One of the greatest disservices a pastor can do to their church is preaching a sermon in search of a text. We’ve all done it, and sometimes a congregation needs to talk about important topics which necessitate it. But far too often, as a preaching coach, I hear sermons that are little more than the topic a pastor wanted to talk about, an axe to grind, or a hot-take on the day's news.

Pastors, sadly, need to be reminded that we are neither talk-show hosts nor opinion piece writers. We are proclaimers of the Kingdom of God. That proclamation is rooted in the Word of God and the activity of God, not our wavering, fluctuating itch to talk or the pressure to say something.

I recently heard a sermon that I thought wasn’t very good. However, I knew the church it was preached for would love. It was incoherent, filled with opinion rather than exegesis, and Jesus was not mentioned at all. While the delivery was solid, the connection between the Word of God and the wisdom on offer was tenuous at best and non-existent from my hearing.

The preacher wanted to talk about X topic and used whatever Scripture he could find to do it. Though the Scripture being used had nothing to do with the topic being discussed, I was burdened with knowledge that most parishioners did not share my concerns about the sermon. I know the Bible fairly well. Looking across the room, I realized that most of the assembled didn’t care about the connection of the text to the sermon in the same way I did. They did not share my concerns.

I don’t mean to be harsh. Our churches care about the Biblical text. At my church, when we offer gatherings geared to teach more of the Bible or how to become better Bible readers, there is always more than enough interest. What’s more, these seekers tend to be young, receptive people.

It is not that people don’t want to know the Bible. I worry, rather, that too many in our churches can’t connect the Bible to their lived experiences, and whenever a pastor or teacher seems to make a connection in a sermon or teaching they readily accept whatever they hear. I fear that they don’t know that the Bible and their experiences should connect because too few preachers don’t demonstrate how they do connect.

Several years ago, I was leading a workshop for City Managers, Chiefs of Police, and Chiefs of Fire Departments across Texas. They knew I was a pastor, and most of them being familiar with the Christian faith, allowed me to use the teachings of Jesus in my storytelling. Plus, most in attendance, if not all, were Christians.

I was astonished that many of these leaders failed to connect what they knew of the scriptures to how they should go about their calling. While not scholars, they knew the Bible. They also knew the tasks of their vocation but could not make 2+2=4. There was a disconnect concerning which portions of God’s story should inform which season they were in or how to apply Biblical teachings and principles to the challenges they were facing.

Adding this up, I am convinced that too many pastors miss a central task of preaching; drawing a connecting line between the Bible and the tensions, challenges, and opportunities Christians face in daily life. They also lack a way of making these connections in a way that honors what a text teaches and appreciates what life is.

Not to put too fine a point on it: Our churches care about what the Bible says, but they equally care about their lives. If a sermon does not connect the two, they simply do not care about our thoughts, opinions, or study.

Preachers ought to better demonstrate how what the Bible teaches directly impacts congregants’ lives while simultaneously using texts that are about the principle, priority, or exemplar identified in the text. Pastors can make a text say whatever we want it to say. This skill, sadly, does a disservice to God and our church when we fail to teach them what a text says. We fail the gospel and our community when our preaching becomes sermons in search of a text.

Our churches need preachers who care about the texts and, not so much “bringing the text to life,” but coupling the texts to their lives. Our congregants, largely, will accept any text, even if it is twisted, if it serves their life felt needs, or immediate goals. Mostly, they will not investigate our exegesis, giving us a broad spectrum of misinterpretive options. However, a faithful preacher will simply refuse to use the Bible that way.

So, how might preachers best guard against delivering sermons in search of a text? Here are a few places to start.

Adopt a Preaching Calendar

We will be less likely to abuse the church with our whims and impulses if we decide well ahead of time the scope and sequence of our preaching. Knowing a year or six months in advance who will be preaching and which text(s) will be preached gives us space, not only for creativity and diversity, but to resist becoming enamored with headlines or hot takes.

Our preaching should always be responsive to local, national, and international events, but, as we can learn from those who preach the liturgical calendar, the Word of God always seems appropriate for the moment.

What’s more, a preaching calendar loosens us from the tyranny of the moment and the felt need to be in-the-moment. A calendar is freedom giving rather than restrictive.

Befriend Your Vocation

Preachers preach the Word of God. We proclaim that the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated. That’s often not a pleasant, profitable, or entertaining vocation. In a world filled with talk radio, podcasts hosts, and cable-news stars, it can be tempting to want to do what they do, to give our opinions on the subject which currently captivates hearers. The temptation, whether to stave off boredom or create interesting Instagram reels for our churches, is real.

All the same, it is not our calling. We stand, as feeble and broken as we are, to create a hearing from God, one human to another. It’s when we begin to believe that we are up to something else—becoming an influencer, entertaining and so on, that we stumble.

Control Your Emotions and Emotional Reward System

Being human means having emotions. Being a mature human means managing your emotions. Most of us know this. The seasoned preacher knows not to carry her or his anger, disappointment, sadness, or whatever else we currently feel into the preaching moment on a weekly basis.

What we pay less attention to is our emotional reward system. Our emotional reward system consists of acts we perform which produce a response from others. Their favorable responses make us feel good, so we are seduced into replicating in our preaching what we did which so enamored our churches. This leads us to preach for our own emotional reward.

Many preachers shout. Others cry. Some tell jokes. Still others spend way too much time preaching the minutia of the text because people in their church respond favorably to it and their response feels good to us.

Unfortunately, preaching for an emotional reward centers the preacher and not Jesus. It tempts us to games, tricks, manipulations, and emotional coercion. Shouting, crying, humor, textual rigor, and other elements of communication and teaching are entirely appropriate in the kerygma, but when we use them as a crutch for our own ego, we misuse the calling God has given us.

My primary mantra is: Do what the text does. This requires preachers to trust the relevance of the text and trust that the God of Scripture is at work. We don’t have to force relevance. We have no need to worry whether something “will happen.” It will.

Our calling is to be faithful to both the text and the congregation. When we do that well enough for long enough, we will eventually share God’s perspective on just about everything—at least we will have the opportunity to share God’s perspective on everything that matters.

Sean Palmer is the Teaching Pastor at Ecclesia Houston, speaker and speaking coach, and author of several books including--Speaking by the Numbers: Ennegram Wisdom for Teachers, Pastors, and Communicators.