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Transform your preaching with SermonCraft! We interview some of today's best communicators to learn their secrets to captivating talks. Say goodbye to endless prep. Find your voice. Master your message.
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Chase: I think when you see a good speaker that's above and beyond what most preachers are.
Just, it's a work of art. It's beautiful, and I think a lot of us want to get to that point. And so I've, I've written notes in the past. I have whole preaching journals, but when I read your book, I'm like, okay, not only did Dancy realize there's [00:02:00] something that sets these preachers apart, we've all been on the stage and not been able to do it.
And we felt those feelings, like you name the emotions that we as pastors have when we're on the. On the stage when the word of God is connecting with people, we can tell the spirit's involved and then when, okay, this is flopping, but you actually went the extra mile. And I'm interested in the experiences that you had that forced you not just to feel what all preachers have and to think through these issues, but actually to think so deeply about them that you could diagnose the problems and then actually work out solutions, like very, very practical solutions.
It takes a. A different sort of brain to do that. And I'm interested what led to you writing this book,
Yancey: Well Chase, for me it was a combination of a couple of things. So I felt the need to try to develop, some younger guys in our staff that, that had aspirations of preaching that that might've been for us or might be in the for us [00:03:00] future. Campus pastors or even student directors that are gonna do a pretty good amount of teaching even in their own respective circles.
And I, I really felt a need just to really coach those guys so I. I grabbed them along with our staff. I mean, we're talking guys that have been in the pulpit for, I mean, including our lead pastor 20 years plus. And I should probably help people understand that. I, I'm a teaching pastor, so I'm, I'm over all the preaching for Clear Creek Community Church.
I work with the team but I've been there this last June, 25 years. So for the quarter of a century along with the lead pastor, he and I have shared the preaching responsibilities for the most part, but we were starting to open that up to others.
So
I wanted to share with them just how I thought about preaching.
And so we would get in there and we'd have four or five, six weeks in. And then our lead pastor, who is a man named Bruce Wesley, Bruce just pulled me aside and he was like, man, [00:04:00] this is great stuff. Where are you getting this from? And I thought he was joking. At first. I was like, no, I mean. This is just stuff I'm thinking in the top of my head here.
It's, I mean, it, it's okay if you tell me if it's not that great. I'll, I'll try to find some stuff. He's like, no, I'm serious. Like, the way that you think about preaching apparently is I've never, I've never heard about this before and I've been preaching for 30 plus years. So why don't you do this? Why don't you,
why don't you write this down?
And so I, I did, I, I, I was actually working on a different book and stopped it cold and just started writing out what I thought it was more of the art of preaching than the science of preaching because everyone understands the science. If you've been through like formal training, seminary and so forth I, I wanted to talk to my guys about.
All the things, they're not gonna teach in seminary. Not, not because they don't want to. It's usually they don't have enough time. They only have like a limited one or two classes. And so those are the, just the things that, that I [00:05:00] tried to pour into those guys and wrote it into a book and I knew it would, at least I was trusting, would bless my own staff.
And then I just right pushed to put that out to the church at large. And it's it's been fun to see.
Chase: Yeah, it was really amazing when I first read this a few months ago. 'cause there was some, there's some stuff that you just feel, and there's some stuff that you kind of take in by osmosis and you just know, okay, this is gonna work, this is not gonna work.
You know, when it's working on stage and not, and I. You fall into some habits. And I was, I was doing well preaching, but I wasn't able to say why or able to teach others to do it. And when I read your book, I'm like, that's it. Those are the words. That's it. That's the metaphor. So your book has, man, it's got, especially near the end, it's got a hundred gold nuggets that are just phenomenal.
Thanks. But the, the, the main portions of the book are really arranged. A, B, C and the first one I thought was genius actually used this. I was, I was critiquing, giving, constructive [00:06:00] critique to one of my buddies that's preaching this weekend, and I used this, this thought of arranging for attention.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Yancey: Yeah, sure can. So I think there's, there's two philosophies and
that, that
preachers generally approach. And the first one is the majority one, it's, I, I believe it's called, or at least I'm terming it, explanation, explanation driven preaching and explanation Preaching is, is just that, it's, it's preaching that's driven to explain things to people
in such a
way where, the arrangement of the sermon's usually deductive.
It's usually linear. It's very cogent. And, and you would think, Hey, don't I, I don't wanna explain things in my sermon. And I think you do. I just don't think that's the
That's the highest aim or goal. And
so but that's how we're usually taught. So we're taught explanation. It's more like an outline.
This is where sermons, if they're not careful, can devolve into just a running commentary or they can be a
lecture.
I mean, it's the kind
of.
[00:07:00] Organizational system that you would use for a how
to manual? I
mean, a how to manual. I just got a a, a car recently and it was brand new. Didn't know anything about it.
Got the heart the how to manual out. It doesn't have like this wonderful story of an introduction. It
doesn't
call me to
this
incredible application. I wasn't weeping. I was just trying to figure out, all right, how do all these buttons on this
thing
work?
And so the highest goal for that book, that presentation needed to be
explanation.
But it didn't move me. I mean, I, I I,
back in the glove box, I'm probably never gonna see it again.
On the other hand, you have what I would call
story-driven sermons. And, and, and when I say story-driven, I'm not saying that, wonderful sermons are written as
narrative.
Or they're, they're like, if you were to tell a story, what I'm saying is every story, every good story, whether that's a song or a book or a
movie,
they all leverage tension.
And so what I wanted to do is [00:08:00] train my guys to arrange their sermons for tension, because whenever you see tension.
You get attention
And
I mean, think about
just the stories that we listen to and the stories that we read and watch. I mean, I would, the example I used, I believe in my book. Is the Lord of the
Rings.
where at the
very beginning
scene
Gandalf gives Frodo the ring of power, and he is like, here's the journey you need to go on for the next 19 hours with Peter Jackson's movie.
But, but if just the Golden Eagles, hopefully this is in a spoiler. It's
been around for 20 years
now, so, but
what if at the very beginning the Eagles show up and he just jumps on an Eagles like, gotcha Gandalf, and he flies them out there and throws to them and it's over. And now you got 18 hours of them just wandering around high fiving each
other.
It's just not very appealing.
And so why is it that everyone else knows how to use tension? But preachers don't ever get to be taught about it. So I wanted to teach guys.
Here's how you leverage tension. So that's the [00:09:00] biggest difference to me, chase, between an explanation driven sermon and a story, or maybe I should say tension driven sermon.
And then what you're trying to do, not to belabor the response, but
you're, you're
you're gonna look at the. Components of your sermon and figure out where's the tension here? How can I keep the tension? And the better you can do that, I think that your sermons will greatly improve. 'cause I'm just like you, I mean, I didn't answer the second part of the question.
which
was, where did I develop all of this stuff in my head?
And a lot of it was because I sat under a preacher
that I loved
and
then I would go up and try to preach and I'd have one good sermon and then three really bad ones. And I didn't know what I was doing any
differently. So part of that journey with preaching the move people was to discover what things really do count in the preaching
process to
be
more
Chase: I think one of the biggest lines in here, it might not be verbatim, but you want the tension to last as long as possible. And so I was critiquing a sermon yesterday.
It was on we're doing [00:10:00] like the four Gs outta Tim Chester's book, and the Bible, not just Tim Chester's book. Yeah. But, and so we've, we are doing, God is, god is great so I don't have to look elsewhere for satisfaction. And so he set the tension a little bit. It's like grasping bubbles. He had a bubble machine on stage and stuff, which is okay.
And but then he said, but we do all know that ultimate satisfaction can only be found in God. And he said that in the first. Page or two of his manuscript. And one of my critiques was like, no, no, no, no, no. Move that line to three quarters of the way through the sermon. Yeah. And you can set the tension as opposed to the original sermon was, you know, he went back to Solomon.
Solomon looked for it in money, but it can only be found in God. Solomon looked for it in work, but it can only be found on God. I'm like, no, no, no. Do you feel that we're grasping bubbles? Get the audience to feel like we're grasping at bubbles. Solomon was grasping at bubbles. And do you feel that? Do you feel that?
And then three quarters of the way through. This is what Solomon found. And it's building. And it's building and that way that [00:11:00] that truth, I think that God is great. So we don't have to look for satisfaction elsewhere. It means something. 'cause it answers like a question that you felt, but you put it so practically.
I would never know how to explain that, but it's as simple as that. Don't, yeah, I think every sermon's answering a question, don't answer the question until the last possible moment
Yancey: that's part of the, I don't wanna use the term I'm, I'm hesitant. 'cause, but that's, it's part of the
magic
behind
really good preaching. At least that's one big element. So, I mean, even the illustration you
gave with working
through that message with someone on your staff, that's, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
So what, what I tell people is to hold on to the tension as much as possible, and then if you need to, you can always add tension into it
as you
go on. But don't, don't answer. The question for everyone at the very beginning, which
is really
antithetical to how traditional
preaching
is
'cause traditional
preaching, at least from a
professorial
scholastic
[00:12:00] academic perspective, is the three movements of Tell 'em what you're
gonna
tell
'em. Tell 'em,
Tell 'em what you told
them.
And I, I
can't imagine a more boring way to preach now.
I know why they do that, because for people that have never preached, you gotta put the training wheels on the bicycle before you, you know, fly freely on your own. But man, when you don't need that kind of, outline.
I'd say ditch it as soon as possible because what,
as you said,
I, I want people to journey with me through the message so that we discover the answers together through God's
word and the goodness of the gospel. Instead of saying, well, here, here, let me just tell you the answer. And then I'm, I'm actually demotivated.
I, I'm demotivated. When you tell me the eagles
are the reason that Frodo can dump the ring and the a ring of power in Mount Doom, like, why do I need to know that
now?
Yancey: We don't do that for anything else except somehow for
sermons.
Chase: Yeah. Yeah. I was actually thinking about, I'm preaching on acts chapter one. We're [00:13:00] gonna start a series there. Where the disciples are looking up into heaven. Like what? There's this what now moment? And I was thinking the whole, the whole of scripture is built for tension.
Oh,
for sure. I mean, it's a huge arc that doesn't even resolve, I mean, partially in Jesus, I mean most beautifully in that, but the, the full partial res, I mean the full resolution is, is not here yet. It's already here, but not yet complete. And that's how, I mean, all the Old Testament narratives, we just go through, here's the three leadership lessons of Moses, but that took him 80 years.
You know, there's a lot of waiting, there's a lot of tension and you have a beautiful metaphor skiing. So you, did you grow up skiing? I know you're from Texas. I was gonna ask, there are a lot of mountains in Texas. That's probably a dumb question,
Yancey: No, there's not a dumb
question. Generally on the west side of the state, there's
known as the hill
country,
then
further west and Deep West Texas by Big Bend. There's,
there's mountains,
but
none that really we
can
ski at all.
So,
but Texas is next door. Neighbors
with New
Mexico. and just not that far from Colorado.
So yeah, I did grow up skiing in both New
Mexico and
Colorado as
Chase: and [00:14:00] talk us through that metaphor that you talk about getting down the mountain when you're talking about Sure. Speed and you're talking about tension.
Yancey: Imagine for those of you that do ski, and if you don't, just do a thought experiment with me. But imagine you're taking some of your great friends
that you
love, that have never skied before down the
mountain
To ski for the very first time, and you're an accomplished skier.
So what you're, you're thinking as you get on the top of that
hill
I want to ski in such a way.
where
they
one,
enjoy, or at least
this is a
meaningful experience for them. But I've gotta, I gotta balance two things. I can't go so fast that it's really not worth the experiment. Like we,
we,
we, I mean the experience, we go down and it takes three seconds and we're like, oh, that was, that was not really worth it.
Or the other
side,
I don't wanna make it to a
difficult
or
so long.
That they're either tripped up, you know, they hit a mogul of something that I thought was really cool that they needed to do, but they weren't ready for it. Or it's just so flat ground that they're [00:15:00] polling the whole
time.
So when they get to the bottom, they're exhausted.
Like, I want to
ski.
down the mountain. Or they are, their experience is being maximized, not mine.
And so what I think about that when it comes to preaching is that we, we look at the mountain, excuse me, look down a
run.
And I'll tell my people, let's break up this ferment and components as if we were trying to ski down the mountain.
So we Will,
we will take the
main idea,
which is
kind of what I would call the fall line. Like I, I gotta stick down. And when you ski, there's a fall line, and that's the line that you ski
through. And
so what I'll say is, what's the main idea?
There's
usually just one main idea. Otherwise it's the main idea, not main ideas.
And I want you to see in
movements.
So
there's an introduction. There's now what's, what's gonna transition from that introduction? Well, we're gonna
have this movement. We're gonna have
this
movement. We're gonna have this movement, so and so and
forth
till we get down to the bottom. And they teach you when you ski, especially on very difficult runs that you look down at the very, before you start, you look at the bottom [00:16:00] and say, that's where I want to go.
So part of the way
we've
leveraged that analogy is we say, all right, before your sermon, you got your main idea. But at the very bottom of the mountain that that ski
run,
what do you want him to do? Think.
feel?
that's the application. Like what do you want 'em to do, think or feel? And so your main idea has gotta be able to take you to that kind of application
Chase: part
you talk, you talk about that too. That's the difference between preaching and teaching is that preaching calls for a response, whereas teaching. Absolutely. So you are trying to get them to respond and you need to keep that in mind as you're going through the movements.
Yancey: you for highlighting that. That's true. So I do, there's a big debate about.
Preaching and teaching different. And I have the luxury of since publishing a book to say, well, I have a different definition that you can look up because I really do operate like this way. Teaching is telling someone about something.
It's the how to manual. Nothing wrong with it. You gotta have teaching.
In fact, I would argue all great preaching has some teaching in it. If not a lot. And then really even all great teaching has a little bit of preaching, but preaching
is,
as [00:17:00] you said, calling someone to do something and
persuading them and beckoning them and feeling a kind of weightiness to it all.
So yes, so I'm, I'm wanting my guys, the guys that I'm either training at this church or I'm coaching around the nation
to
work through that sermon as they're going down the mountain. In a way, when you get to the
end of it.
You're.
Your students, your congregation, they're like, wow. I, I, I did not realize this would be such an amazing thing going through God's word and seeing the beauty of Jesus.
I want to do that again and bring someone else
with me
next
time.
That that's really the,
the
way that
we use that analogy.
Chase: And you can do it. If you think about skiing, you said that you can do it in such a way where, I mean, I took my wife to Vermont one time. I grew up skiing in North Carolina, which is not that great.
But we went, went to Vermont one time, and I'm, I'm proficient. I could hit like the blues and some blacks. So I took her to a blue, well, a blue in Vermont's. Very different than a, a blue here in North Carolina, and she's [00:18:00] only skied once or twice. So we got up on the blue. I'm halfway down the mountain and I look up and her skis have fallen down the hill.
She's sitting on the side, she's kind of crying a little bit. And you said that that's something that we can do in our sermons. We can go too fast, which is probably not a lot of us, but there are some people that can go too. What, what would be an example of a too fast sermon?
Yancey: Well,
like so a two fast sermon would be a message where you, you haven't really fleshed out the text. You just use it as the springboard to your idea, but you didn't really execute the text, which I,
I
think we have to definitely stay away from, you could just simply have an illustration that you don't tell to maximize the fullness of its
impact. You
just
use
another, way of thinking. It's, it's not just too fast, it's too thin. The sermon
feels
thin.
and so
that it's
the kind of message chase that if you were to preach it
and
you, you come down from the pulpit, you'd be like, gosh, I just. I left too much on
the, you know, on the field on that one. I didn't leave it all on the field.
I've, I've taken, I can say some back
off of [00:19:00] it.
I
should have stayed up there a little longer. And it doesn't necessarily mean that
your
message is chronologically or temporally longer. It just means that you didn't spend enough time in your movements, in your use. The analogy of the ski
slope,
you're not spending enough time in
your turns.
Yancey: You may have a couple of turns in there, like, gosh, I should have made those. That story should have been a bigger turn in my message. So
usually
it's the opposite, but there are guys, at least when they're starting out, that can preach too fast
Chase: people, it happened to me. I was thinking about it when I was reading it. It's the last time I bombed. I haven't bombed in a few years, but I mean, pretty good. It was at a college and in Asheville, North Carolina, black Mountain, and they wanted me to preach for 20 minutes, so more of a mainline denomination.
And it was for a convocation. And so I took a 40 minute message on finding your purpose. That's great for college students. And I tried to squeeze that thing into 20 minutes with no prep and I got done. And my wife was like, what just happened? Like, well, you just said words very, very quickly and they didn't connect, and that was it.
Sometimes you have too [00:20:00] much information that you're trying to squeeze in to two fast. It might not be just the emotion, but I think what you pointed out is that many of us do it too slow. And it's not necessarily time, it's actually we try to. We go over the same point over and over again. A lot of us do this with landings.
One of the guys that I interviewed talked about circling when you're in an airplane, you don't want to just circle and circle and circle and circle when it's time to get on the ground, but that's what a lot of people do. But talk a little bit about your experience with, with a slow message.
Yancey: well, from, from my tradition, and maybe I should say the, the circles that I run in I'm I'm with a church planning group that it's,
it's,
Is is pretty much about very big on doctrine and
theology.
And
I, and I
am as well, I mean, my doctorate's in systematic theology. So, I mean, I love it and I'm, I'm all in.
But part of what I see in the guys that I coach is they, they not only do they love doctrine and they [00:21:00] love the scriptures, they just love to talk about it so much where it just dominates the whole rest of the
mountain. And
so it's
like there's never an idea that they don't love, and they can see how this idea is connected to that idea.
It's connected to that idea, and so all of a sudden what that does, using the analogy of the ski slope, is
that their
turns, not only
do they have a lot of them,
they're
really
big.
I mean by big, I mean they take a lot of
time and
the next thing you know, they're kind of chasing all kinds of different ideas that really aren't part of the fall on, they're not part of the main idea.
So they'll start off talking about marriage and the next thing you know, 70 minutes later, they're talking about the return of Jesus and
eschatology
and why no one should be a dispensationalist. I mean, something where it's like no one knows what they're talking about. They don't even know what they've talked
about anymore.
And that's,
that's what too slow is. And so
But what I see normally for people with too slow
is they.
Fall too much in love with different
parts of
their
message
that they're just not willing to give up.
Chase: I [00:22:00] planted a church in Asheville and we had a guest, a guest speaker come at the recommendation of one of the staff members, and I didn't know the guy and so he came up.
And brilliant guy, like absolutely brilliant. You know, he probably the two volume, Jonathan Edwards, he had it like all underlined and stuff like that sort of dude. And he was, we're doing the I Am statements and I think he was speaking on Jesus said, I'm the light of the world. And, I almost didn't let him speak the second service because he would qualify everything.
So he would say a truth and then say, now you should know. You should ask, how do I know that? And he would support it. So there's lots of supporting texts. And if one of the supporting texts didn't fully prove the truth statement, he would add more. Yeah. But he would do that with every truth statement. And I pulled him aside.
I'm like, man, they trust you. Like I trust you. You can say something that's not supported by scripture like. Like, you can just say it and we'll believe you. But he said that he was he was doctrinally and [00:23:00] theologically committed to that. Like he, he thought it would be wrong for, to not answer where does scripture preach this?
And so finally at the end I'm like, man, it sounds like you're theologically committed to being a bad communicator. And I've, I've come in contact with a, a few. People from certain tribes, you know? Now I'm in a different sort of tribe. I'm kind of a mutt, but in my non-denominational world, I mean, it's basically Baptist.
But I, I plead with my guys, Hey, maybe read some more theology or maybe spend some more time with the text as opposed to, you know stories and that sort of stuff. But what do you do? I, I think you, you, you named two tools that we can use to do this, but how would you counsel guys. It's really a matter of perspective and primary and secondary issues and open-handed and closed handed.
But there are some people that are so, bought in to certain secondary issues when it comes to preaching. Like it has to be expository, [00:24:00] verse by verse, book by book. That's just one example. I love that stuff. Sometimes I, I go away from that, but there's some people that do seem like they're committed to being a bad communicator.
Have you come across someone like that and how do you counsel them?
Yancey: Man, listen,
this is where you and I've, I've done some preaching coaching for several years now, and, and the book is kind of
exponentially
increased. The, the people that I get to
coach, which has been a
blessing and
great. But the guys that I talked
to and,
and they kind of have the same
mindset.
I mean, to
me, this is where you've gotta be the friend that puts your arm around them and, and just as brutally honest, I mean chase, I think you had really
great.
Counsel to say, listen, I, it sounds like you're theologically committed to be a bad communicator. I mean, to me,
I,
I actually have to work on their, on
their heart.
cause
I, I
I think preaching is incredibly
personal
and
I, there's guys that I love that would say that, Hey, that shouldn't be a part of your identity. You know, being a preacher shouldn't be a part of your [00:25:00] identity, which I think is
crazy.
Just so you know. I think Jesus is our chief identity. That's the point.
But there's no way. That preaching doesn't get to be a part of your identity because I don't,
guys,
when they
preach poorly over a long period of time are
waylaid.
They, they are devastated. And
I get it
because part of
preaching, and I'll
take Philip Brooks' definition of preaching is preaching is truth communicated through personality.
Like that's
me up
there
that,
you know,
hopefully
Filled with the spirit, empowered by the spirit to preach the word, to highlight the goodness of Jesus. But at the same
time,
like
if a guy's
just too committed to his form and not to the function of preaching, I gotta tell the guy Listen. it
sounds like preaching's more
about you. Then the
people you're actually trying to help. And so what I'll tell guys are, you know, especially if they're really long, I'm like, listen, don't ever let the sermon
bury the
message. I don't even know where [00:26:00] the message is. You've let all this
stuff
bury it
because you have this felt need to say
something
instead
of the real need of your
congregants. now, now we're, we might even be moving into an idolatry like you've made, preaching an
idolatry
to
highlight
you
and not really to glorify God. So I mean, I,
part of that case for
me is.
I'm an
Enneagram
eight, whatever that means. I think I'm a lot more direct and probably don't have any co or manners, but I, I, I love guys enough where I'll tell 'em, '
listen,
you're, you're paying me to coach you.
I'm, I'm, I'm gonna give you your money's
worth. Here's
where you really need
to
work. And
fortunately, at least in my experience,
the guys that really want to
be better.
Though they may not like hearing some things, they, they wanna be better, more
than
they
wanna
stay away from hearing hard things. And so when you find those guys, those are the guys I wanna
work with.
Chase: Think a lot of times I always say you have to choose who you're not gonna talk to. When you're preaching, and the first [00:27:00] person I'm not gonna talk to is the elder or the theological genius in the congregation.
That's the first person I try to wipe away from the list. And once you do that, it makes preaching a whole lot easier.
Yancey: Yeah, I think I, I
would just add the person you don't need to talk to is
you.
You know, you don't need to, to talk to you about you in the sense that I'm just doing the things that I love on here instead of I'm doing what's best. Because that gets us to, like, when you have to cut stuff outta your sermon, you have to love,
God preaching to God's people more of, than just preaching by yourself.
Chase: thinking. Yeah. That's what I wanted to get to next, is one thing that helps people that do have jam packed sermons or that do tend to meander and don't have linear sermons is, there's two things.
You say, simplicity and ruthlessness. Simplicity is pretty simple. Why don't you talk about that for a second.
Yancey: Yeah.
Simplicity to me
is just removing
components from your message that are making it too long, too cluttered, too hard for people to understand. So sometimes simplifying is reducing
[00:28:00] terms.
Sometimes it's reducing turns,
Sometimes it's taking out
points
and so those are the kinds of
things. You're right. I mean
I always say
complexity is
your
enemy.
If, if someone wants to write a
complex message,
I. Leave that for the book that you might publish someday. Not for the sermon that you have to preach on Sunday. '
cause
complexity, to use a different analogy, complexity is
quicksand.
And the more complex your message is, the greater chance you're gonna find your congregants in quicksand and they're just
not
gonna be able to get out. So that's simplicity.
Chase: And one way we're gonna talk through this in the last point.
One, there's a few helpful things that I've done. I always so I full manuscript, I know that you tend to, you do manuscript, but you use an outline. So I use a full manuscript. I, you would never know. I highlight different words. I, I learn every single page. But I spend. Probably the same amount, if not more speaking through my sermon.
In fact, I actually just submitted my first book and they're like, we, [00:29:00] we love the conversational tone. And I was like, I was trying to not write con, I was trying to write bookie, you know, like bookish. But I've just spent so much time writing for the ear as opposed for the eyes. But one thing I do is when you speak it out loud, I used to go through it, I don't know, 6, 8, 12 times.
But we do a run through. So I actually do it in front of people before I ever hit the stage. And you can feel it when it, when it's too complex or when this point doesn't really support this point, like I thought it does. You'll, you'll feel yourself getting uncomfortable. And I actually bring a, a marker up there during my run through.
I just mark it out. I'm like, okay, not gonna do that. Wow. Which brings us to the next point. Ruthlessness. So you actually plan into your sermon prep. And I love how you said, I say it killing my babies. That's a little vulgar, but what do you call it, killing our darlings? Is that, I mean, you didn't say that, but
Yancey: Yeah. No, uh uh, you know, it's funny, you, that's the same terminology. Our lead pastor actually uses killing your babies. And I, I just it's never sat well
with me,
[00:30:00] but I get it. I
understand it's, Killing something that we love
dearly. I, I, I, ripped from I read a book called On Riding by Stephen King.
You know, the well-known
Christian
writer.
Someone had recommended that
to, I read a lot
and I, I like the, I like learning about the discipline and art of reading. I'm not a writer. I'm like you. In fact, I tell our guys when they write their manuscripts, they ought to write it like they speak, not write it like they, you're not trying to write like a writer.
You're trying to be a speaker who's writing something down, which I will say, I think makes a way more effective
Chase: People send me spell checks still 'cause it goes out to our tech team and I'm like, you know, you know I'm speaking this, right?
Yancey: Listen, tell tell them. You're,
tell them you're
being graded on what you're saying. It's an, this is an oral medium, not really a, a textual one. So, It's in his book where he talks about editing, king says, and I think he's actually quoting someone else. It's, I think it's an axiom for
a lot of writers. just to
kill your darlings.
And so I just tell my guys.
You've gotta
learn to, [00:31:00] at
least
if you can't love it, you gotta learn to at least put up with
being ruthless. I
mean, ruthless, like, you gotta
say
that's,
that's not, I, I got two wings on the airplane, they gotta say, but these other five wings, I think they're important, but no, they have to go.
So
I,
I, I've gotten to the place
where
I'm old enough and have as, as, much as enough experience, I should say, that. I've,
I've
been ruthless enough in my editing to see the
benefit of it. When you're
young, you think, no, this is all gonna work. And
I
promise these extra
five minutes, which
turn out
to be an extra
15 are
really helpful for the
people.
But I,
at least our staff
has learned
To,
Utilize
being
ruthless very well because I think the ultimate thing we want to do in glorifying God in the pulpit, at least experientially, is I wanna
walk
off
thinking,
man, that was the best
I could do.
And
I, I
didn't clutter it up
for the people
and my commitment to them made me want to cut stuff more than my commitment to me, which
made me
[00:32:00] want to keep stuff. You know, someone once
said.
And I don't, I don't know who said this,
but,
Really good study and preaching is
It's not just the gold you take up into the pulpit, it's the gold nuggets that you decide to
leave behind. And I think
that's
part of the beauty and art of
really good
preaching is what are you gonna leave behind and you're gonna leave some great stuff, but just know that it
can
be a great
content
for a sermon
in the future.
So yeah, we're real big on being ruthless. I, you know, if you're a young
preacher.
Or
even an
older
one,
and you
don't
have a
very, great sense of how to cut things. Find someone on your staff who can just be your
manuscript
assassin
and let them look at it and do it. I mean, I, that's one of the roles I
play. I
have guys come
into my office
about
near
every day.
Walking me through their
messages and I maybe, 'cause I've done this long enough or maybe, maybe, maybe it's a little bit of a gifting, I can see kind of the
line of their message
and I'll say, Hey, I would [00:33:00] consider getting rid of this or this or this, or shortening
that.
And so I mean, that's
something we,
we
actively employ
as a
strategy at
Clear Creek is to be as
ruthless as we can. And I think our sermons are
better
because of
Chase: Yeah, absolutely. We, I have it built into my sermon prep, so it's the last thing that I do. I have it highlighted, I have it circled, I have it marked so I know when I look at the page, that's that page.
But I take a dry erase marker and my, the tech guys hate it 'cause I have to print colored copies of my written on meaning. I type it once and. Then don't retype. I just take up a marked up stuff. Wow. But when I was helping guys, they know, so they, the manuscripts due Monday and they know Chase is probably gonna come in with a permanent marker with a copy of it and we'll sit down and we'll cut together.
Just because, you know, this is 17 pages, man, you can't bring that there. But one thing, and maybe you felt this early on. It's probably easier for us that get to preach often because we can say, okay, we can leave this for the next sermon or the next time we come around, you know, John four, we can leave this, which makes it a little bit easier.
But [00:34:00] one thing you said in your book that I love that that makes it easier for guys that only preach twice a year, four times a year, that think they have to cram it all in, is that no one in the audience is gonna know that you removed material. Right. Like you're the only one that's gonna know it. And that was a genius thought that it hurts to cut those things, but no one in the audience is like, oh man, I wish you left that point in, you know?
Yancey: That's
exactly right. I, it's something I thought about when I was younger is
like,
listen,
Yancy,
no one knows what you're
bringing up there
in the pulpit.
And
so they don't know that you cut five pages. They don't
have,
they're not
to use too
strong of a word. They're not
wounded
up in the pulpit going, gosh, if they could have just heard these five
extra
pages.
They only
get,
listen, y'all people
only
get what you give them. They only
get what you give them.
And
so for what
they
know you,
you
gave them everything.
And so you should just rest
with
that. And that
just helps me. It helps
a lot of young guys
going,
listen,
they can only gonna give what you
give them. So whatever you give them, that's
gonna be what they
need and just trust [00:35:00] God for it.
And I
think
that
helps a
lot of guys.
Chase: Yeah, I think there's also this thought, at least there was with me and I still have tons and tons to learn. I'm just 38, almost 39. But there was this thought that I need to do justice to this text.
Like I need to completely explain, you know, John 17 or Philippians chapter two, and to think that you can actually do that is ridiculous because I've preached on the same text multiple times, and every time I thought I did it justice, I'm like, this is horrible. Did you not see this? And this and this.
God's word is really inexhaustible. It's the gospel. You can never plumb the depths of it. We were interviewing Dur Gray and. He had an amazing salvation story and he used that one talk for years and years and years. Then he was a pastor and I'm like, how did you go to different topics? He's like, I don't think I ever did.
I just, I just plumbed the different depths and the nuances and the different shades of the gospel. And so I think that's, that, that takes the, that took the burden off me where yeah, you know, I can cut stuff 'cause I'm never going to do this [00:36:00] text justice.
Yancey: Absolutely.
Absolutely. And to me, the
beauty of
preaching.
there's two things that stand out
to me about the beauty of preaching.
It
really is like wine. The older
you
are in the art of
preaching.
The better you
get
if you're working at
it.
the better you you'll get.
And and I
do think
The second part of that is the gospel is inexhaustible.
It's the bottomless ocean. It's, it's the thing which angels eternally
look into
still
with wonder. And if that's true of the angels, that surely should be true of us. And so I've
preached
through
the same text different times, and one of the things I try to commit to do is actually not look at the sermon that I preached on it before.
'cause '
I want to,
not that you can
never do that.
Don't get me wrong. I just don't wanna, I don't wanna reheat a message in the microwave. I want it to be fresh. And
what's funny
is I will have preached a text again. I've been here 25
years,
chase, so
there may have been a text that
I've
preached three times.
Same
text, but three
I. Different sermons. I mean, [00:37:00]
really materially different. And someone's like, well, didn't you not get the idea of the
text the
first time? That's never ultimately the issue.
It's
how you present it.
It's the tensions you wanna put before it and after it. It's the applications you wanna get out
of it, which
can be very broad and enumerated.
So
that's the
beauty of it to me. So
I, I,
it, it's,
it's like
every time I
open up the scriptures, it really is, I'm opening it
up afresh.
Chase: Yeah. And it's, it's a lot of what God's doing in you in that moment. Like you're a different person five years later. Absolutely. And what your congregation's going through.
Absolutely. Which kind of brings us, I mean, talking about emotions it brings us to the last point. So we've had the A, which is arranged for tension, the B build for speed, and then the C is charting for bandwidth. And this was. Genius. You gotta buy the book. You have to look at these charts, but talk through this a little bit where you talk about, a lot of people go through their manuscripts and look for theological accuracy and look for flow and stuff, but you actually feel through the sermon you, you [00:38:00] actually write.
What emotions are my people going to feel when I go through the introduction and conclusion? Talk about that a little bit.
Yancey: yeah. So we
think
about the image
of.
A highway where you have a line on
each side and then the divide, or at least the dotted line, and then just turn that, actually keep it sideways.
Go,
go
from,
if you're looking at me on the
screen here,
left to
right
What I say
is we need to be
able to chart the
bandwidth of our
sermon.
In
other words, we would start
at the
beginning, obviously, of d sermon and work our way through
where
you have this.
Yancey: this.
line that's going where's the
emotion
in the
message at the time? So if I start off really excited and I'm hyped up and I'm talking about something enthusiastically, it's gonna be pretty high.
And when I'm talking conversationally, I'm,
I'm
kind
of in the middle.
And
when
I'm talking about
something that's either serious or
I'm sad
It might be lower. And so far
too
many people are taught. In fact, in seminary they teach you how to think through
your
sermon.
But no one's [00:39:00] talking about
how you
feel through your sermon.
And I think that's
just as critical
in, in fact, I think most of what my book is, is crying ultimately to help people
feel
through their sermons.
And there are some people, chase, you're
probably
one of them
who can do it intuitively. When I, when I look at some of the really great creatures around me in,
in evangelicalism,
they
do
it naturally.
but they're like the 3% who can.
So the 97% of people that God's called to preach and that are
gifted to preach.
They
need
some tools
to help them understand how to
evaluate
servants emotionally. Where other guys,
again, that
I'm making up numbers here, but let's just say it's the few
percent that can,
and
so I can, I don't need to chart my bandwidth.
I, again, I, I established all this stuff to help people that didn't know how to do it. So what, what we
have our
guys do is they'll.
Think of it this
way, they'll,
we'll get
a white
marker board
just
to be practical
here.
And I'll say, Hey, listen, in three minutes, tell me your sermon. I want every movement in the main
idea in the
[00:40:00] application.
And if you
can't do it in three minutes, you don't
have a message.
And, and they'll be able to do that. Then I'll say, all right,
let's turn it sideways
and let's start the
bandwidth.
What are you hoping to
do
in you
that
you
think also,
and you can't, we're
not
predicting the
future.
We're trying to
guesstimate,
how do you think the
people will
respond?
And
oftentimes, especially for young guys and maybe even some older veterans in preaching, they'll find themselves like, oh crud, I have this element right next to this element and this is
way
too high
and
this is way too low that they're gonna get emotional
whiplash cause it's too close to
each other.
honestly, this is the same stuff that probably worship leaders are already good at
How they put songs together. What, how does flow go?
So really what
I'm,
I'm
trying to get to people to do is what's the emotional flow of the message. And sometimes you may need to change your emotion based on where the sermon's going.
That's what we
try
to do.
Chase: that's genius. And one of the things you pointed out.
And I, I was scribbling down notes months ago. I think [00:41:00] feel is a, is a big thing. You point out where, how has God emotionally moved you during preparation? Because there's sometimes where there's a deep thankfulness, there's a deep conviction.
There is an awe, oh my goodness. Like, yeah, to the sinful woman, this is what happens when a great sin goes to a great savior. Look at this. And that's the key to kind of the emotional. The, the, the theme or the, the, the string that ties it all together. And then you have to figure out that you don't exhaust your listeners is one thing that, that you talk about and I've learned as well.
And it comes from the whiplash as well. Yeah. But it also comes from staying up here if it's so intense. The first few messages, this is the last part of your book, but I too listened to John Piper and Matt, Matt Chandler and the first, my first few sermons actually asked the. Relatively new believer. And his son was with him.
I'm like, what'd you think? And he is like, man, it was great. My son turned to me and said, why? I feel like he's angry at me. Why is he yelling at me the whole time? You know? [00:42:00] And so have you noticed that, that, that if you do it intuitively, you can feel, you call it coming up for air, where if you're too somber, even if you're like, this is not blasphemous, but you stay in that en raptured or awe for so long.
Mm-Hmm. Your audience needs a moment to breathe. Yeah. And then you can go right back to it. But you can, that's why that bandwidth is so genius. 'cause you can actually chart it. You can actually look at your sermons and say, oh, I'm up here 75% of the time.
Yancey: Within that framework of the bandwidth, there's kind of a natural window for every preacher, like what their, what their high and lows are gonna be. And they're not always the same. In fact, I would argue that
if you're
trying to borrow,
And it's, I know it's gonna sound like name dropping, but I think it's appropriate and this will help.
So just this week my church network dropped a video of preaching training with Matt Chandler and me,
and
the reason I say that. Because Matt's really, [00:43:00] he's got
a,
people know him, so he is got a really high wide, broad
window of
emotion.
And Matt,
people
who know Chandler,
Matt can get
away, you know,
yelling at people saying, you guys are the worst people ever.
And not that he would do that, but as an example, people will be like, yeah,
we are,
man. We
need
to
repent.
But then there's people that
don't
have
that bandwidth
and.
Want to be good preachers. Then they look at someone like Matt or someone who's got a really big emotional bandwidth and they think, well, I need to do the same thing.
And they'll say, Hey, you know, you
guys
I can't stand you. You know, you need to repent, come to Jesus. And they're like, why is this guy so angry at us? And that's where personality
really comes
in. So it's,
you know, chase your
preaching,
you, you know who you are. Really what I'm trying to help people understand
is have a
high eq,
Yancey: a
high
emotional quotient when you
go in
there about what you can do and
what you can't
do.
but then. Think about how the people will respond to
it. So
just recently in one of our preaching cohorts, we had a guy
talk
about
something incredibly somber.
Like it
was, [00:44:00] someone
had had a miscarriage.
And
anytime you talk about something that's, that kind of tragic, you have
to be careful. 'cause there's people and women in the room that
have
had it.
Some of them may have recently
had one
and they're, it's gonna conjure up all kinds of emotions. That's not to say you
can't
talk
about those things,
it's to
say you have to be careful emotionally what
that looks
like.
So a lot of
people,
when you start to talk of things of that nature, that's low on the
bandwidth, well, you
can't stay low.
Because one, they may never come out of it. So you gotta find a way to come up to what I would say is stasis or medium or conversational and, and that that might be appropriate humor. And notice someone gonna stress appropriate 'cause you could really do that poorly or just a way to guide people. I mean, you have to shepherd people emotionally just as much after you have to shepherd them
theologically in a sermon.
And I think
when we started.
To, to consider those
things in preaching. It makes our preaching
jump off the,
to the up and to the right
as
trying
to get better. I mean, it, it's just something no one thinks about, and I'm [00:45:00] gonna overstate it seems like
no one thinks about it
and the people that are really good at it, probably people like you, chase and Matt and other guys
that I know, it's intuitive to them.
So we gotta help the guys, the 97% of people that
don't know
how
Chase: I love that.
Shepherding them emotionally. I just had a thought. I mean, I, I come from a, a Southern Baptist tradition, then went to Liberty University, non-denominational, so I'm kind of a mutt with all this sort of stuff. But I, I was in a, a band. Sounds weird. In college when we'd travel around with Liberty University and we went to all, I mean, we went to 60, 70 different churches a year and there were some people.
That would move you towards conviction. And the Bible does that, you know, like rightfully so, it convicts you. But they would leave you there and they would never shepherd you emotionally to the joy of the gospel, to the forgiveness of Jesus. And it almost is like a, it's not an abuse, but it's, it's it's a not a very kind thing to do to.
Emotional manipulation. [00:46:00] Of course we all agree with that, but you do have to think how you're handling. And I, I was just thinking while I was sitting here, it's like with my children, you know, my children are different. I can speak, I have three girls, so my, I speak to my oldest different than I do to my middle down, different than I do to my youngest, and so I.
When I want to teach them things I can be kind of harsh and to the point with one of 'em, but the other one needs a lot of explanation and I need to smile when I say mean stuff. And so,
great analogy.
Yeah, I think that's that's
so true. It's a great analogy.
Well, we've talked a lot on this podcast.
Thank you so much for being here, man. We've talked a lot about working on our sermons and us doing our work. In order to have people respond, I mean, to the gospel, to God's word, to God's commands, but I didn't wanna leave it here. You have a beautiful few paragraphs on page 1 48. If you have the book, you can read there.
But just with knowing your role and, and understanding we put in all of our work, but preaching is this weird thing, right? Because ultimately we plant the [00:47:00] seed, maybe we water, but God causes the fruit. So how would you encourage people that listen to this podcast may fill the burden of this? Just what would you say to end this out to people that are trying to get better at preaching.
Maybe they're young, maybe they're older. But just some words of wisdom for us.
Yancey: Well, what I would.
Try to impart to them is that if God's called you to preaching, then you
have to
just trust that God's
called you to
preach, not you to be chase or
you to be Yancy or you to be mad, or you to be anyone else
that you might
look up to. And that could be even good models as long as they're not idols.
Good models
of preaching.
But you need to just
have
confidence that
if
God called you to preach, that meant he wants you to be the instrument
of
preaching, you,
being
fully you
Used by the spirit to open God's word to show people the glory
of
the gospel. And so there are times where I'll just tell guys, like, look at all the.
Places where, and I think I do this at the end of the book, 'cause the end of my book's really about the first part's working on the sermon. The second part of the book's working on the [00:48:00] Sermonize. And a lot of it's
trying to
find your '
voice. cause I really
wanted to help young pastors and frankly some old pastors that still are
trying to use
someone else's
voice.
Like, your voice is important,
your
personality's important, your
background's
important. And God took all that
into
consideration.
Still called you and not, I should say, even still, and called you because of those things to his own glory and good. And so
you've
just gotta trust
that you being you
The best you that you can be is better than any kind of garment you could wear trying to be someone
else, a
poor version of
someone else.
Just be the best version of you. So what I'll
try to do, and again back to the
end of the book, is.
Look at all the
places where Paul, for example, in his letters identified himself. He'd say,
Paul, an apostle,
called by God to be an apostle. And so I'll tell guys, there may be some seasons, and you might just want to do this for a good six months to a year that you write on the top of your manuscript or whatever you're taking in the pulpit.
You just write, and I'll [00:49:00] just use my name I, I'm gonna write Yancy Arrington. a, a
pastor called by God or called
by
God
to be a
pastor.
And
when I, before I go to preach, I look at that line and I take it by faith that it's true and that God's there.
To use me
And others, but in the
preaching
event to
use me
To deliver his word.
And so I'm not gonna doubt
his wisdom. I'm gonna
lean
into
it. So
that's
just
one thing
I would
try to
communicate.
There's a lot of things to
tell
young guys and church planners and pastors and
preachers,
but
that's a
big one.
Chase: Well, again, thank you so much. I, I definitely wanna have you back on for the a hundred goal. We should do like a 10 part series, I think, at this point. But I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much.