How Joby Martin Preaches: Host the Party, Retell the Story, Land the Gospel
Joby Martin leads The Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville, Florida, which he and his wife, Gretchen, started in a former Walmart in 2012. We studied nine of his sermons, from 2019 to 2026, including men’s messages, a guest sermon and an Easter service. The shape: a party host who becomes a preacher. He gets the room laughing, retells the text in today’s language, repeats a refrain, and lands every sermon on the gospel and a clear response.
Who Joby Martin is
Martin calls himself an “accidental church planter.” He launched Eleven22 in September 2012, and the name comes from its first service time, 11:22 a.m. By late 2025 it reported upwards of 20,000 weekly attenders. It runs 13 campuses plus prison campuses.
Outreach ranked Eleven22 the fastest-growing church in America in 2026, adding 7,734 attenders in a year, more than double the next church. Its 2026 beach baptism counted 2,552 baptisms in a day. His books include If the Tomb Is Empty and Stand Firm & Act Like Men.
The shape of a Martin sermon
Martin almost always starts with a comic warm-up: shout-outs, a joke, a call for “Amen.” The room is laughing before the Bible is open. Then he reads the text, usually within the first few minutes.
He reads it with its real history and geography, then retells it in today’s language with jokes inside the story. His points come from the text, not from alliteration, and he rarely numbers them aloud.
Most sermons have a refrain that comes back again and again. In “With God Anything Is Possible,” the line is “tear off the roof.” Sometimes he adds an extended story from his own past.
Every sermon lands on the gospel. Usually there’s a long cross-and-resurrection section in the back half, and then a clear response: a prayer of surrender, an altar call, raised hands, a baptism invitation.
What made his preaching different
Party host first
He’s a party host first. He gets the room laughing and shouting “Amen” before he preaches.
Retold today
He retells the text with its real history, in today’s language, with jokes inside the story.
Gospel every time
The gospel comes every time: a repeated refrain, a long gospel section and a clear response.
What others said
“When you hear him preach, it’s very fast, very funny, very charismatic, but he’s also really strong in his beliefs.”
— A former attendee, Folio Weekly, 2015
“Pastor Joby Martin just brings the word to life.”
— Woody Norris, Eleven22 group leader
What to take into your own pulpit
Warm the room first
Laughter lowers defenses. Martin earns attention before he asks for it.
Retell, don’t just read
Set the story in its real place and time, then tell it the way you’d tell it to a friend.
Make the gospel non-negotiable
Whatever the text, Martin gets to the cross and the empty tomb and asks for a response.
Those are the ideas. The guide turns them into ten steps you can follow this week, plus the sermons we studied and a fill-in outline in his shape.
Free PDF · Preach Like the Greats
Learn to preach like Joby Martin.
This post is the overview. The guide has the research and the method.
- The 9 sermons we studied, start to finish
- Ten steps to preach the way he does
- His sermon outline, movement by movement
- A fill-in template for your own text, 9 pages
Common questions
What is Joby Martin’s preaching style?
Fast, funny and gospel-centered. He opens like a party host, reads the text with its real history, retells it in today’s language with jokes inside, repeats a refrain, and closes with an explicit gospel and a clear response.
How does Joby Martin structure a sermon?
A comic warm-up, the text read early, the story retold with points drawn from the text, a recurring refrain, a long cross-and-resurrection section in the back half, and a clear response at the close.
Why is it called The Church of Eleven22?
The name comes from its first service time, 11:22 a.m., when it launched in a former Walmart in Jacksonville in 2012.