Sermon Writing Quotes & Sayings

The sermon which I write inquisitive of truth is good a year after, but that which is written because a sermon must be writ is musty the next day. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am a story teller. If I wanted to send a message I would have written a sermon. — Philip Pullman

When it comes to sermon writing, generally there are two problems. Some preachers love the research stage but hate the writing, and they start writing too late. Others don't like doing research, so they move way too fast to the writing part. — John Ortberg

Well, he'd get help from the Bible. It was all inspired, every word, no matter what scoffers like Jim said. He'd take the first text he turned to and talk on that.
He opened on: 'Now THEREFORE, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which ARE beyond the river, be ye far from thence,' an injunction spirited but not at present helpful. — Sinclair Lewis

There is no necessity for going to the church and hearing the same story forever. Let the minister write what he wishes to say. Let him publish it. If it is worth buying, people will read it. It is hardly fair to get them in a church in the name of duty and there inflict upon them a sermon that under no circumstances they would read ... the idea of going fifty-two days in a year to hear anybody on the same subject is absurd. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I'm writing my sermon about how faith should affect our everyday lives. Sam was quick to reply. "It should compel us to live like Jesus and love everybody - especially the poor and helpless. He sought out blind men, tax collectors, and Roman soldiers, and gave them sight and invited them to dinner and healed their households. When people were hungry, he had compassion on them and multiplied the loaves and fishes. When he saw the crippled man, he told him to take up his pallet and walk. He freed people from their demons and gave the living water to the thirsty." Throughout — Bill Higgs

We're pupils of the religions - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish ... Well, the Christian religions. Those who directed French education down through the centuries were the Jesuits. They taught us how to make sentences translated from the Latin, well balanced, with a verb, a subject, a complement, a rhythm. In short - here a speech, there a preach, everywhere a sermon! They say of an author, "He knits a nice sentence!" Me, I say, "It's unreadable." They say, "What magnificent theatrical language!" I look, I listen. It's flat, it's nothing, it's nil. Me, I've slipped the spoken word into print. In one sole shot. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. — E. M. Forster

I type my sermon notes into my BlackBerry, then I upload my sermon notes to my blog, my Facebook page and some of the information to my Twitter account. That's 100,000 people I'm sharing the Gospel with by the virtue of typing it into my BlackBerry as opposed to writing it down. That is being efficient with my time. — Roland Martin

I would rather preach one sermon than write a thousand books. — Vavasor Powell