In Part 1 of this series, we examined what the curse of knowledge is and how it affects preachers. If you haven’t read that yet, definitely check it out. For today, we are going to dive into the two reasons why we preachers are so prone to fall into the death trap that is the curse of knowledge.

 Let’s Get Real About Why We Do This

In addition to us unknowingly assuming that people know what we know – the result of the curse of knowledge. I think pastors are inherently motivated to sound confusing because of two traps we are prone to fall into. I would bet you can relate to one or both of these. So, why might you have a tendency to speak over people’s heads?

1. You would be embarrassed if someone thought you didn’t know a particular truth or concept.

There may be theological truths and biblical concepts so common knowledge to you that you can’t fathom someone not knowing them. You think, They should know this! Doesn’t...

I moved from Oklahoma City, OK to the Washington, DC area straight out of college at 22 years old. It was an adventure to say the least. DC is a fast pace, high capacity, leader-saturated, type-a-personality, beautifully diverse, traffic-jammed, long-commute, action-packed, never-a-dull-moment place to live. I loved it. The people there blew my mind. I met people from all over the globe who were intrinsically driven to succeed in changing the world. It was exhilarating, but at the same time, intimidating. I was a kid from the mid-west who had not seen much of the world (or even the US at that point). I quickly discovered there was a lot I didn’t know. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t know these things, I just didn’t know what I didn’t know.

So I found myself constantly in situations where I would meet someone and we would do the usual, “What do you do?” exchange of pleasantries. I would tell them I was a youth pastor which was my job at the...

In Part 1 of this series we dove into the first two steps of training ourselves how to preach without notes.

My desire to preach without notes started with this question: What if I could train myself to not need notes at all? What if I could prepare in such a way that I could deliver a message and never look down, but maintain eye contact and physical engagement with my listeners from start to finish? What if you could, too?

 So I began training myself not to use notes, and I am sharing what I’ve discovered with you. The first two steps are to reduce the amount of notes you allow yourself and build a flow of triggers and touch points. You can read more in Part 1 of this series. For today, let’s look at the next two steps to preaching without notes:

3. Rehearse and internalize your message

The next step is to take that one page with your touch points and triggers and rehearse. In my post, Preach what You Practice: Why Rehearsing Is...

We’ve all seen this happen. The preacher walks up to the stage with a Bible, some pieces of paper, and a binder. He spends the first few seconds placing everything on the podium. While he’s doing this the audience is mostly looking at the top of his head as he looks down. As he begins speaking he reads from one piece of paper, looks up, finds another one in his binder, reads it, looks up again, and then looks down for his next idea. Aside from the sloppiness and the seemingly un-prepared vibe this gives off – it also risks not engaging the audience.

Let’s contrast that scenario with the preacher who gets up on stage and speaks with clarity and command of the room, engages everyone with eye contact and energy, and you never see him look down, fumble through pages, or read from anything but the Bible.

From a communications perspective, the preacher in our first scenario is far less likely to connect with his listeners. He is missing a vital aspect of capturing...

You make points in every sermon you preach. You try to communicate at least one point. One idea. One bottom line. You may have one major point but a number of supporting points. The point is, you make points. Get the point? So, what do you do with every point you make? Is it enough just to say the words. “My main point is _________. Okay, let’s close in prayer.” Well, we both know that would be insufficient.

We have to do more than just say a point for it to stick. But how do we do this? How do we develop sticky points that land on people in powerful ways? I suggest doing at least three things with every point you make in your sermons. Using these as a base line allows you to do more if you’d like, but make sure you’re at least doing these three things:

1. Teach the point. When you teach the point you are explaining the concept and providing the biblical backing. In other words, you are showing how you derived the principle...