Part of our challenge as preachers is to fight flatness in our preaching. This could be in terms of delivery, structure, or content.

Perhaps you would add more areas too.

Basic principle

When we stand in front of a crowd, which is an unnatural environment, then we have to fight a tendency to become restricted in all types of variation.

What seems varied in our minds can sound flat, or monotonous, to our listeners. We have to fight against that flatness to be as engaging as possible.

Delivery

I am resisting the term monotony, because technically, that only refers to tone. Tone is certainly included, but we can become flat communicators in other areas too.

The added pressure of speaking to a crowd, even if we are not nervous, will push us toward a restricted range of vocal tone. Or physical movement. Or facial expression. Or range of gestures. Or volume.

Any aspect of our delivery can easily become repetitive and restricted rather than varied and interesting. Naturally, we will tend to bore rather than grip. So let’s fight the flatness in order to be engaging.

Structure

What happens with delivery, can also happen with the parts of our sermon. We can easily present the content in a flatter way than we anticipated.

The nerves, or just the dynamic of a crowd, can cause us to progress through the passage at a fixed height.

It is easy to lose the moments of greater overview to help our listeners, instead of either plodding at a fixed height or jumping between details without showing the connections.

It takes a clear mind to remember to make the transitions clear and helpful. It takes a deliberate approach to give high-level overview and then dip down for details with clarity.

If we don’t think about it, every sermon point will simply be the next natural step in our progression through the text.

Naturally, we will tend to slide through the text rather than showing the contours and enlighten listeners regarding the passage as a whole. Let’s fight the flatness in order to be engaging.

Content

The same thing can happen with other aspects of our content. It is easy to get in a rut with how we explain the details in the text, or the kind of illustrations that we use, or the emotional energy in the support material shared.

Five sporting analogies in a row is typically not as thrilling as we might feel internally. Always using cross-references in every point is not biblically engaging, it is dull.

Don’t fall into a pattern of always offering illustrative material that is merely interesting, but never personal, or always personal, but also mundane.

Listeners need variety in content to distinguish parts of the message and to offer the velcro for their minds and hearts to stay engaged. We have to fight the flatness in order to be engaging.

How else do you see monotony, or flatness, creeping into a sermon?

It is also possible to get into a rut between messages, too. For instance, always using the same shape sermon, always quoting the same source (Spurgeon, anyone?), or always ending with the same emotional force.

Peter Mead is mentor at Cor Deo and author of several books. This article first appeared on his blog Biblical Preaching.