Petr Činčala

Does Your Sermon Make A Difference?
Life-Changing Sermons and Church Quality

Preaching the Word of God is a key element of the church. However, while its importance is often underrated, the life-changing power of some preaching styles is often overrated: Knowledge alone does not change lives (even with some preachers believing so). Research can help us understand more about the life-changing aspects of sermons, and how to improve our preaching styles accordingly.

We recently did some research into how sermons influence some areas of a local church's health from the data provided by our worldwide database (data from more than 33,000 churches in more than 50 countries). In this article we check how the quality of sermons relates to other aspects of inspiring worship, to evangelistic effectiveness, and to passionate spirituality. We draw our conclusions from comparisons and correlation tests. Although our summaries are based on statistics, we will try to convey the findings in a user-friendly way for non-statisticians.

A sermon is a very important means of communication with God's people. Prophets preached, Jesus preached, the disciples preached. Preaching was a part of early church life (Acts 5:42; 10:42; 14:15; 15:21; 16:6, 10; 17:3, etc.) How much is it an agent of corporate change today? Does the sermon bring new spiritual life? Does it ignite a new faith excitement? Does it sparkle with a new enthusiasm for winning people to Christ?

One sermon is not like another, and one preacher is not like another. There are some preachers of the world (some deceased, Billy Graham and others) who have had an extraordinary gift of communicating God's Word. When they preached, they touched the hearts of many people. The NCD database indicates, however, that you do not have to be Bill Hybels or Chuck Swindoll to give a life-changing sermon.

Not much Boredom in Worship Services

The good news first: World-wide, Christians like – in general – the sermons of their pastors. They enjoy listening to them, and they rarely experience boredom during the worship service: There are only 5 percent of those regularly attending worship who hardly or never enjoy sermons, and 19 percent of those who enjoy sermons to an average extent, but there are 39 percent who enjoy sermons to a great extent and 37 of those who enjoy sermons to a very great extent (see diagram 1). There are about 7 percent of those who are often bored in the worship service, 16 percent sometimes bored, 37 hardly, 40 never bored (see diagram 2).

Another aspect of sermons is how they address human needs. One of the NCD survey's question is: I feel that the sermon in the worship service speaks to my personal situation. Only 8 percent of people worldwide do not consider sermons relevant to their personal life, 25 percent agree to an average extent, and the huge majority of 67 percent agree to a great or very great extent (diagram 3).

In other words: There is not too much criticism from church members regarding the message of their pastors. But what about the effects that sermons have? Do sermons make a difference to the growth and the quality of the church? And if so, what kind of sermons?

The Impact of Need-Orientated Sermons

There are many aspects of church health. One of these interconnected ingredients of health is the sermon. Our database confirms that churches where people enjoy listening to sermons and where sermons speak to their personal situation are healthier. All the eight quality characteristics of NCD (empowering leadership, gift-oriented ministry, passionate spirituality, functional structures, inspiring worship services, holistic small groups, need-orientated evangelism, loving relationships) show a difference in health in relationship with the quality of sermons (diagrams 4 & 5).

How to read these diagrams: An average church has a value of 50 in each of the 8 quality characteristics. The diagrams show that in churches with a high quality in the area of "Inspiring Worship Service" or even in all 8 quality characteristics (60 or higher), a huge majority of visitors agree that "the sermon speaks to my personal situation", or "I enjoy listening to the sermons". Low quality churches (40 or less) have sermons where people do not like to listen or do not have the feeling that their personal needs have been addressed.

This is not to say that it is the sermon that most improves your church's health but the sermon can make a difference. The closest connection between the quality of church life and the sermon is obviously seen in inspiring worship. The following table shows how the sermon correlates to other aspects of worship. There are two fairly strong relationships:

• The relationship between "I enjoy listening to the sermons" and "worship is an inspiring experience for me";

• The relationship between "the sermon speaks to my personal situation" and "the church service has a positive influence on me."

The first relationship describes the momentary experience of the worship, to the uplifting of the soul. The other relationship points more towards the outcome of inspiring worship – that is towards a change in life that is brought about by listening to sermons and participating in church services. We can say that a good quality sermon greatly contributes both to the spiritual feast of the worshippers and to the impulse for change in their lives.
 

How to read this table: The relationship between questions is calculated as a correlation coefficient. With a value between +1 and –1, the coefficient expresses which direction this relationship has (positive or negative) and how strong it is. The greater the number of church members who either agree or disagree at the same time with two statements, the more the coefficient approaches the value of +1. If most members characterise the sermons as irrelevant to their lives while finding the worship service inspiring, the coefficient will approach a value of –1. A correlation coefficient of zero or near zero means that there is no systematic relationship between the two items concerned. A correlation coefficient should be greater than 0.4 (or below -0.4).

One Third More Service Attendance with Need-Orientated Sermons

There may have been times when people came to church regardless of the quality of worship and sermon, but today it is not true anymore. The quality and relevance of your sermon can make a difference of 33-38% in the size of your church attendance. It means that if there are 100 people attending worship who do not enjoy listening to the sermon, you would be likely to have 150 in worship attendance if your sermon were enjoyable. Or if there are 200 church goers who do not consider your sermon is relevant, there would be as many as 120 people more in your church pews if your sermon were to speak to their personal situation.

However, this may not be the only reason for the size of attendance, because the relationship between the quality of the sermons and the attraction of the church services to outsiders is weak (correlation: 0.14). Yet, about a third of believers prefer to bring outsiders to the church when they know they are going to listen to great sermons. So as much as the sermon is not "the only" key for the health of your church, it should not be considered as the primary and/or major evangelistic tool. Effective evangelism is a process that consists of many and varied elements, of which the sermon is one.

And Now the Bad News…

The last comparison follows the relationship between the quality of sermons and questions describing one's spiritual life. Most of the correlations in the following table are weak. We have to admit that good sermons do not automatically change lives. Their impact is somewhat limited. As stated earlier, the sermon is just a part of the package for change in people's lives. More than preaching is needed.
 

Conclusion: While need-orientated sermons accompany an overall high quality church – more church growth, and a higher motivation of members to invite new people – their direct impact on changing lives is pretty limited. It seems that sermons play an important role as a puzzle piece in the overall church life, but changing the behaviour of people and leading them to a life as followers of Christ also needs elements like training, discipleship, and so on.

Petr Činčala (PhD) lives in the Czech Republic and works as Research Manager for NCD International