Sermon Prep & Self-Awareness: Austin Carty's Guide to Authentic Sermon Writing

Some of the Words are Theirs: The Art of Writing and Living a Sermon by is a book by a preacher who loves the craft of writing. And what is the writing of poetry, fiction, essay, but offering insightful recognition of common moments in life? So also, to risk the obvious, good sermon writing is a God-centered reflection on life experience.

Seeing a page of epigrams drawn from Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It (from which the title is taken), and Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, I looked forward to learning from someone who shared my enthusiasm for these writers. Of course, writing (and delivering) a sermon is about much more than honing the skill of a writer, but it should never be less.

Unlike those preaching books that focus on method, this one shows how one preacher puts a method to work in the ups and downs of his life, past and present. He remembers Frederick Buechner saying that all theology is autobiographical. It explains why we hear so much of Carty’s life story and his recurring dreams about it.

It will only spoil the reading experience to talk about that story. But those reading this review should know that it is central to the point of the book––that we preach out of who we are. We carry our giftedness and our brokenness when we stand up to speak. Becoming ever more self-aware over a lifetime helps us remember what we often forget–that our attempts to direct others’ attention to the Triune God will honor and use our best intentions and, sometimes, somehow, even our mess. 

Praying the Sermon: The Foundation for Writing

Prayer runs throughout the entire process of preparing, writing, and revising: prayer as one reads and rereads the texts (whether one follows a lectionary of the revised common sort or a lectio continua through a biblical book); prayer as one stares at the blank page, wondering how to move from the reading to what will be said on Sunday; prayer as one edits, trying to discern what the congregation will hear and does not need to hear.

There are three parts to Carty’s sermon-making: preparation, writing, and revision. I’ll talk about the first two here and just say that the last part of the book is not to be missed.

Preparation: Reading the Text and Listening to the Spirit

A mentor told Carty to budget his time to allow for sermon prep the way one budgets money. He admits he had been doing neither and slowly learned that allocating the same day every week keeps him from procrastinating (sometimes failing to produce a sermon) or endless fiddling with one he had written. As Richard Foster famously said, “Discipline is freedom.”

Before writing comes time spent with the texts (or texts) on which the sermon will be centered. Carty states his preference for using the revised common lectionary to keep him from eisegesis, saying what he might want to say and perhaps missing what the Holy Spirit would. So, once he’s chosen a text, he reads it at least ten times, “listening carefully for a summons from the Spirit.”

He offers questions to guide this open-hearted reading. Some are simple: “What is the passage trying to say?” Others are harder, but just as important: “What energy do we feel moving us–and moving in us–as we read? How might this passage be pertinent to what is happening now. . .” (both in the world and congregation)?

Writing: Picture Panels that Tell a Story

Beginning with a hook like “I hate Coldplay”– an example borrowed from Chuck Klosterman– that is and is not about what you mean to say, teases the listener’s desire to look for connections. It is Carty’s first foray into what he calls metaphoric thinking, the parallelism where we show how this is like that. He cites research that we get a dopamine hit when we make the connection.

Carty takes two insights from Thomas Long and makes them his own. First, he thinks of the sermon in terms of panels, like windowpanes we install to allow the light of truth to come through. I thought of medieval stained-glass panels that told Bible stories, although Carty shows how preachers today will write panels about life back then and the life we live now.

Second, Long says exegesis is like air conditioning on a hot summer day: people want to feel the cool air, but they don’t want to hear the HVAC clanging in their ears. So, for Carty: “It is the part of the sermon that demands the most time, energy, and emotional engagement, but it’s the part of the sermon that nonetheless needs to be the least conspicuous.”

The sermon will bring together the elements of story and theology to move toward a resolution. It can be stated as a thesis: “Here’s the thing. . .” Writers like Buechner and LaMott will ask the reader to reach that conclusion for themselves, but Carty claims that stating it directly can be just as potent–if it connects all the previous panels in a surprising way.

It’s what he is trying to accomplish by interjecting his own story throughout his reflections on sermon writing. Again, the less I say here about that story the better for those who will read it, but as an invitation, I’ll quote his observation after reading ten years’ worth of his own sermons: “All of this, I see now, has been a heartbreaking work of staggering genius–not genius in the sense of innate brilliance, but genius in the sense of deriving from my innermost self: a work of misdirection so cleverly applied that the truth of what I was doing was hidden even from me.” I think he’s hinting at the hidden work of the Spirit of God. Carty remembers his Grandfather saying, “Who knows what the Holy Spirit is up to?”

A Guide and Invitation

When I was thinking of going to seminary to study Bible, theology and ministry, I was told that a philosophy major was good preparation for the logical work required of systematic theology. I could see that, but I also came to believe that a major in literature could be just as helpful because of its focus on choosing words that best communicate what is important about living. More than a skill, an appreciation for good writing is a way of seeing and speaking; this book is one of the few I know that offers a guide and an invitation to bring that appreciation to our words about God.