Despite many warnings from homiletics professors, mentors, and fellow pastors, I spent my first few years of weekly preaching committing one of the most common, grievous errors of a young preacher: the content dump. In those early years, I wielded God's word less like a fountain of life and more like a fire hose in what was surely a weekly endurance test for our congregation.

From "Content Dump" to "Content Delivery"

Simply realizing this, though, was not enough to make me grow out of content dump preaching. The next step came from a conversation with one of our congregants, a doctoral-level researcher devoted to the development of pharmaceutical delivery systems. She explained to me that drugs, once manufactured, cannot simply be sprinkled onto someone's head and expected to work. Researchers like her devote their careers to pioneering effective drug delivery systems that transport these life-saving substances past the body's defenses and into the precise places that need treatment, and at high enough levels to remain until the illness is cured.

As I reflected on this, I suddenly realized the problem with my preaching: I was spouting off biblical content and expecting my congregation to simply absorb it and be changed. While I do believe mature disciples should be able to do this (to some degree), I saw that a good sermon should act as a content delivery system for God's Word. Effective preaching takes biblical content past one's defenses, into the areas of life that need it most, and make it stick long enough to provoke, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, prayerful growth over time.

My sermons began to change.

Four Ways to Think Like a Filmmaker

Perhaps my greatest revelations about effective content delivery have come, not from books or articles on preaching, but from working with my wife Laura to make documentary films. She has produced films professionally for as long as we've been married, and I have often rested from my work by helping her with hers. We've had the opportunity to write, shoot, edit, and direct together. I've discovered strong similarities between the arts of filmmaking and preaching that have helped me move from content dumping to skillful content delivery. Here are a few of the most powerful:

Find the Story

Thierry Guetta obsessively filmed everything around him, and became fixated on the world of street art. Promising to make a documentary, he gained the trust of several prominent street artists, including the enigmatic Banksy, in order to film them as they worked. However, Thierry simply stockpiled footage without any thought to story, and the "film" he produced was a chaotic mess. Banksy allegedly gained access to the 10,000 hours of footage and spent a year combing through it to find the story, which became the successful documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

The documentary filmmaker must be an astute exegete of life and the world around her. She must observe, gather, record, and analyze an enormous amount of footage. She may go into a film project with hopes of what she'll find, but she never knows what will happen once she hits the record button. Then comes the all-important task of sorting through all of that footage to find the story. She cannot simply play raw footage for her audience; rather, she must organize and present the content as a story that is clear and engaging, often distilling hundreds of hours of footage into less than an hour.

In the same way, thorough exegesis yields pages and pages of reflection. The preacher will gather data on themes, significant words, principles, theological connections, application ideas —all 'exegetical raw footage,' if you will. The problem, though, is that many of us stop there. We give people raw footage instead of a coherent narrative.

Like filmmakers, we must discover the story within our exegetical findings. Or, to put it another way, we must identify the central theme we wish to develop. Any passage can yield a wide array of possible story lines. For example, I recently preached from John 15 and pursued the theme "Knowing our place in God's mission." But, I could have chosen instead to focus on "Jesus as the culmination of the Old Testament," "Jesus' last words before his crucifixion," or "abiding in Jesus." The same core exegesis yields many possible story lines. Whether your style is to preach three points, verse-by-verse, or some other method, I believe a central theme is vital for effective preaching.

Develop the Plot

Good filmmakers don't just tell stories; they know how to tell stories. The Pixar hit film Up opens with a montage of every important moment in the shared life of a man and his wife, until the wife passes away and we see the aging man alone in his house. In roughly four minutes, we have come to care for him deeply, and we want to see what happens. The well-paced plot unfolds from there.

Good filmmakers work through their content to answer vital questions:

• Why does this story matter?
• Who are the main characters?
• What is the conflict?
• What is at stake?
• How does the tension build?
• What is the climax?
• Is there a beginning, middle and an end?
• How are the conflicts and challenges resolved?

The best stories follow a plot arc: initial equilibrium for the characters is disturbed by some conflict, initiating a journey to resolve the conflict. The tension rises, until there is some critical choice leading to a climax, and then a resolution where the character has changed in some way.

Sermons can follow a similar trajectory. You can introduce conflict and tension any number of ways: ask a question for the sermon to resolve, make a cultural observation and then explore its truthfulness, make a challenging statement and then explore its implications, identify a desirable goal and then show how to get there, etc. You introduce tension, and walk your congregation through it.

There is art to building tension in a sermon. A great place to do this is during your transitions. For example, if you're preaching on depression, after your first point, say, "What we've just looked at is helpful, but without "x" it is insufficient…" You can also ask additional questions that build your congregation's intrigue about the subject matter: "Now we understand this about Jesus, but that doesn't explain why…" These are all ways of taking your congregation with you on a journey into the Scriptures, rather than simply dumping content.

These are basics, but so key. Preachers should be able to answer certain questions about their sermons:

• Who is the audience?
• How does this passage speak to them where they are?
• What are the questions raised by this passage?
• How are they resolved?
• What are the stakes that make this passage worth understanding?
• Is there a beginning, middle and end?
• How might tension build?
• Is there a climax?

Be a Visual Storyteller

Despite having neither music nor narration, the documentary Sweetgrass earned a 97 percent approval rating by critics on the movie review site, RottenTomatoes.com. In other words, it was a smashing success. The best filmmakers excel at visual storytelling, inviting viewers to discover the story for themselves. Many documentary purists will tell you that the ideal documentary is able to tell a story without the help of a narrator. Narration at its worst takes what could be an active, dynamic experience of discovery for the audience and renders it passive, less interesting.

Image-rich preaching can be a kind of visual storytelling. This means that sermon illustrations are not simply a way to spice up your message. They are vital. Jesus's own teaching was full of rich imagery that invited his listeners to discover for themselves the truths they illuminated. This was hammered home to me recently when I had a follow-up conversation with a woman in our congregation after our worship service. Before asking her question, she reproduced the sermon as she remembered it. Guess what? She remembered the images, and only the images. My witty wording, my puns, my alliterative outline — they had faded from memory in the span of about an hour. But the images remained.

Effective imagery can come in the form of stories, metaphors, and even simple word pictures. This often means making very simple adjustments. Instead of saying, "jealousy impairs our joy," consider saying, "jealousy robs us of joy." The word "rob" conjures images that reinforce your point, drawing on the imagination of your audience and involving them in the formation of the story.

Edit Ruthlessly

Merciful preaching requires merciless editing. Once you know your theme, have a sense of how you plan to develop your narrative, and have strong visuals, it's time to get out the pruning shears. This, for me, is the absolute hardest part of sermon preparation. Maybe you have a juicy illustration you've been dying to use. Maybe you discovered a precious nugget of word-study goodness. Regardless, if it doesn't serve to advance the plot, it has to go.

Think of it like American football. Does every play move the ball down the field? Every reference, every sentence, indeed every word should in some way move the ball down the field toward the end zone. If not, cut it out. Your preaching will be clearer, and your congregation will thank you.

Of the vast number of screenplays submitted to production companies, only a tiny fraction of them ever make it to the big screen. Most are irredeemably flawed and destined for the recycling bin. As it turns out, the same flaws tend to turn up again and again. And guess what? I've found many of these same flaws in my preaching.

Here are ten of the most common flaws that cause screenplays to get rejected … and the homiletical problems that they point out:

1. Style over substance
   
   Some screenplays are all spectacle, with no depth, character development, or plot of any kind. Likewise, sermons can be full of great jokes, moving stories, poetic descriptions and creative mnemonics … and not much else.
   
   There is no substitute for solid exegesis. We must remember that the power of any sermon comes from the ability of God's Word to do God's work. Good preaching isn't just about being able to draw a crowd; it is about effectively engaging our people with the whole counsel of God. We are called to preach, not win popularity contests. Resist the temptation to favor style over substance.
2. Slow start
   
   Many screenplays spend too much time setting up the context and characters. If the story only begins to take shape in the second act, it's weak. Sermons can likewise suffer (and thus cause suffering).
   
   I remember one sermon I preached where the passage "required" (or so I thought) a lot of contextual explanation up front. I took about twelve minutes to lay it out, then I said, "Ok, now that we understand this, my three points are … " I can still hear an audible gasp from the congregation. An honest friend later told me, "I thought you were wrapping things up, and then I was shocked to realize you hadn't even started yet!"
   
   If you are tempted to make the same mistake, chances are your outline needs reworking. A good introduction captures your hearers' attention, orients them to the passage, and convinces them that it matters. And it does this in as few sentences as possible. The more efficient our introduction, the more time we have to delve into the Scriptures.
3. Weak ending
   
   Imagine Rocky without Stallone's gut-wrenching cry: "Adrian!", The Usual Suspects without ever discovering the true identity of Keyser Soze, Chinatown without that last line, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." The endings make these movies memorable.
   
   Give people an ending they will remember. This is your last chance to drive your core point home, to leave people with an indelible image, to inspire people with the beauty of the gospel. Most of us already know that listeners recall the beginning and ending of a message best. So, use that to your advantage.
4. Arbitrary complexity
   
   So you're a Bible geek. No worries. Just don't assume your congregation will be quite as thrilled as you about the subtle word play you discovered. Of course you can, and in my opinion should, treat your congregation whenever possible to the literary richness and sublime beauty of the Bible, but your sermon needs to be clear.
   
   In a good sermon, as with a good movie, there is a sense that every part connects in some way to the whole. You can pack a sermon with concepts, but the trick is to make clear the connection between each concept you include and the larger point. Go ahead and elucidate that Hebrew pun, but be sure your people understand how it joins with what came before and what comes next. If you don't, they can easily lose track of where you're going.
5. Unresolved questions
   
   Asking questions at the outset of your sermon is a great way to build tension and hold people's interest. However, if you ask a question, you should resolve it by the end of your message. Otherwise you can frustrate or even mislead your people. This may be an obvious point, but leaving questions unresolved is deceptively easy to do.
   Of the vast number of screenplays submitted to production companies, only a tiny fraction of them ever make it to the big screen. Most are irredeemably flawed. And guess what? I've found many of these same flaws in my preaching.Sometimes we think we've answered it when we haven't. Perhaps you ask up front, "Does God always keep his Word?" and then spend the sermon examining ways that Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophesy. You may assume this gives a clear "yes," but the connection may not be so obvious for your listeners. Come back to the question at the end of your sermon, and make the connection explicit.
   
   Sometimes we have an idea for a great attention-grabbing question/theme, but it doesn't quite fit the passage itself. Whatever you do, do not force your passage into an outline just because you want to go in a certain direction. Change your question. Our outlines should be shaped by the passage, not the other way around.
   
   Sometimes, the question we ask is too broad, and we fail to resolve it well because the passage is more specific in its implications. If you preach a sermon that asks, "What are the characteristics of Christian conversion?" and your text is Saul's conversion in Acts 9, you have to be very careful. There are some things we can generalize to all Christians, and many that apply specifically to Saul. Align your question with the text as much as you can, such as, "What can we learn about Christian conversion by looking at Saul?"
   
   Following the advice of others, I now have a practice of writing a "placeholder intro," and then going back and revising the intro as one of the last steps of my sermon preparation. This is a good way to ensure that everything lines up.
6. Unrelated vignettes
   
   Some scripts have thoughtful, well-developed scenes, but very little connection between them. The net result is confusion for the audience. Screenplays like these never make it past the first read-through.
   
   Sermons, likewise, must have strong, clear transitions. The job of a transition is to clarify what has just been said, and connect it to what is about to be said. This, again, is easier said than done. It is not just a matter of re-stating your points; it is about establishing the logical flow of your argument. If you are preaching on Jesus calming the storm, your first point is about the fear of the disciples, and your second in on the authority of Jesus, don't assume people will follow you. Bridge the gap. Make a statement such as, "Most fear comes from feeling out of control, and these disciples were definitely not in control. However, as we're about to see, Jesus is another matter …"
   
   As you review your outline, look for continuity. Does your first point lead naturally into the second? How does it build your case? Why are the points ordered this way, and not another?
   
   Even if you preach a verse-by-verse style, you need transition points where you pause to remind people of the big picture, summarizing what you have covered, and where you are going. Good transitions create a sense of flow, progress, and cohesion, which are essential for clarity and retention.
7. Tonal confusion
   
   As an issue, this is more subtle and hard to spot. That being said, it can make or break a script, as well as a sermon. The question is this: does the tone of your sermon match the tone of the text?
   
   By tone, I mean the emotional impression you leave, the feelings you inspire. God's Word has all manner of genres, a multitude of tones. Even within genres, the tone can shift dramatically from one pericope to the next.
   
   Part of your exegesis should include identifying the tone of your passage, seeking not only to understand it but to actually feel it, to engage emotionally and identify with it. Then craft your message appropriately. Don't violate the melancholy of Jeremiah with a bunch of jokes. Don't get so technical with the psalms that you forget the poetry. Distinguish between Paul's firm rebuke in 1 Corinthians and his fatherly affection in 1 Timothy.
8. Weak protagonist
   
   Obviously a screenplay is going to flop if the story is built around a humdrum hero. You need a hero that is interesting, well-developed and worth building a story around.
   
   In preaching, human beings always tend to make weak protagonists. Come to think of it, that's actually one of the main themes of the Bible: human beings make lousy heroes. The Trinitarian God, on the other hand, makes a great hero. So if God is the hero of the Bible, it follows that he should be the hero of every sermon.
   
   The Bible is full of amazing men and women, but they all play supporting roles. Moses plays a part in the liberation of Israel from Egyptian slavery, but God is the liberator. David shows tremendous faith and courage against Goliath, but God is the champion. In Jesus, God is the hero of the Gospels. In the Holy Spirit, God is the hero of the Book of Acts.
   
   While our sermons can acknowledge the qualities of human characters, the emphasis should remain on God and his attributes.
9. Emotional element exaggerated/neglected
   
   Whether it's sappy or stoic, melodramatic or mechanical, an emotionally unbalanced script will make for a painful viewing experience.
   
   Likewise, sermons need a well-balanced emotional element. Overly sentimental sermons risk becoming shallow, distracting people from Scriptural truth, or even making people feel manipulated. On the other hand, dry intellectual sermons are not only boring and alienating, but they ignore the heart and imagination. Our goal as preachers is not only to inform, but to inspire and shape desire.
   
   We all have our tendencies toward one extreme or the other. It's always a good idea to get feedback on your preaching from people whose tendencies differ from yours. I have also found it helpful to intentionally read or listen to preachers who differ stylistically from me, to develop a taste for what otherwise does not come naturally.
10. Writer ego trip
    
    Some scripts seem less about telling a story and more about extolling the author's intelligence. The same goes for sermons. As preachers, we all desire to appear competent to our congregations, but we cannot allow our egos to take over. Our goal should be a clear, compelling, faithful exposition and application of God's Word. It's not about us.
    
    As a pastor in a sophisticated, urban city, I serve a congregation of intelligent people, many who probably worship intelligence to some degree. I have to remind myself continually that before I can help these people renounce that idol, I must renounce it myself, especially when I am in the pulpit. It's not just about what you preach, but how you preach, that instructs your people. And our people, I have been surprised to learn, can tell a lot about our idols from the way we preach.
    
    Big words score points in Scrabble, but not in sermons. Keep your diction clear, efficient, and appropriate. It is hard enough getting people to bring their Bibles to worship, don't make them bring a dictionary too. Also, avoid overusing pretentious references. If you mention that time you went to the opera, don't immediately follow with a statement of how you prefer vinyl to digital. If you use a movie illustration, resist the urge to say, "the book version was better," especially if you haven't actually read the book. Don't reference obscure writers, indie films, bands, etc.; reference things with which your people are readily familiar. Use everyday life examples. That's what Jesus did.
    
    And lastly, while we're on the subject of illustrations to avoid, let's agree to a moratorium on all Tolkien references for at least the next 10 years ….

As we grow in our ability to craft our sermons with clarity and elegance, we'll find that good content delivery—like a well made film on the big-screen—carries a power that sloppy content-dumping never could. And when that happens, the preacher and the congregation rejoice together.

Tommy Hinson is the Senior Pastor at the Church of the Advent Anglican Church in Washington D.C.