About the author

The inspiration to write Sermon Science crystallized after my wife, Julie, and I were heading home from church one Sunday. We typically engage in a kind of informal “debriefing” that begins with some variant of a basic question: “What did you think of the sermon today?”

Our conversations are helpful in clarifying what we think we heard; they stimulate deeper consideration of how we believe God is teaching and leading us; they they bring us closer together spiritually.

“That was a really good example he gave about....”

“I never thought about .... that way in my life.”

“I didn’t understand what he meant about....”

“That point about.... really hit home for me.”

Too often, however, my wife might ask what key points I took away from the sermon—that concluded only moments earlier—and I am at a loss to even remember the general topic. Often, we both struggle to recall a single key takeaway or to articulate even a vague idea of what the main idea was. That didn’t seem good. 

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Grounded in his background in the learning sciences and decades of sermon observations, Dr. Gregory J. Cizek set out to apply research-based principles of how people learn to the development and delivery of sermons. His passion is to help preachers develop and deliver sermons that help their listeners grasp, retain, and apply what hey have heard--reconceptualizing listeners as learners. 

Dr. Cizek earned his PhD in Measurement and Evaluation, with a concentration in instructional design from Michigan State University. He recently completed 20+ years of teaching, research, and service at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.