Every aspect of a sermon is of great interest to me: proposition, structure, language, tone, illustration, delivery, even sermon length. Wesley confessed that he preached for three hours on at least one occasion. Jonathan Edwards preached more than a handful of two hour sermons. Calvin, it would seem, preferred to wrap things up around the one hour mark. Many historians, taking into account very long Puritan sermons, believe long sermons really didn’t begin until the Reformation. Apart from Paul’s sermon that put Eutychus to sleep in Acts 20, it would seem not even the great 4th century Evangelical preacher, John Chrysostom, preached more than 30 minutes.
The issue of sermon length has been contentious. In 1907, Scotsman P. T. Forsyth wrote, “a Christianity of short sermons is a Christianity of short fibre (Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind).” Robert G. Lee, the much-loved pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis from 1927 to 1960, was known to quote the great G. C. Morgan of Westminster Chapel, London: “sermonettes are preached by preacherettes and they produce Christianettes (An Introduction to Contemporary Preaching).” Along these same lines, Andrew Blackwood of Princeton wrote in 1948 that people object to long sermons “not because of length, but because of boredom. They protest against monotony and dullness (The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 227).” These men are defending long sermons by noticing what 20th century English novelist Charles Morgan noticed when he complains not that that sermons were too long, but “too scanty...they do not strike deep enough (Reflections in a Mirror).”
The long-ish preachers in the modern era hover around 40 to 45 minutes. This is true for Chalmers, Spurgeon, Finney, G. C. Morgan, Lloyd-Jones, John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, John Piper, and Mark Dever. However, while some have argued for longer sermons, others, like preaching professor Ilion T. Jones (writing in 1956), believed that long sermons are listened to “inattentively and often impatiently (Principles and Practice of Preaching). In the 1972 preaching textbook of J. Daniel Baumann, he recommends preachers stop the sermon before they lose the attention of the congregation, which he reckoned to be around 20 minutes (An Introduction to Contemporary Preaching). In perhaps the most-used preaching textbook among American Evangelicals since 1980, Haddon Robinson wrote nothing at all about sermon length, only that you should fill the time church leadership allows (Biblical Preaching). I think he was avoiding the fray.
I think John Stott hits the target. In 1982, he wrote that every sermon should “seem like 20 minutes,” admitting that 10 minutes is too short, while 40 minutes is too long (Between Two Worlds). More recently, Bryan Chapell (Christ-Centered Preaching) and Julius J. Kim (Preaching the Whole Counsel of God) agree with Stott. They commend sermons of around 30 minutes. Most of my favorite preachers (apart from Dever and Begg) follow suite. Tim Keller, Ligon Duncan, Kent Hughes, Sinclair Ferguson, Derek Thomas, Liam Goligher, Michael Horton, Phil Ryken, and William Taylor all preach for around 30 minutes.
Our objective at CPC is to weigh all of the elements of a given worship service so that our service ends no later than 10:50 a.m. This means taking into account not just the length of the sermon, but also the length of hymns, multiple prayers by multiple people, choir music, Scripture readings, and announcements. Sermon length is a large component of this, to be sure. Please keep encouraging us in our work, and encouraging me as I settle into the CPC pulpit. As we draft services several weeks in advance, including specific Scripture texts that guide the theme of a service, we’re making improvements. The edification and fellowship that results from our Sunday school program is a critical element of the vision of CPC. This is true especially in a time when so many churches have discontinued Sunday school. So, the length of the worship service is important, sermon length matters, and we thank you for being patient.
