How Long Should a Sermon Be from Bret Capranica on Vimeo.

How Long Should a Sermon Be?

Here”™s a long post about long sermons.

I’ve never known this not to be an issue. Some could care less how long the message is, others have firm convictions based on personal experience and contemporary studies as to how long any public address should be in order to be effectively assimilated. I want to address this issue from a number of fronts:

Regular, consecutive exposition is the sort of preaching I believe is most helpful for the sanctification of God’s people.

Those who know me know that I believe expository preaching is what is most helpful in the corporate sanctification of God’s people. I like to define expository preaching as sermons where the point and structure of the sermon reflect the point and structure of the biblical passage. My definition doesn’t demand long or short sermons. I think shorter sermons may be able to present the point of a passage as well, perhaps better than a longer one. However, longer sermons may prove more effective in not only presenting the point of the passage clearly, but also demonstrating how a preacher arrived at his conclusions. Nonetheless, I think, as a regular diet, moving through books of the Bible book-by-book, passage-by-passage, showing the author’s intention and clarifying the contemporary application of a text is overall most helpful in the spiritual growth of God’s people.

What are the most helpful ingredients in this sort of preaching?

In a typical exposition here are the elements I want to accomplish:

“¢ Introduce the main idea of the text.
“¢ Announce the main idea’s connection to the passage.
“¢ Explain how the passage bear’s out that main idea.
“¢ Describe how the passage’s main idea should be applied in today’s world.
“¢ Urge the application of the passage’s main idea.
“¢ Summarize and conclude the main idea of the passage and thus the sermon.

Approaching the sermon in this way helps people to see the divine intention of the passage, how it should affect us, and thus, when applied, leads to Spirit-produced sanctification.

How much time does it take to mix all those preaching ingredients?

While this is a subjective issue, I don’t think that it’s out of the question that it could honestly take 10 minutes to introduce the main idea and show the connection of that idea with the passage, 20 to 30 minutes to explain how the text bears out that idea (including the historical context), 10 to 15 minutes to show appropriate applications for a contemporary audience, and 5 to 10 minutes to summarize and conclude the message. At a minimum, accomplishing all of these issues would take me around 45 minutes; maybe 55 minutes.

Interestingly, what is normally cut out when cutting down a sermon’s length is the explanation. In my estimation, that is unfortunate. One of the primary problems I find with much of contemporary preaching is that insufficient explanation is given as to how a preacher has derived his conclusions. Key phrases, difficult subjects, complicated portions are quickly summarized without careful explanation. So, the audience is essentially left with taking the preacher’s word for it. While not terrible, that sort of dependence tends to tie people more to the authority the speaker than it does a clear comprehension of the text.

I appreciate Dr. John MacArthur”™s response to the question of sermon length:

How long should a sermon be? As long as it takes to cover the passage adequately!  I do not think the length of the sermon is as important as its content.
I think it should be expected that a solid expository sermon will probably be longer rather than shorter.

But having said that let me address some common issues with sermon lengths.

Common issues:

On Shorter Sermons:

Today’s young adults cannot process long sermons. I have no doubt that the way we educate children and the sort of entertainment they are often exposed to causes people’s attention span to be smaller than perhaps they once were. I’m sure modern educational theory has accommodated this decreased attention span and produces contemporary studies to support it. However, 20 and 30 year-olds are regularly benefitting from lengthy lectures in the majority of their college classes.

From my own experience, I have seen today’s young adults sit with joy and complete attention to three days worth of multiple hour-long sermons. I was in Louisville, Kentucky this past April where 7500 people gathered and listened to eight sermons over several days, each over an hour. The vast majority of those in attendance were in their 20s and 30s. I saw the same sort of thing this past June in Palm Springs as over 3,000 college-age students gathered for the Resolved Conference and heard three days of very lengthy sermons.

So, it is not a given that young adults cannot effectively listen to and retain material from lengthy sermons. Having said that, we do need to be careful and aware that our modern approach to life and education is not helping children or young adults (and thus future generations) to adequately interact with lengthy argumentation. How we package sermons must receive our careful attention.

All that needs to be said can be said in 25 to 30 minutes. Some of my favorite senior adults have said this to me many times. This sort of saying was a prevalent one among some generations of preaching professors. I don”™t, by necessity, agree with it. All that needs to be said can often be said in 5 to 15 minutes when I”™m speaking in a retirement home, or giving a devotional to 3 and 4 year olds. Handling a complicated text like Romans 9:14-29 may require an hour to adequately explain the numerous challenges found in that text. So, this statement is really an oversimplification.

Shorter sermons make a preacher deeper and more precise. This may be true and it may not. I have heard some use this as a rationale for preaching shorter sermons, only to preach more generally and without significant precision. Also, I have found that tightly structured sermons, where every phrase is essential, tend to lose people more easily. As an audience is contemplating the implications of one simplified and highly structured statement, they may (and probably will) miss the next one and then begin to be lost in the argumentation. That”™s not necessarily so, but it a challenge to those who try to accomplish much depth in short amounts of time.

Some preachers are better preachers when they preach shorter sermons. We have all experienced the pastor who, as a habit, goes long and shouldn”™t, because it doesn”™t fit his training, his experience, his purpose in preaching, personal style, or personality. And pastors who preach lengthy sermons, as a habit, and tend to provide a wealth of helpful insights have probably benefited us. Depth and precision are not dependent upon the length of sermons, but on the depth and precision of the one constructing and delivering the sermon. Depth and precision can be found in either long or shorter messages.

People can remember more if the sermon is shorter. This may be true. But I want to do more in my preaching than simply provide information that can all be remembered immediately after the message. In fact, I construct sermons with elements that I want the audience to clearly remember, while understanding that some of the explanation may not be remembered, but may be helpful in the preaching process so that main ideas are clearly comprehended and thus solidified in a person”™s mind. Also, I find that people interested in biblical preaching and theology find great benefit in listening to (or reading) sermons again after they have heard them in order to think through them again, consider the argumentation and explanation again. I have often had people come to me years after I preached a series of sermons, telling me that they had been listening to them all over again and finding great benefit and hearing more in them than they did the first time. Full sermons often provide more material than perhaps can be immediately recalled, but may be helpful for later and further reflection and study.

On Longer Sermons:

Long sermons mean deeper Christians. I have heard (perhaps I have said it before) pastors say this. Obviously such a statement is not, by necessity, true. Long sermons may mean more bored Christians. I think deeper sermons will affect greater depth in Christians.

An hour is where the power is. While many of my Sunday evening messages would run around and hour and the majority of my preaching over the past 20 years has tended to be around 45 to 55 minutes, I don”™t think there is anything magical in an hour-long message. Forty-five minutes to an hour has simply been a general time frame that I have found most effective for the purposes I am trying to achieve in regular expositions of Scripture.

Time doesn’t matter. There is a lot of truth in this statement. And there is some falsehood here also. I have had people come up to me after a sermon and tell me that they could have sat all night and listened to more and more from a particular passage. Other times, it was clear to both me and the congregation that I had simply preached too long and would have benefitted everyone if I had simply broken the message into two parts. Time given to preaching is not what is essential. Those who are more interested in lunch, or other plans they have on the Lord”™s Day should probably pause and consider their priorities. Yet, I think it is good for a preacher to give consideration to the variety of people and time constraints placed upon the modern families in our culture. Time spent in preaching may be different in different parts of the world. I have heard of people in Africa sitting for hour upon hour wanting more and more preaching. I have seen people in Texas give up the ghost after 10 minutes of a sermon. Time is not the most important issues.

Unspiritual people don’t like long sermons. This may be true, but it”™s not a universal given. It is theologically true that unsaved people will probably not like sermons, whether long or short. Their heart has no affection for the things of God. But, an average congregation has people of varying levels of spiritual maturity. Some may be unaccustomed to longer sermons. Others may yearn for more than a short and generalized approach to a biblical text. It”™s one of the most daunting tasks for any preacher to deal with week after week.

Where do I land?

I don”™t advocate that everyone preach as long as I do, and I”™m not suggesting that my preaching is always worth an hour. My aim, based on my convictions and experience, is generally to preach between 45 and 55 minutes. That time frame tends to give me the opportunity to accomplish what I think is important in a typical exposition. From interaction with a number of people, that time frame seems to be most generally helpful from their interactions with my preaching. I do want to be sensitive, careful, and helpful in my preaching. There is a thirst among God”™s people ““ and even those who are seeking to understand Christianity and the Bible, for a serious-minded, clear communication of Scripture. I think if the preacher can be clear, compelling, demonstrating a passion that is appropriately drawn from the passage and consistent with his normal personality (not creating a “preacherly” different pulpit personality), explaining how conclusions and applications are found from a logical explanation of the passage, we won”™t really lack for an audience.