The gospel playing in our lives for years has created in us a distinctive sound.
—Fred Craddock
Everyone knows a sermon has points, but not everyone knows a sermon also has a tune.
I applied the word tune to preaching a few years ago when I began to wonder, Why do I especially like certain sermons? What makes certain ones really work? There was an important ingredient in effective sermons that went beyond the normal considerations of content. That ingredient, I realized, was the tune.
A sermon's tune—its mood or spirit—is not easy to define precisely, but it's unmistakable. Hearing some sermons, I think of seventy-six trombones coming down Main Street. Other messages make me picture a violin and a crust of bread.
We don't often think of the tune we'll play when we're preparing a sermon because our preparation tends to focus on the content. But afterward, when we evaluate how we spoke it and how people responded to it, then we recall the tune: the subtle atmosphere that was projected, the mood ...
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