While I believe that people frequently confuse style with substance…substance matters.  The words of our sermons and announcements make a difference.

The Preaching Today blog has a good piece about preaching like Hemingway.  Here is the point I hope we all get.  (With myself being the chief offender of poor wording.)

What Hemingway modeled is the ability to paint vivid pictures
through strong words and striking analogies. He once remarked: “Prose
is architecture, not interior decoration.” Hemingway never pursued
elegance or cleverness. He captured the imaginations of readers even
though his prose was lean simple. It boiled down to words and analogies.

Hemingway was a genius at enlisting concrete terms rather than
depending on adverbs and adjectives to prop up bland words. For
example, he used “climbed” instead of “went up,” and he described blood
as “dripping” and “pattering.” Hemingway also created simple but
pointed analogies. For example, he writes: “The drops fell very slowly
as they fall from an icicle after the sun has gone.” That analogy is
short yet thought-provoking. Yes, I noticed that Hemingway used a
couple of adverbs in his sentence! But read a few paragraphs of his,
and you’ll be struck by how few modifiers he used. He simply used words
and analogies to press his point.

What words do you use?  Do you carefully craft a key sentence or two throughout your sermon?

You can read the rest of the article about preaching like Hemingway here.