Best Titles for Sermons
Calvin Miller and Rick Warren on how to select a great name for
a great message.
January 1, 1998
Naming the Baby
The right sermon title makes all the difference.
by Calvin Miller I have some friends who waited five days after
the birth of their third child to name her. She lay in her bassinet at the
hospital with a Baby Smith bracelet, waiting for her parents to achieve some
great "aha" moment. We friends, sympathizing with the poor baby, badgered
them to name the waif. A grand sigh of relief went up on the fifth day when
the name was at last announced. The child seemed suddenly a real person with
real identity. In times past, I have fallen in love with next Sunday's sermon as early as
Monday. My enthusiasm for the coming homily was rampant. I sensed the Spirit
moving all through my study. My preparation seemed imaginative and Spirit-driven. But on Friday, by the time the bulletin went to press, Monday's infernal
brainchild still did not have a name. Secretaries and office associates gathered
around and badgered me to name the little pulpit waif, but alas, no name
seemed worthy. Finally, out of time and in terminal desperation, I would
rip off the "Baby Miller" sermon title and call it something mundane just
as the laser printer was chomping at its chips. But I was never as proud
of my panic-driven title as I wanted to be. We name babies and sermons to give them identity and significance. Unnamed
anythings are harder to love and harder to file (this is truer of sermons
than babies). Furthermore, it is almost impossible ever to be proud of anything
unnamed. In short, all significance waits on a name, and, as a famous umpire
once said, "It ain't nothin' till I call it." From text to title
Ah, but how to title the sermon well? Some titles are derived from the sermon's dominant illustration. ...
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