AproposPreaching gives you a detailed, honest evaluation of your sermon across 10 categories — so you know exactly what's landing, what's missing, and how to get better every week.
Pastors are the only professionals who perform in front of an audience every week with almost no structured feedback. Doctors get peer reviews. Coaches watch film. Teachers get evaluations. Preachers get handshakes.
That's not a knock on your congregation. They love you. They're supposed to encourage you. It's not their job to tell you your application section ran long, your transitions were unclear, or your thesis got buried in the introduction.
That's what AproposPreaching is for.
Peer reviews, case conferences, continuing medical education — structured feedback is built into the profession.
Film sessions, stat reviews, assistant coaches watching every play. Nobody coaches without a feedback loop.
Classroom evaluations, administrative walkthroughs, student assessments every semester.
A handshake at the door. "Great message, Pastor." And back to the study to do it again next week — alone.
Submit your manuscript or outline into the grader. A full manuscript gives you the most specific coaching, but a detailed outline works too.
→Get a detailed evaluation across 10 preaching categories — structure, theological clarity, application, illustration, delivery guidance, and more.
→Step into Sunday knowing exactly what to strengthen for next week — and with the confidence that you've done the work a good shepherd does.
Ten grading categories. Each one receives a score and specific, actionable coaching notes — written to challenge you, not flatter you.
Is the architecture holding up from the pew?
Is the doctrine sound and the gospel clear?
Can a listener state your main idea back to you?
Are your stories making truth visible and felt?
Do people leave knowing what to actually do?
Did you earn the room's attention in the first 90 seconds?
Does it land with weight, or drift to a soft stop?
Can real people — not seminary students — track this?
Is the text driving the sermon, or decorating it?
A letter grade, a score, and a straight-talk summary.
A real sermon. A real grade. Every category. No mystery.
10-Category Evaluation
This is a genuinely strong Easter sermon doing something most Easter sermons refuse to do: it challenges the dominant cultural theology of the room before offering the gospel as the better alternative. The theological argument is airtight, the prose is polished, and the conclusion lands with real weight. The one thing keeping this from a clean A is a structural issue in the application section where the momentum stalls slightly before recovering, and a single transitional phrase that undercuts the manuscript's otherwise consistent voice. Preached well, this sermon will be remembered. The congregation will walk away with a clear, compelling idea they have probably never heard framed this way — and that is exactly what Easter Sunday needs.
The central premise is both theologically accurate and culturally disruptive. Most Easter sermons lean into the comeback narrative. You turned it inside out. That is a strong move.
The introduction earns its length. The Netflix-genre, comeback-story opening does real work. The "Fair warning: it involves a death. Specifically, yours." line is one of the best single-sermon pivots in the manuscript.
The Greek word work lands without being academic. You name the terms, explain them in plain language, and move on. You never let the Greek slow the room down.
The two-prayer comparison is one of the sermon's best practical moments. "God, give me strength to stop" versus "God, I am a new person in Christ, help me live from that reality" is concrete, memorable, and theologically precise.
The application opening re-explains what the congregation just heard. By the time you reach "He does not say try harder, he says you died," the congregation has already been told this twice. Trim or replace with a direct pivot forward.
"Now watch this and really go deep here" is the one voice inconsistency in the manuscript. The rest of the manuscript never uses performative preacher-language. It trusts the content. This line telegraphs instead of delivering.
The Key Truth appears four times, which dilutes its impact. The first placement after analysis and the final placement in the conclusion are both earned. The two middle placements work against you.
Cut "Now watch this and really go deep here" entirely. The two-prayer comparison does not need to be announced. It announces itself.
Add one sentence in the baptism section connecting theology to personal memory. Consider: "If you were baptized, you were not participating in a ceremony. You were participating in a death and a resurrection, and you may not have fully known it at the time."
Add one pastoral sentence for the longtime believer. "Some of you have known this passage for decades and are only now feeling the full weight of it. That is not a failure of attention. That is the Spirit doing exactly what the Spirit does."
Final Coaching Note
Dennis, this sermon is doing something genuinely difficult: preaching Easter to a room full of people who already think they know what Easter is, and convincing them that what they know is smaller than what actually happened. The theological argument is tight, the voice is consistent, the application is honest without being harsh, and the conclusion has real pastoral courage in it. The work before Sunday is surgical, not structural. Cut the one performative line, trim the application's opening paragraph, reconsider the Key Truth rhythm and placement, and trust the congregation with the baptism section by giving them one sentence that connects the theology to their own experience. This message is ready. Go preach it.
Your first submission is free. No credit card required.
Grade My First Sermon Free
Dr. Dennis E. Long
Pastor · Coach · Founder
AproposPreaching
"I have sat where you sit. I know what it costs to preach week after week with no one qualified to tell you the truth about your sermons."
Preaching feedback is one of the most valuable and least available resources in pastoral ministry. Seminaries train you to preach and then release you to figure it out alone. The average pastor delivers 40 to 50 sermons a year with no structured evaluation, no coaching loop, and no honest voice in the room. That is not a personal failure. It is a systemic gap.
AproposPreaching was built to close that gap. After three decades in ministry across rural, suburban, and urban churches, bi-vocational and full-time roles, solo staff and large teams, and coaching and mentoring pastors at every stage, Dr. Long designed a grading framework that reflects what actually matters in the pulpit. Not academic homiletics for its own sake. Real evaluation built on real ministry experience.
Theological Framework
The grader is trained on evangelical, Christ-centered preaching principles rooted in biblical exposition. It evaluates theological accuracy, gospel centrality, and pastoral integrity alongside craft and structure. This is not a generic writing tool. It was built specifically for the preaching task — and it knows the difference.
You run the church, counsel families, lead the staff, and write your sermon in whatever hours are left. You deserve a second set of eyes.
You're learning the craft and you need to understand the "why" behind what works — not just what scored well on an assignment rubric.
You've been doing this for years. You're not looking for validation. You're looking for the honest voice that helps you keep growing.
When the moment comes, you want to step into it prepared. AproposPreaching helps you make every sermon count, not just survive it.
Start with one free grading — no credit card required. Then choose the plan that fits how you preach.
Billed monthly. Cancel anytime.
Billed once annually. Save over $90 vs. monthly.
A single session with a preaching coach runs $100 to $500. AproposPreaching costs less than $8 per sermon graded.
No. The grader is built to give honest, specific, category-level feedback with real coaching notes. It is designed to challenge you, not flatter you. If your conclusion lands flat, it will say so — and tell you exactly how to fix it.
Five submissions per month is a ceiling, not a requirement. If you preach twice a month, you have room to grade both sermons — and run a revision through if you want to see how the improvements changed your score.
You can paste a manuscript, a detailed outline, or a transcript. The grader works with what you give it. The more complete the submission, the more specific the coaching — but there's no required format.
Cancel any time. No hoops, no runaround, no penalty. Your access continues through the end of your current billing period and that's the end of it.
Start with one free grading — no credit card required. See exactly how your sermon scores, what the coaching notes reveal, and whether AproposPreaching earns a permanent seat in your sermon prep process.
Grade My First Sermon FreeNo credit card required. One free submission. Cancel anytime.