
Spurgeon exhorts us, “Endeavour to keep the matter of your sermonising as fresh as you can.” Even as a new preacher, it is possible for stale prep to turn you into a bland preacher. Here’s one way to avoid becoming stale—if you have young kids, don’t make every illustration about being a dad or stories of your kids. Sparingly use sports for illustrations, too. Don’t over-quote your favorite writers and theologians (except for Spurgeon!). And don’t rip off other people’s illustrations. Live your life and get your own. We live in a giant and fun world; look for fresh material. As Spurgeon says:
With abundant themes diligently illustrated by fresh metaphors and experiences, we shall not weary, but, under God’s hand, shall win our hearers’ ears and hearts.
8. Be More than Moralistic
Be careful not to be the kind of preacher who preaches therapeutic moralistic deism. This is the kind of preaching that addresses felt needs and being “good people” with a splash of God on the side. Improving one’s life apart from Christ is actually delayed destruction. Spurgeon:
To choose mere moral themes will be to use a wooden dagger; but the great truths of revelation are as sharp swords. Keep to doctrines which stir the conscience and the heart. Remain unwaveringly the champions of a soul-winning gospel.
True Christian preaching addresses virtue, obedience, and holiness in connection to the person and work of Christ.
9. Be a Gospel Guy
This point is always Spurgeon’s greatest concern. He believed that faithful sermons are “largely measured by the amount of gospel truth and force of gospel spirit which they contain. Brethren, weigh your sermons.” How much Jesus is in your sermons? Christ should never be sprinkled on top. He is the main course, subject, and very core and aim of the sermon. Spurgeon:
Our great master theme is the good news from heaven; the tidings of mercy through the atoning death of Jesus, mercy to the chief of sinners upon their believing in Jesus…We are not called to proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel. Man’s fall, his need of a new birth, forgiveness through an atonement, and salvation as the result of faith, these are our battle-axe and weapons of war.
Every time you preach, preach Jesus. Proclaim how He is God in flesh; how He saves us from our sin. Preach His cross and empty tomb, and how He will forgive anyone who looks to Him and believes. Preach how we follow Him and love Him. Preach how He loves us. Preach Him. Nonstop. “The entire gospel,” Spurgeon exhorted, “must be presented from the pulpit; the whole faith once delivered to the saints must be proclaimed by us.” Give the proclamation of Jesus all you’ve got. As Spurgeon put it:
We must throw all our strength of judgment, memory, imagination, and eloquence into the delivery of the gospel … whatever else you do or do not preach, be sure incessantly to bring forth the soul-saving truth of Christ and him crucified … O that Christ crucified were the universal burden of men of God. Your guess at the number of the beast, your Napoleonic speculations, your conjectures concerning a personal Antichrist—forgive me, I count them but mere bones for dogs; while men are dying, and hell is filling
Many preachers get caught up talking about interesting aspects of a text, and they lose sight of the eternal aspect. Keep Christ as the foundation, center, and ecosystem of all your expositions.
Of all I would wish to say this is the sum; my brethren, preach CHRIST, always and evermore. He is the whole gospel. His person, offices, and work must be our one great, all-comprehending theme.
