If you type “money saving tips” into Pinterest you’ll find lots of guru offerings that can be quite inspiring. One person simply set aside every five-dollar bill that they ran across and by the end of the year had over $3000 extra. Others offer charts showing the compounding effect of diligently saving even $10 a day over the course of one, five, or twenty years. Small choices that lead to profitable results.

Here's a doubly inspiring example of the same principle. What if, instead of buying that caramel macchiato, you got a simple black coffee instead? This small choice over time would not only show as an uptick in your bank account but also as a welcome reduction in your waistline. As one who tries to live by a LCHF (low carb, high fat) diet, I’m very aware that the small choice of saying no to the dark chocolate Milano cookies on the counter and yes to the salted pistachios makes all the difference in my energy level and belly. Small choices that lead to healthy results.

One more specimen: During the 2013-2014 season, the Kansas City Royals utilized what is called a “small ball” strategy. They showed that a team could be successful in a way that was counter-cultural to typical MLB tactics. Instead of a beefy budget and home run sluggers, they employed a technique of small, methodical steps—base hits, bunts, stolen bases, sacrifice flies—to get runners on base and around to home plate. Small choices that lead to successful results.

These examples and countless more fall into the “consider the ant” (Prov. 6:6-8) category of wisdom—small and diligent steps over time that lead to a desired outcome. Growing in one’s abilities, making progress in things that matter, living faithfully—all of this looks like small steps done intentionally over time. Starting small and keeping going.

And so too in preaching.

Over the last twenty-five years I have had the opportunity to be both a full-time pastor and a full-time professor. I love both roles. So now that I’m in a season of life where I am able to do both simultaneously, it feels like a sweet spot.

While there are many differences between pastoring and professoring, there are also a lot of things that are the same. When it comes to the crucial moment of speaking to an audience—the sermon and the lecture—there is a deep overlap, especially when we think about getting better. Both preaching and teaching need the careful attention of small intentional steps worked out over time. It is unrealistic to radically overhaul one’s entire teaching or preaching style. But we can all make progress, growth, and improvement by starting small and keeping going.

Manuscripting

For example, what if we adopted a different way of thinking about some aspects of our sermon preparation? Let’s take the issue of manuscripting your message. In the world of professional homiletics we can find champions in one corner who insist on manuscript preaching while others come out swinging about the necessity of getting free from a manuscript. That’s okay.

Regardless of whom you’re rooting for in this fight, might I suggest we can all improve by learning to write out a manuscript of what we’re going to say beforehand? Delivery method is not the same thing as preparation. And making the small (and difficult) choice of writing out our ideas in long form brings a clarity and precision and beauty to what we end up saying—regardless of what we do in the pulpit.

First 60 Seconds

Or let’s ponder what we do in the first minute of our sermons. Have you thought about how much of our sermon is affected by the small choices we make during those first 60 seconds on stage?

If a preacher starts with self-deferential remarks, an announcement about something unrelated to the message, or fiddling with the mic or podium, all of this is wasting and distracting from that crucial initial moment of the sermon. On the other hand, when a preacher smiles and starts right in with an engaging, well-crafted intro, that first minute of the sermon launches the homiletical moment into a higher orbit.

The first minute of our presence in the pulpit may seem insignificant. It is easy to not think much about it. But our intentionality of making small adjustments to what we do in the first minute of our sermon will pay big dividends for us and our hearers.

Start Small

We could also consider the small steps of paying attention to the last minute of our sermon, how to handle preaching through the church calendar, learning how to process both praise and criticism, and starting a group of fellow pastors who all preach the same series at their respective churches. Small choices that lead to improved results.

I’ve played a lot of golf over the last year and I’ve seen real improvements in my game. But it’s not been easy or quick, and not through some miracle training device, weekend seminar, or singular pro-tip. It’s been playing repeatedly and regularly, seeing failures and bad days as opportunities for growth, and concentrating on small improvements in my grip, feet placement, and backswing, with the long-term goal in mind.

Whether you are a pastor, professor, or professional golfer (I assume most of you are in the first group), I would like to invite you to start small and keep going. The opportunity to stand before other people and proclaim life-changing and God-given words is a weighty calling. It requires an intentional and thoughtful plan to be ever improving and refining your gifts and skills.

This can feel overwhelming. That’s normal and that’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day and good preaching does not happen overnight. But growth and improvement can be gained through starting small and keeping going.

Editor’s Note: For more ideas on small steps to grow as a preacher, see Jonathan Pennington’s Small Preaching: 25 Little Things You Can Do Now to Make You a Better Preacher (Lexham Press, 2021).

Jonathan T. Pennington is an associate professor of New Testament interpretation and director of research doctoral studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a preaching pastor at Sojourn East Church in Louisville, Kentucky.