Preaching is one of the most important things that happen in the life of a church.  Preachers must regularly work on their craft.  I love preaching.  It is one of my favorite parts of being in youth ministry; every week, sometimes even more often, I get to spend time preparing and giving a message to teach our middle school students.  Because I love it so much, I have found some things that seem to be helpful to me in improving my preaching.

4 Ways to Improve Preaching

Preach More. The best way to improve at anything is to get more practice.  It's true of any athlete that wants to compete at a higher level; if you want to improve at your skill you need to get reps in.  If you want to be a better preacher, whether it be on the preparation end or in the delivery, you need to find ways to preach often.

Read Scripture.  We cannot be effective in our preaching if we are not studying the scripture.  You might have enough Bible knowledge to get by without spending time personally in the word, but falling into this trap is a huge danger.  Spend time in the scripture, not simply for the sake of finding things to preach on but for the sake of your own relationship with God.

Listen More.  If you love to preach and want to get better, listen to great preachers.  I regularly have a list of sermons that are downloading every week.  Find a variety of styles and denominations; there is a lot to learn by finding different preachers that are effective in communicating.

Read Books.  When you find a book or writer that you love, read all their books and the books that they reference.  Reading books will allow you to continually be learning and building your library of potential ideas.  It will also help you grow in your knowledge of what you are reading about.  The key here though is that you need to find a way to not only read books, but remember what was in them.  For me that means underlining and recording things in evernote.

Photo Credit: GWoods