There are two "one things" that I believe are vital to any effective preaching.

The first "one thing" is exactly that: the message needs to center on one thing. One truth. One point. One purpose. The journey to get to that one thing can be full of whimsy or full of pain or full of both, but it needs to arrive at a single destination.

At the recent U Da Man Men's Retreat, a couple of guys started repeating to me the "one point" from a slew of messages over the last fifteen months.

Either those guys listen way too closely or . . . if the preacher can craft a memorable, truthful sentence that serves as the refrain of a sermon, it will stick with people.

In any event, I know my preaching got better when I started saying less.

The second one thing is this: there should be "one thing" each Sunday that the preacher simply cannot wait to say. The kind of thing that makes him or her slightly on edge. An "I can't believe I'm going to say this!" moment.

This "one thing" can either be the point of the day, part of the journey getting there, or part of the application once you've arrived.

It might be something potentially polarizing. (Those are always fun.)

Or it might be something that you know will capture the sentiment in the room and articulate the longings or memories people possess but haven't yet verbalized.

It will almost always involve an element of surprise.

I believe I have a couple of those moments coming this weekend. I pray I can communicate the conviction I already feel about them.

One thing and one thing.

I am always on the lookout for "hooks" on which I can then hang sermons or series.

And the hooks are everywhere: billboards, television, radio, colloquial sayings, the internet, and popular music. In other words, the hooks are in the language of our culture.

Because that's the language people speak, isn't it? Regardless of people's level of church involvement.

For example, when I say Tiger Woods, something entirely different comes to your mind today than did just seven days ago. Because he's in the news. It's the language of our culture.

So in preaching and worship design, we want to leverage that common language.

But not for its own sake.

We want to leverage cultural language to teach counter-cultural truths. Biblical truths.

I'll show you what I mean. In January of 2010, we're going to do a series called There's An App For That. The phrase is everywhere, and if you have an iPhone, you know there really is an application for almost every conceivable life situation.

Except for those life situations that really matter. Things like integrity, faithfulness, serenity, and wisdom. Apps for those are nowhere in cyberspace.

They are instead in the timeless book of Proverbs, which marks a cornerstone in the Hebrew Scriptures. So we'll have a series from Proverbs delivered in packaging 21st Century people can understand.

Leveraging cultural language -- there's an app for that -- to teach counter-cultural truths -- the wisdom of Proverbs.

That's where sermons come from.

I probably spend 20-25 hours a week preparing messages. And 8-10 in pastoral counseling and visitation.

Sometimes I wish I could counsel less so I could prepare more; other times I wish I could prepare less so I could visit more.

But as I have thought about that dynamic in recent weeks, I have come to realize that the two activities are in fact inseparable. Pastoral counseling shows me the kinds of issues with which people in the church and community struggle. That in turn shapes the content and direction of my preaching.

And Sunday sermons often stir up issues in people's hearts and lives that move them to make an appointment with me for . . . you guessed it, pastoral counseling. So preaching and counseling, far from being competitors for my time, are instead two sides of the same ministry coin.

Because in the biggest picture, preaching is counseling -- offering a word of hope in the middle of life's chaos.

And counseling is preaching -- shining the light of truth into the dark places of the soul.

Tomorrow . . . some sources for preaching.

I was speaking with a good friend recently about the difference between exhortational preaching and evocative preaching.

Exhortational preaching challenges. Urges. Implores. It is filled with phrases like "you should" and "we ought" and "do this" and "consider that." It implores people to change beliefs and behaviors based on the propositions included in the sermon.

Evocative preaching is different. It seeks to evoke a response in the hearer; to craft the kind of experience that moves the emotions before it speaks to the mind. Fewer imperatives. More rhetorical questions. It's heavy on images, often leaves the "punch line" to the end, and sometimes leaves the implications of the message in the hands of the listener. The experience of the message will empower people to change beliefs and behaviors.

I believe evocative preaching communicates well with 21st Century people -- people who are often skeptical of authority and yet accustomed to receiving their information from screen-based images. I attempt to be more evocative than exhortational in my messages -- though I'm not sure how often I reach the goal.

When done well, evocative preaching can even open the way for exhortational preaching: as the proclaimer and engages emotions, he or she then has the trust, space, and freedom to issue challenges. Even blunt ones.

Tomorrow I'll look at the connection between preaching and counseling . . .

In doing the early study for a Sunday message, I often encounter eureka moments.

It could be something I read in a commentary. It could be something I scrawl on my notepad as I'm brainstorming around the passage or the subject. Or it could even be something that crosses my mind as I'm mowing the lawn with an unfinished sermon sitting on my dining room table.

But then it comes: "That's it! I've got it! That's the one thing I want to say and how I want to say it!"

The sensation is palpable. I can feel the adrenaline flow and the excitement build. From that moment on, the rest of the preparation is (relatively) easy.

Just last week, I was working on a message that I'll deliver in November. And in my research, I realized that a message that started out being about money ended up being about God. And of all people, John Piper -- that notorious but brilliant Calvinist -- inspired the insight.

So what happens if in the course of preparing a message no eureka moment comes?

Just yell louder hoping that an increase in volume will compensate for a lack of clarity? Ask someone else on the staff to preach that day? Give up? None of the above.

Because those are the times I have to trust that God will take my feeble offering of words and create his own eureka moments in the ears of those who hear.