You know what’s a bad feeling?
When you’re preparing to preach on Gideon this Sunday and you ask your creative team: “Ya’ll remember when I preached on Gideon last summer?” and they all shrug, stare at their feet, and say “Uhm… not really… “ and you try to remind them about your alliterated outline and the really cool illustration and they look at you like: “Sorry Pastor… are you sure you’ve preached from the Old Testament before?” and you think about firing them all because they didn’t pay attention to your sermon and they don’t love Jesus but then you have a sudden burst of insight:

People just don’t remember like we (preachers) think we do.

Most preachers probably assume, like me, that we need to have the freshest, latest, most cutting edge angle this week to top the one from last week. That once we’ve introduced a concept in a sermon, we can’t revisit it again, because people have already heard it. And they put your outline on their fridge with a magnet and recited every night before bedtime.

But they probably didn’t, and they probably need to hear it again.

Sure, be creative, mix it up, keep it fresh. Don’t get lazy in your sermon prep. But there’s no need to spend three hours laboring, sweating, and agonizing to think of a word that starts with P and has 3 syllables to complete sub point #4 of principle #2 underneath main idea #6 in your outline.

Because the people just won’t remember. You’ll be impressed with your creativity. And you mean well. But nobody will care on Monday. Sorry. They just won’t.

Loosen up. Let it fly. Don’t’ squeeze all the life out of your message by trying to make an acrostic for H.E.A.R.I.N.G. G.O.D. They won’t remember. Just tell them candidly about how to hear from God, from the Scriptures and from your experience. They’ll remember the story about how you thought you heard from God that time when you bought that car but you were wrong and it was stupid better than they’ll remember your attempt at a little Ed Young rhyme.

And repeat the most important stuff (vision/salvation/love your neighbor) as often as possible.
Maybe by the 100th time you’ve preached it, people will hear it for the first time.