I have a confession to make: I used to fall asleep during sermons.

I know, I know, that’s terrible. Especially since now I give sermons. But I was in middle school. Does that make it better? Ok, so, maybe being a middle school boy doesn’t justify falling asleep during a message from God’s word. But there’s another uncomfortable truth that preachers of God’s word need to reckon with: maybe people fall asleep during your message because it’s boring. Ouch. That one hurts. And I can honestly say that I’ve taken my own medicine here. I once heard someone snoring all the way on stage behind the pulpit while I was preaching! And the uncomfortable truth is that maybe I was boring.

But I think we need to take a step back and examine what exactly makes a sermon boring?

What is Boring Preaching?

It’s easy to assume that a sermon can be boring because the preacher speaks in a monotone voice, rarely changing his tone or cadence. But that’s not entirely true. There are many preachers who speak slowly or in a monotone and are supremely interesting and captivating. I think there are four things that make up a boring sermon.

It’s Fluff

Sermons get boring real quick if they’re fluff, filled in insignificance. The tricky thing is that fluffy sermons can often seem engaging at first. They might be filled with a lot of engaging personal anecdotes or even good moments of humor. But in the end, there’s not much heft to the sermon. The preacher doesn’t explain and apply the Bible passage to the lives of his congregation. The preacher doesn’t show the connections of the text to Jesus. Instead, it’s more about having people feel good. Eventually, if the congregation is discerning, they’ll eventually realize: wait, there’s nothing there. And then the sermon will be boring because its not actually addressing any real issues or demonstrating how the Bible speaks to the church in its contemporary situation. Of course, this doesn’t mean that using personal stories, or even humor, is bad. It just means that sermons need to have depth to them.

It’s Legalistic

“You just damned every kid in here to hell.”

Want to know who said that? Me! And I didn’t even remember saying it! But I was told by my good friend that I said that to him after he preached a message to his Youth Group. Apparently, after sitting through the message, I realized that my friend gave his Youth Group a bunch of “do’s and don’ts” but no gospel. And the problem with only preaching God’s commands is that God’s commands cannot change us; they only show us our flaws. Thankfully, my friend is a solid minister of the gospel and took my words in stride (and thankfully for our friendship too!). And so he started preaching Jesus in every message too. See, the problem with legalistic preaching is that it becomes boring because it deadens the soul. God’s commands expose our sin and condemn us. They do not save. And so, sitting under this kind of preaching week, after week, gets boring because it essentially can be reduced to, “Do Better, Try Harder.” Does that sound like a scintillating message? Of course, this doesn’t mean that we never preach God’s commands. There are commands all over the New Testament! Plus, faith without works is dead (James 2:26). But it just means that we need to put God’s commands in the proper context: the gospel. We can fulfill the commands of God in and through Jesus alone; not our own efforts.

It’s Inauthentic

A sermon gets boring when its delivered by someone who is inauthentic, or given in an inauthentic way. It’s a truism that people get excited about what you get excited about. If the preacher is excited about God’s Word, it comes out in the sermon. But the pastor is merely going through the motions, that comes out too. It’s also a truism that you cannot give what you do not have. So if a preacher does not have a deep relationship with Christ, they cannot give deep spiritual insights. And no one wants to us sit under preaching that is inauthentic. Even if you have preach a highly controversial topic like the sinfulness of homosexuality, people should come away from hearing a sermon and think to themselves, “Boy, he really believes this stuff!”

It’s Stuffy

Some preaching is fluffy while some preaching is stuffy. Stuffy preaching turns out to be more like a lecture in a classroom than a passionate proclamation of the gospel. It’s a recitation of information about the text of Scripture, but seeks very little transformation. It doesn’t see preaching as an act of worship but merely as an act of information transmission. Stuffy preaching often lacks application. Stuffy preaching is boring preaching because people come away from the sermon asking, “So what?” or “Why does this matter at all?” It doesn’t address the real lives of the congregation. It is a sermon still locked away in the 1st century, rather than a living word for today.

So how do we avoid being boring when we’re preaching (or teaching the Bible in general)? Or put positively: How do we engage people when we teach the Bible? To engage our audience we need to preach the text, preach Christ, and preach from, and to, the heart. I believe if we do those three things in a sermon, we will grow in how engaging we can be.