How to Write a Faithful Sermon in Eight Hours or Less
As a preacher, I’m sure you desire to feed your flock faithfully. But one hurdle to weekly preaching is the preparation time a good sermon takes. You don’t want to compromise expositional faithfulness for the sake of spending less time in sermon preparation, but more time in sermon preparation doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll produce a better sermon. Where do you turn?
Enter Ryan Huguley, the author of 8 Hours or Less: Writing Faithful Sermons Faster. As the title suggests, Huguley provides a step-by-step process to prepare a sermon in eight hours or less.
Since the email newsletter you’re currently following is dedicated to pastoral productivity, Huguley’s book fits our theme and mission. So let’s talk about his book. What follows is a combination of a book summary and a book review of 8 Hours or Less. My aim is informational and pedagogical ― that is, I aim to provide you with new information for your sermon preparation process but also to instruct along the way.
Book Summary
Monday: Write a clear and concise sermon frame (two hours).
Monday is for textual and outlining work.
He breaks down Monday into six steps:
1. Praying
2. Writing out the text
3. Understanding the text
4. Record your observations and questions
5. Read commentaries
6. Building a sermon frame
Tuesday: Finalize the sermon frame with a team of people (one hour).
Tuesday is for group sermon preparation. You finalize what you started on Monday, only this time, you work with a team of trusted, godly people. Huguley rightly mentions that you cannot delegate the task of sermon preparation to anyone else (or A.I., for that matter), but you can invite a small group of trusted voices to weigh in on the Scriptural text you’ll be preaching on. Others will make observations you cannot always expect to make on your own. Group sermon preparation is time well spent.
Wednesday: Write the introduction (one hour).
Huguley recommends writing your sermon introduction on Wednesday. For your sermon introduction, Huguley recommends elements such as tension, humor, controversy, story, and confrontation.
Thursday: Write a conclusion (one hour).
On Thursdays, you land the plane. Or in sermon talk, you write your conclusion, which is inconspicuously absent in some sermons today. Huguley provides the why behind the significance of a sermon conclusion, and how to close well.
Friday: Complete preaching notes (two hours or less).
This is where you complete your preaching notes by writing in your explanations, illustrations, and applications. You have the outline established, now it’s time to put remaining meat on the bones. When finished, perhaps you’ll have a manuscript or something close to it.
Sunday: Pray, and prepare your heart and mind to preach (one hour).
Pray, go over your notes, and prepare your mind to preach. Huguley worships the Lord through a song in the morning on the way to his study. The last hours of sermon preparation play a big role in the effectiveness of your sermon. This is not the time to skip your devotions, and you should expect some kind of spiritual warfare on the Lord’s Day.
There it is. If you follow Huguley’s advice, you can write a sermon in eight hours or less.
Book Review
There is much to commend about 8 Hours or Less. If you just read the title, you might assume Huguley is willing to produce poor sermons in the name of getting things done faster. But he is not. While he wisely suggests time constraints and milestones for your sermon preparation week, he never wants you to compromise biblical faithfulness for speed, something critics might charge Huguley with (even before reading the book!)
The illustrations throughout the book are helpful, even humorous, modeling what he preaches. Huguley and I are former athletes and that comes through in his writing, making me feel more connected to him. In his book, he shows a great understanding of the nature of preaching and pastoring and even wisdom beyond his years.
A key to getting ahead on your sermon preparation time is to start on Monday. As one friend recently shared of a pastor he knows: “If he doesn’t start on Monday, he’ll be up late on Saturday night.” I love the idea of working on your sermon a little bit each day, instead of working on your entire sermon on, say, Wednesday. And I agree with starting on Monday, even if you feel the post-worship service blues.
His writing is clear. There’s not a wasted word in the book. But although clear, Huguley is sometimes too heavy-handed with his tone: “I’d never had the privilege of taking a preaching class. Although, I have come to learn that many who have still do not know how to effectively prepare a sermon.” Throughout the book, there were sentences like these that came across as insensitive.
Huguley recommends spending an hour on both your sermon introduction and conclusion. Ironically, spending one hour on both is not the best use of time. To spend two whole chapters in a short book on an introduction and conclusion didn’t seem like the best use of space for a short book.
To practice what Huguley writes, you likely have to be a pastor who preaches regularly. I don’t see this book as a good fit for lay leaders or those called to preach occasionally. So much of being able to put together a quality sermon in a short amount of time comes down to being a voracious reader and having developed the habit of preaching regularly.
Most Pastors I know take off on Monday or Friday. But according to Huguley’s preaching process, you must work every day of the week. While I love his emphasis on starting on Monday, it would have been helpful to see his method played out in a work schedule in which a pastor works four weekdays a week, because most do.
Overall, Huguley’s 8 Hours or Less is a well-written book, but it’s best suited for those who preach and teach regularly. Every preacher can learn from Huguley, but no preacher should adopt his method uncritically.