I think there is a time, if I can say this; there is a time in a message where you might just tell a story to give your audience a break. I’ve found great virtue in two-thirds of the way into the message; right before I’m really want to nail home a point, pausing to tell a joke or to tell a light-hearted story, because I know my audience has been working with me now for 20 or 25 minutes. And if I can get them to laugh, get oxygen into their system, it wakes up those who might be sleeping, so there’s something about using a story to draw people back in right before you drive home your final point. In that case I think it’s real legitimate just to use a story for story’s sake.
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Do you ever do sermons that are completely composed of a story?
Lucado: I’ve never done that. Wait, I take that back. I do have a couple of advent messages where all I did was tell the story following Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem. So if I’ve done that it is following a narrative of scripture. I don’t think I have ever created an entire fiction piece or followed a historical piece and made that into a sermon.
I do think there is great strength, though, in starting a sermon with a story, then returning to that story at the end. That puts book ends to a sermon. It is a real simple technique that communicates to the audience that there is a sense of closure, that they have a package here, or we began and we closed with this. I think that’s just a nice technique.
Preaching: Obviously most of us know you best through your books. If they were to hear you preach, how different would what they hear be from what they read?
Lucado: I think they would be struck with how consistent the two are because I write my sermons out in manuscript form. Because we have several services we have to really watch the time, so I do that. And I’m not able to chase any rabbits, which is probably good for me. They are pretty consistent. The manuscript or book will be tighter than the sermon because it is, by the time it goes to publication, an edited version of that sermon, 20 or 25 times. You know I’ve really edited it down and tightened it up. But all of my books began as sermons, so really the heart of the message is still the same. I think that I speak a lot like I write.
It works well for me to go ahead and prepare the sermon with a chapter in mind. What that does is to force me to be very thrifty in my language, tighten up my words and not ramble so much. It puts some fiber in the sermon.
Preaching: How long is a typical sermon for you?