Here’s a universal truth that all communicators have experienced: Everyone who preaches sermons has at some point felt like they’ve delivered a bad one.

There are lots of reasons why you could categorize your sermon as “bad”:

• It went too long.
• People didn’t laugh at your jokes.
• It was boring.
• You didn’t communicate ideas clearly.
• You realized you weren’t as prepared as you should have been.
• You tried to cover too much scriptural ground.
• You forgot a main point.
• Nobody said “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!”
• Your conclusion didn’t land the plane the way you wanted.
• People didn’t respond at the end.

Whatever the reason, you thought it was bad. And then you might have had some of these thoughts:

• I should have prepared better.
• I wonder whether everyone else thought it was bad.
• They’re probably sitting at lunch right now talking about how bad the sermon was.
• They probably won’t come back next week.
• They’ll never bring an unsaved family member or friend out of fear I’ll preach another bad sermon.
• I lost credibility with the people.
• I did an injustice to the gospel.
• I caused people to miss out on what God wanted to do in their lives.
• I’m embarrassed.
• I’m a terrible communicator.
• I’m a loser.

Sunday afternoon is a terrible time to get angry or sad — or to decide to quit.

Making a Comeback

It’s amazing how thinking you preached a bad sermon can cause your emotions to spin out of control. And you can see the progression, can’t you? Each thought is increasingly self-focused and self-critical. So how do you recover? Here are a few tips to get you back on track:

1. Give yourself the gift of time to see it clearly. Sunday afternoon is a terrible time to get angry or sad — or to decide to quit. Sleep on it.

2. With a good night’s sleep and some fresh perspective, make some notes on what from the sermon did and didn’t work. Some initial analysis can help you capture exactly why you thought it was bad.

3. Own it. Sometimes we preach great messages, and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we talk too long or chase rabbits. If your communication wasn’t great, admit it — first to yourself and then to some trusted friends.

4. Seek feedback from trusted people who love you. Sometimes you’ll find what you thought was bad, God used in a powerful way. And sometimes others can help you discern why a message didn’t work. 

5. Evaluate what could have been better. Could you have spent more time preparing? Did you not take enough time to hear what God was saying? Could you have practiced more? Could you have bounced ideas off of some others before you preached it? Could you have used better stories or illustrations? Could you have made better application? Could it have been more effective had you given more thought to the conclusion and response?

6. Let it propel you to be better next time. The steps above can help you learn and improve. Walking through some of these steps proactively before you preach your next message can help you avoid as many bad sermons in the future. Spending the time necessary to prepare every message — using a team’s help and input and evaluating every sermon (good and bad) — can help you preach consistently better messages and increase your chances of success.

Preaching is hard. Sometimes you hit a home run. Sometimes you hit a single or double. As long as you’re being faithful and humble, you never strike out. Next time you feel you preached a bad sermon, don’t be too hard on yourself.

God is ultimately responsible to plant His Word in people’s hearts; we’re just the messengers. And God’s message is powerful, even when the messenger isn’t. In the end, that sermon may not have been as bad as you think. In fact, it may have been exactly what someone needed to hear.