How Long Should A Sermon Last

i suppose as with any kind of public speaking it depends on the audience and their expectations, the subject and how you feel about it. people can actively concentrate on one thing for only quite a short period of time (20 minutes) so i would generally recommend either keeping them fairly short or changing the pace/subject at some point.

An hour seems too long to sit and listen to a sermon. If a sermon lasts any longer than 40 minutes, I find my mind wandering. It's easy to lose interest in listening for that period of time unless it is truly thought proviking and inspiring. Most sermions are lacking there.

I like an hour long service with a sermon of about 30 minutes. It is concise but long enough to get something across. When you think about it, you can say a lot in 30 minutes especially if you are succinct.

Who enjoys being preached at? Who (with the nerve of a canal horse) is bold enough to speak for God? Why do we need a canal horse to point the way to God? Why are we deemed blind, and stupid, by those who appoint themselves to speak for God? Perhaps this self chosen speaker for God is basking in his own Power, and Glory!

I guess it all depends on what you want to say and how much detail you want to get over.I dont think there is a set time for sermons.However I remember having to sit through many lengthy sermons and and I dont think that I grasped half of what I was supposed to get ,consequently I think that a good sermon shouldnt last for longer than 45 mins to a hour.That is not too short for the some issues to be overlooked and not too much to cause fatique and defeat the purpose of the surmon.You see research shows that the human attention span is about 45 mins

10 minutes! and it sould be an interesting subject becouse people need someting diferent ,not that old storys from the boble we all know so well.

For me it is the quality of the sermon that matters the most over the time. I understand time being important though. I think maybe 20-30 minutes might work well.

I think just like a paper, book, article, or speech a sermon will last as long as it has to. This of course depends on the preecher's ability to convey his point and what his point is in the first place. It might take him 10 mins it might take him a few hours,

Let me say first, I have never done this. I have always been on the receiving end. I think the ideal sermon should last as long as the majority of the listener's attention is maintained. To many times the person giving the sermon is so intent upon delivering it, that forgotten is the fact, that when the listeners start to tune out the sermon might just as well be delivered to a mirror. If I were to write one I would allow myself many places to just stop. Many times less is more. Good Luck to you and Blessings.

It depends upon what the sermon is about. Some sermons I feel are too long if I do not feel connected to the message. Some sermons I feel are not long enough since the topics and the message seem to be just for me. Most times I think 20-30 minutes is about average. Thanks for asking.Off to church now :)

Hi PastorP. Happy holidays!!! I used to work for a catholic church for 7 years. The feedback that we got with regard to the length of the sermon is that they find it boring if it is quite long. What we do is to relay that message to the priests so that they could shorten their homily to 20 minutes, the longest. We informed them that most mass goers find it boring if they try to stretch the sermon to more than 30 minutes. Good thing was that it was well taken by the priests.

Hi Pastor p: well, for me the time depends on the main subject of the sermon. Sometimes you can tell beautiful things inspired for God with simple words and as you have mentioned, in those cases a 10 minutes sermon would be enough in other cases words are not enough to express a religious feeling and then you could talk for hours and the sermon would never end, there would be always a reason to keep talking about this. Maybe in your preparation I think you can read the whole sermon trying to captivate the feeling of the words you want to express to your parishioners and then you'll have the answer for this sermon. Basically that depends of the subject. Thanks for asking us this question I know it's very important for your comunity. Hope you are having a nice day. Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays. Take Care. -Alvaro.

Being a former church go-er myself, I think that the sermon should last no longer than an hour. Most of the time when I'm up here in New Jersey visiting my mom, I'm re-introduced to a faster paced atmosphere. Usually people in church start to sleep or something if the service lasts too long. Most of the time, they're too busy and have something important to do immediately or soon after church is over.

Personally, i dont believe that a sermon has a time limit. The most important thing that we should consider is the weight of the Holy Spirit as He will tell what things you should say. It is because of the Spirit that is why you preach and it should be the Spirit who will tell you when to preach and until when will you preach. Preaching should be influenced by the Spirit and should be lead by Him. So no matter how long or short is your sermon, as long as the Spirit will be able to deliver what He wants, then that would be the best time you deliver your sermon.

Hello Pastor. I don't think that some people can handle even an hour from some preachers. Us however can listen to our pastor all day long and never get bored or want to stop listening to him. He teaches the bible chapter by chapter verse by verse. And when he is on we are listening when we aren't working. We have been listening to this preacher for over 5 years. I don't think the bible is boring I think it is exciting to learn what God really had intended for us to learn. We have turned this preacher on and listened to him all day. http://www.shepherdschapel.com/index.cfm This is the teacher we listen too. He teaches the bible the way that we think is the right way. He tells us straight up front that he isn't here to please anyone but God and to teach Gods word the way God wanted it taught. He is an ex marine and no holes bared when he gets done teaching he takes letters and he tells it like he sees it and if people don't want to hear the truth then they shouldn't listen to this man teach. He tells you to read your bible along with him to not take anyones word to follow through with your own bibles. And he always tells us that judgment starts at the pulpit and he will only teach the way God intended the word to be taught.

Hello Pastor, Most of the time in public speaking of any kind its not the length of the message that is important, Its the content of the message, and the delivery of it that matters. As a minister I'm sure you are a master public speaker, so as long as your message is meaningful, and you have the attention of your congregation then it can go as long as it needs to. As for your best response: You should speak to your congregation as long as God wants you to. If your message is coming from him, than he'll let you know when to stop.

It depends on the service...during sunday worship we only have 2 hours to finish the whole program. So, preachers are requested to finish their sermon on a maximum of one hour. Maybe a preacher's sermon must tag along to the allotted time given to him. God is a God of order, however, if the Spirit of God is so strong and leads the preacher to continue no one can resist that, for we know that God is doing something, and He has a purpose.