Preacher's Block

This preaching tip was shared by Preacher’s Block co-founder, Hunter Bethea. If you’re interested in joining the most focused preachers in the world and getting these tips sent to your inbox every week, sign up here.

Last week, I referred to a podcast from Rev. Anne Kennedy, where she said that every sermon must have six considerations: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the congregation, the preacher him/herself, and the Scripture text.

Today, we’re focusing on the first three considerations: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit:

Are your sermons Trinitarian? That might be a silly question: Of course they’re Trinitarian. All of my sermons are Christian and Christianity is a Trinitarian faith.

But take a step back. Are they really Trinitarian? Do you speak about each person of the Trinity in each sermon or do you generically just talk about God?

Recent studies have shown that American Christians have an abysmal understanding of the Trinity. Maybe some of that is because we as preachers don’t do a good job of talking about the Trinity.

In his remarkable book Ministry in the Image of God, Steve Seamands says, “The ministry we have entered is the ministry of Jesus Christ, the Son, to the Father, through the Holy Spirit, for the sake of the church and the world.”

Each person of the Trinity has a specific role to play in our ministry and in the ministries of those hearing our sermons. We have a role, as preachers, to help them know and understand the roles of each person of the Trinity.

Here’s are two ways to help you identify how Trinitarian your sermons are:

Using AI

Upload your two most recent sermon manuscripts (or your upcoming manuscript) to your preferred generative AI chatbot (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.).

Paste the following prompt:

Look back at these two sermons and assess how Trinitarian they are. Answer the following questions:
1. Which person of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son/Jesus, God the Holy Spirit) do I focus on most? Which person of the Trinity do I focus on least?
2. Count the references of each person of the Trinity and let me know the breakdown.
3. Compare how often I refer to God generically and how often I refer to a specific person of the Trinity.

(I pasted mine in ChatGPT and selected the “Think” setting to allow it more time to analyze my sermons)

ChatGPT helped me see that I have a decent balance of talking about the Trinity as one God in three persons, but that I focus primarily on talking about Jesus and not the Father (I’ll share specific numbers in our Facebook group on Wednesday, so make sure you’ve joined the group!).

Manually

Print out your two most recent sermon manuscripts (or your upcoming manuscript) and grab four highlighters or pens of different colors.

Highlight/underline each reference to God in your sermon: one color for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Spirit, and one for all three persons of the Trinity.

How might this exercise challenge you to be more Trinitarian in your sermons?