How It's Scored

The Sermon Coach Expositional Framework™

What every faithful sermon has to get right.

Here's what we evaluate: eleven criteria across four areas. Each one is rooted in the wisdom of a teacher or model who has shaped how the church preaches. Tap any criterion to see the principle behind it. The sample evaluation shows all eleven applied to one sermon.

Category 1
Text & Theology
Does the sermon say what the text actually says?
Honoring the passage's genre, context, and grammar rather than using the verse as a launchpad for the preacher's own agenda. The Simeon Trust workshop calls this letting the text drive the sermon. Their melodic line, the theme that holds an entire book together, is named here as context and coaching. It is not scored.
Does it land in the gospel or stop at good advice?
Whether the sermon arrives at the person and work of Christ or settles for moralism and better-living principles. Bryan Chapell calls this the redemptive arc: every text finally points to Christ.
Would a non-Christian in the room know what the good news is?
Whether the good news is unmistakable, not just what listeners should do better but why the news is good. This follows Mike Bullmore's test of the functional centrality of the gospel, given full form in The Heart of Preaching, a 9Marks title: the gospel should be clear enough that a non-Christian in the room hears it.
Category 2
Structure & Craft
Does the sermon name the human pain, sin, or suffering the text speaks to?
Bryan Chapell's Fallen Condition Focus, from Christ-Centered Preaching: every text speaks to some aspect of our fallenness. The sermon should name it in one present-tense sentence and stay anchored to it throughout.
Is there one main thing, and will anyone remember it by midweek?
Haddon Robinson's big idea: one sentence saying what the sermon is about and what it is saying about it, yielded by this passage, with every part serving it. Distinct from the melodic line, which belongs to the book and is named as context rather than scored.
Does it preach the hard parts or skip past them?
Whether the sermon wrestles with the genuinely difficult verses instead of defusing them too fast. This keeps company with the Simeon Trust and 9Marks: a faithful sermon lets the hard thing be hard, then preaches through it rather than around it.
Category 3
Application & Audience
Does this reach the real people in the room, or stay a lecture about the text?
Whether the sermon crosses the bridge into the listener's actual life. Keller's three-audiences lens asks whether believers, doubters, and seekers are all addressed, and whether the sermon names the cultural story the text confronts.
Does the sermon shape a clear emotional arc?
Whether lament, joy, warning, comfort, and awe are woven into the structure and rhythm of the text rather than flattened into one register. John Piper's Expository Exultation: the emotional movement of a sermon is built into the text before it is preached.
Does it aim at specific kinds of people and real situations?
Whether the application is specific. "We all struggle with idolatry" is wallpaper; "if you're the dad checking work email at the dinner table, this text is speaking to you" is pastoral specificity. Keller's lens, aimed at particular people in particular situations. It also owes a debt to Chapell: application worth the name flows from grace, not from try harder.
Category 4
Ecclesial & Spiritual
Does this build up the church as the people of God under the Word?
Whether the sermon strengthens the congregation's understanding of itself. In the 9Marks framework, expositional preaching is the first mark of a healthy church: preaching builds up a body, not just individuals in rows.
Has the preacher been moved to worship by what he's preaching?
Whether there's evidence of worshipful affection rather than information transfer. Piper's other half, expository exultation: a sermon that explains without exulting is a lecture; one that exults without explaining is a pep talk.
Why You Can Trust The Framework

Drawn from the traditions that have shaped you.

Every criterion traces back to a named principle in one of six sources. When the tool tells you your Fallen Condition Focus is drifting, it's holding you to the standard Chapell laid out in Christ-Centered Preaching.

These convictions are mine. I hold them, I preach by them, and I have trained preachers in them over the course of my ministry. I built eleven criteria to measure, weighted three of them double, sorted them into four categories, and scored the whole on a scale of 1 to 10. That is The Sermon Coach Expositional Framework. The principles underneath belong to the preachers and institutions named on this page.

Bryan Chapell
Christ-Centered Preaching
Fallen Condition Focus · the redemptive arc · the principle of unity in sermon structure
The Simeon Trust
The workshop method
Textual fidelity · melodic line, the theme that unites an entire book, named as context in this read rather than scored · theme, aim, and application · structure that flows from the text. David Helm, Expositional Preaching (Crossway, 2014). Helm chairs the Simeon Trust.
John Piper
Expository Exultation
Gospel clarity · preaching as worship · affections shaped by the cross
9Marks
Expositional preaching
Ecclesial faithfulness · preaching that builds the church's understanding of itself under the Word. Mike Bullmore, The Heart of Preaching (Crossway, 2026), a 9Marks title.
Tim Keller
Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism
Three-audiences framework · pastoral specificity · naming the cultural counter-narrative
Haddon Robinson
Biblical Preaching
The big idea, passage-level and distinct from Simeon Trust's book-level melodic line · structural unity · expository development

What the scores mean

Each of the eleven criteria is scored 1 to 5.

5 – Excellent. Nothing this criterion asks for is missing, and another preacher could learn from how it was done.

4 – Competent and strong. One improvement is available, and it is a matter of execution rather than something absent.

3 – Present and genuinely done, but underdeveloped, general, or asserted rather than shown.

2 – Present in name only, or working against itself.

1 – Absent, or wrong.

A 3 is not a failing mark. Most faithful weekly preaching lands at 3 on several criteria, and a sermon built of 3s and 4s is doing the work. A 4 asks for something beyond competence, and a 5 is worth studying, not flawless.

Three criteria carry double weight: the fallen condition, gospel clarity, and application. Those scores resolve into a single number out of 10, which maps to a band label:

Exemplary · Strong · Faithful · Needs Improvement · Significant Concerns

Most faithful preaching lands in the Faithful or Strong band. "Faithful" isn't a subpar sermon. It's one that is sufficient to build the church. The point isn't a perfect score; it's making your next sermon better than the last.

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The Sermon Coach is an independent tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Bryan Chapell, Tim Keller, John Piper, Haddon Robinson, the Simeon Trust, 9Marks, or any author, ministry, or organization whose published work informs its rubric. All names and works are referenced for identification and attribution only. None of these individuals or organizations, nor any author or teacher associated with them, has endorsed or is affiliated with The Sermon Coach.