When I first started preaching I was given a series of videos by the Australian evangelist John Chapman (now in glory) on how to prepare a sermon. Anyone who has heard Chappo will know that he was a great communicator of the gospel and that a central strength of his preaching was his tremendous clarity and simplicity. To the casual observer, this clarity and simplicity appeared simply as a natural gift of Chappo’s. He certainly was gifted, but he had also thought carefully about the nature of effective preaching. This is where his 20% comes in.

In the course of his instruction on the video, Chappo took a fairly randomly selected passage from Romans (some verses from chapter 3, I think) and asked the group of trainees in the video a series of questions….

(I’m working from memory here, but I think this is about right)

‘If I were giving a lecture on these verses at a theological college, what percentage of the content would I cover?’ Chappo’s answer: ‘90%, or more.’

‘If I were leading a home group Bible study on these verses, what percentage of the content would I aim to cover?’ Answer: ‘Maybe 70%, or so.’

‘If I were preaching on these verses, what percentage of the content would I cover?’ Chappo’s answer: ‘20%.’  

This final figure might prompt some sharp intakes of breath among trainee preachers, but I think Chappo was on to something. His point is not that a preacher should randomly select his favourite 1/5^th of the content of a passage – perhaps his favourite verse – and share a “blessed thought” on that portion or verse; but rather, I think, that a preacher should identify what is central and at the very core of the passage and draw that out with simplicity, clarity and power. Trying to go down every alleyway and explore every nook and cranny of a passage (especially a longer passage) leads to dull, commentary-like sermons. But getting to the heart of the passage and communicating that effectively to the hearts and minds of our hearers – that’s the stuff of good preaching.