How Mar Mari Emmanuel Preaches: Count the Text, Picture Every Point, Bring It to the Cross
Mar Mari Emmanuel is a bishop in the Eastern Syriac tradition who preaches in Assyrian and English from his church in Wakeley, Sydney, and whose livestreamed sermons travel well beyond it. We studied four of his sermons and lectures, from a midweek English lecture on Galatians to excerpts from his Revelation series and a Sunday homily. The shape is consistent: he turns the text into a count, gives every point a household picture, lets Jesus and the hearer speak, and keeps coming back to the cross.
Who Mar Mari Emmanuel is
Mar Mari Emmanuel was born Robert Shlimon in Habbaniyah, Iraq, in 1970, and his family settled in Sydney in 1985. He was ordained a priest in 2009 and consecrated a bishop in 2011. Since 2015 he has led an Assyrian congregation in Wakeley, where he teaches a passage in Assyrian and then gives it again in English.
His church livestreams Sunday homilies and midweek Bible lectures, and he has preached verse by verse through books such as Revelation. The church’s YouTube and TikTok channels made him known as the “TikTok Bishop,” re-uploaded clips of his sermons have drawn millions of views, and in 2026 his personal YouTube and TikTok accounts counted about 614,000 followers combined.
The shape of a Emmanuel sermon
He reads the passage right away, with no warm-up. Then he usually reshapes it into a number or a pair. In his sermon on the fruits of the Holy Spirit, “these nine are really three,” each with a branch that feeds it and one that protects it.
Every point gets one everyday image: a magnet, a tree, a diamond ring, a baby in a nappy, salt dissolving in the pot. Sometimes he adds a word study from Hebrew or Greek, and he often uses a true story as proof.
He gives lines to Jesus, to Bible characters like Martha and to the hearer, and he turns hard to “you” early. A second-person refrain runs through the message: “Move on,” “Without you, I’m dead.”
In the longer messages the turn to the cross or the gospel comes around the middle, and he jokes about running long: “I’ll leave you with this.” The complete messages end in a blessing or a prayer.
What made his preaching different
Text as a count
He reshapes a passage into a number or a pair, so the text becomes something you can count: nine fruits are really three.
Household pictures
Every point gets one homely image, like a magnet, a baby or salt in the pot, so an ancient faith sounds like talk at the kitchen table.
Lion and lamb
He charges hearers to hold truth and mercy together: “you need to be a lion and you need to be a lamb at the same time.”
What others said
“Emmanuel has a fiery, resonant voice and preaches with a distinctly Levantine fervour.”
— Harry Blanchard, Anglican Ink, 2024
“He is known for expounding the Gospel in a ‘full-fat’ way, with a fervour and spiritual intensity…”
— Harry Blanchard, Anglican Ink, 2024
What to take into your own pulpit
Give the text a shape people can count
A list of nine is hard to hold. Three groups of three, or a lion and a lamb, sticks.
One picture per point
Ordinary household images make abstract truth concrete. Pick one per point and let it do the work.
Let the Bible talk
Giving Jesus, Bible characters and the listener lines to say turns explanation into conversation.
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 Mar Mari Emmanuel.
This post is the overview. The guide has the research and the method.
- The 4 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 Mar Mari Emmanuel’s preaching style?
Fervent, direct and pictorial. He turns a passage into a count or a pair, gives every point a household image, voices lines for Jesus and the hearer, and keeps returning to the cross.
How does Mar Mari Emmanuel structure a sermon?
He reads the passage at once, reshapes it into a number or pair, gives each point one everyday picture, repeats a second-person refrain, turns to the cross or gospel, and ends in a blessing or prayer.
What languages does Mar Mari Emmanuel preach in?
Assyrian and English. He teaches a passage in Assyrian and then gives it again in English.