Many Christian topics can be complex. Complexity is often perceived as boring by readers. Christian writers can build skills to transform content from boring to breathtaking, and these 5 tips will help you do that.
Sermons: A Cautionary Tale
One of the most boring kinds of Christian writing is sermonic material. Preachers often think their congregation is duty-bound to listen to them. However, people are exiting churches at high rates because the sermon, or the music and light show accompanying it in some churches, does not satisfy their spiritual needs.
Preachers were warned about boring their congregation in seminary, but few listened. Most were told that a sermon should be constructed like this for maximum interest:
- A joke
- Three points
- A poem
This is not a bad pattern, but the Devil is in the details.
If the joke is terrible, and the three individual points go over the heads of the congregation, or the poem is maudlin, then the Devil gets the win.
5 Steps From Boring to Breathtaking
How do writers move from boring to breathtaking? These five steps help Christian writers of all kinds, whether you’re writing a sermon, blog post, or book.
1. Engage instantaneously
You may not tell a joke, but you must say something unusual initially to grab the reader’s (or listener’s) attention.
Your goal is to change people’s state of mind. They come to your book or sermon with a million things dancing in their brain. You must immediately say something to change their state of mind from whatever it may be to whatever you have to say.
Think of them as if they were all watching different TV channels in their minds. Your first task is getting them all to switch to your channel.
2. Be practical
There is no question that many Christian writers share deep, complicated spiritual truths. That’s okay. But it must be done correctly. Paul understood the concept perfectly when he said, “I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Christian writers need to understand that most Christians are “still not ready” for the meat and potatoes of spiritual teaching. We need to spoon-feed them.
One of the best ways to do that is to be practical. You want to teach the Bible but must also offer helpful, practical applications for the theology you discuss. Connect the dots for people.
For example, you may tell others that Transubstantiation is not a Bible doctrine. That’s reasonably abstract and will move the needle on the Boring Meter.
So, what is the practical truth people can implement in their life? You must tell them. You can turn that somewhat dull topic into a breathtaking one like Paul did in Colossians 1:27. He explained the deepest mysteries of God in seven words: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Then, you must tell people a story or two about people who lived changed lives after they experienced the indwelling of Christ. That cements anything you say about Transubstantiation into something practical and valuable.
This applies to all biblical concepts you write about, not just something like Transubstantiation.
3. Simplify, simplify
Am I suggesting that Christian writers and speakers “dumb down” their content? Yes, I am. But I suggest you do it with some class.
Remember, the goal of any Christian writer is to convey spiritual truth. You may do that in a sermon, script, blog post, or book (fiction or nonfiction), and you always want to be as effective as possible.
You become effective when you stop trying to be clever as you transmit your message. Start being clever by thinking about how your readers or listeners receive what you transmit. Be reader-centric.
Can you get inside the minds of others to understand how they are receiving your message? Yes. One way is to poll people and ask them for a rating. Ask them what they thought was confusing in your book or sermon.
Lacking that, use a “never-fail cure-all.” What is that? Simplify what you have written. Stop and let it rest for a day when you have written what you have to say. Come back to it and break the ideas down into even simpler forms. Add another two or three little stories to illustrate the ideas.
You can rarely over-simplify. No problem with “going deep,” but there is no point in doing that if people are fighting for their lives on the surface. They drown because you are intent on being writer-centric rather than reader-centric.
4. Be Disruptive
In the tech world, disruptive technology is defined as something that “displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry.”
That needs to happen in Christian writing in all its forms. That is how you get from boring to breathtaking. Most Christian books and sermons are as predictable as those Hardy Boys Mysteries I read as a youngster.
I devoured so many of the books in this series (now 190 of them) that it got so that I could view the image in the front of the book, scan chapter headings, and then impart the entire plot to anyone who would listen. Friends who had read the book were amazed by my clairvoyance. But it wasn’t that — the book series broke the cardinal rule of writing — they became predictable.
That’s why you need to be disruptive as a Christian writer. It takes hard work to be interesting. There is always risk in doing that, but it pays huge dividends.
Don’t be predictable. Approach your topic in ways that disrupt the thought patterns of your readers or listeners.
5. Be Brief
You can take away the breath of people by being brief. In Hamlet, Shakespeare says, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
Brevity is also an entrance to the soul.
Keep it short if you want to reach people with the Christian message and be less boring and more breathtaking in the process.
That may mean that your hour-long sermon should be cut to 30 minutes or your 100,000-word novel needs to be reduced to 50,000 words. But not necessarily so. For example, most movies run about 1.5 hours, and people stay seated because they stay interested.
So, overall length is not a critical issue as long as you keep people interested in what you say. Remember, your sermon or book may hold your attention, but that counts for little. It must hold the attention of others.
Even if you go long, you must keep the various parts of your written material brief.
For example, contemporary films have about 60 different scenes. Each scene makes a statement and moves on quickly to develop the overall plot.
You can and should employ that technique in your writing. This does not mean you are doing a survey, jumping from one topic to another. It means you are building layer by layer.
You are developing a thought in each layer but not staying too long on it.
Public speakers talk about 150 words a minute. You should be able to make your point in 750 words or less before you move on to the next layer.
The same applies to nonfiction writers. Use sub-headings as signposts for readers.
Fiction writers can double that word count for each scene if the characters and conflict are compelling.
Stop and rethink your actions if you need more words to make your point. You probably don’t need more words to express that thought. You need to reduce the complexity of your idea and express it in more but briefer segments.
God Did Not Call You to Be Boring
It’s a good thing God did not ask Christian writers and preachers to create the animals.
We would have created the giraffe, said, “Hmmm, that’s interesting,” and continued creating all the other animals to look the same. Sure, we would give them different names and make them different colors, but they would all look like giraffes.
That would be boring.
Christian writers must tear a page from God’s book and produce unique, breathtaking creations that draw people to Christ.
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Unless otherwise noted, Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV).
