Stage 7 – Message Outline

Remember the Main Thing

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It’s easy to be overwhelmed as a preacher.  So many things to keep in mind.  The different aspects of delivery, built on the different elements of a sermon, not to mention the multiple facets of biblical study.  You pour in whatever hours you can find in order to try to understand the passage, then to shape a sermon that will accurately and effectively communicate the meaning of that passage to your listeners with some degree of relevance to their lives.  And maybe the many details feel overwhelming.

It’s easy to get caught up in the introduction, the conclusion, the illustrations, the support materials, the elements of style, effective delivery and so on.  These all matter.  These are all important, but they are all details.  The best delivery you can conjure is hypocrisy without a solid message to preach.  The best message flesh in the world doesn’t look good unless it is on a well-formed skeleton.  And the best bones in the world only make sense as an outline when there is a master design involved.  And that master notion needs to be worthy of all the work.

Delivery makes the most of a good sermon.  The flesh of the sermon makes a skeleton of an outline into an attractive and compelling being. But the skeleton only makes sense if it is serving the main idea of the message – each bone supporting the unity of the message, each detail moving the message forward toward a goal.

I’m not undermining the importance of any sermonic detail.  Details of the sermon and details of delivery, are important, but they are details.  Unless there is a core concept, a big idea, a central proposition, whatever you want to call it.  Unless there is that main idea derived from effective study of the passage to the best of your ability, all pursued in dependence on the Spirit of God.  Unless there is that, there are only details.  Random details.  Remember the main thing.  The main idea is your goal in Bible study.  Then that main idea is boss of the message.  The main idea is the main thing.  Let’s remember that.

Selecting Sermon Form: The Preacher’s Strategy – Part 2

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Yesterday I noted that if you find a good sermon form, you should not become a rigid adherent to that one form.  If sermon form is a matter of strategy (how to best accomplish the sermon goal), then there are two more implications to consider.

2. Better strategists have a varied arsenal. Again, it seems obvious, but it’s true.  The best generals, the best coaches, the best business strategists, all have a varied arsenal (play-book, if you prefer).  So try to accumulate options for how to shape a sermon.  Be flexible and willing to try new things.  Maybe something suggested by a preaching book.  Maybe something that develops organically as you study the text.

3. The best strategists select wisely based on the variables of the occasion.  Variation is not a virtue in itself.  If the same form as last week works best for this text, these people, on this occasion from this preacher – use it.  But over time if you only ever use one form, you are probably defaulting, rather than strategizing.  No matter how big your arsenal may be, you can only preach one way in the next sermon, so select well.

Grow your arsenal of options.  Read and listen as widely as you can.  Then choose each time the strategy that you believe will work best.  Deliver that arrow accurately to the intended target.  Your choice of sermon shape is your strategy to accurately deliver your main idea to its target, to achieve the goal of the sermon.  Choose well.  It matters.

Selecting Sermon Form: The Preacher’s Strategy – Part 1

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Over the next days I will re-assert a basic commitment of expository preaching on this site – there is great flexibility on form.  You can preach a text deductively or inductively, or a combination, or using some variation on these basic shapes.  You can choose three points, or two, or one, or four.  You can go verse-by-verse, chunk-by-chunk, logical thought by thought.  You can preach in first-person, second-voice, etc.  You can follow the Stanley 5-Step (me-we-God-you-we), the “Lowry Loop,” or the “Clowney Construct,” or Chappell’s variation, or Keller’s.  Whatever.  You have freedom to choose your form.  So why do we choose the form we choose?  It’s simple really.  It’s about strategy.  As Robinson puts it, the sermon idea is the arrow, your sermon purpose is the target, and your sermon form is how you think you can best deliver that arrow to its intended target.

Since there are numerous possible variations on sermon form, which should you choose?  It’s simple really.  Whatever will work best.  If you have a goal, then you will choose your strategy in order to achieve your purpose.  I see at least three implications here:

1. Resolute commitment to a good strategy may be foolhardy. Seems obvious, but circumstances change.  It’s true in war.  It’s true in sport.  It’s true in preaching.  If you preach in first person (in character) and you get great feedback, don’t automatically commit to always preaching in first person.  It will become old and lose some of its effectiveness.  Each sermon is an opportunity to choose your strategy according to the factors uniquely present on that occasion.

Please Only PowerPoint on Purpose

/ Peter Mead / 8 Comments

For some people, whether or not to use powerpoint is not even a question.  It is assumed.  I don’t assume I should use it.  My default is no powerpoint, then if I use it, I use it on purpose.

I think it may be worth using if there is an image that will really help, such as a biblical map, image or a contemporary scene of significance (the person to go with the quote, etc.), or if there is a series of verses away from your preaching text that you want people to see quickly (have good reason for sharing multiple other verses), or if there is a movie clip that will reinforce and help (but not overwhelm) the message.  I only think it may be worth using if either you or another person can design it and control it perfectly (clear and consistent fonts of the right size, very limited use of words, transitions that work to the millisecond both coming on and going off, etc.)  Sadly, often even appropriate powerpoint material is sabotaged by very amateurish use.

I don’t think it is worth using in order to show your outline (that’s for you, not them), or to show your preaching text (they need the practice reading their own Bibles).  I don’t think it’s worth using if it means sacrificing preparation time for formatting time.  I certainly don’t think it’s worth using just because you have a projector and a laptop.  I don’t think we should use it just because it is used in the business world (please note many in the business world are lousy speakers, and many of the good ones left compulsive powerpoint use behind years ago!)  I’d rather have listeners engaged with me and with the Bible in their laps than with a screen.

Haddon Robinson has said that, “A picture is not worth a thousand words (the people who make pictures came out with that!)  Some words will never be captured in a picture.”

Powerpoint may be helpful.  Steve Mathewson has written that he periodically has a powerpoint enhanced sermon, but he never has a powerpoint driven sermon – amen!  If you use it, please be professional, be subtle, don’t turn to look at it yourself or even refer to it unnecessarily, don’t overload the screen and don’t lose sight of the fact that it is you who is called to be the preacher, not the screen.

Give Me A Break!

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Listeners can concentrate when we motivate them to do so. But it is important to remember that it is mentally tiring to maintain intense concentration.

In a conversation we find ourselves checking out now and then, or cracking a joke periodically to bring relief from the intensity. In preaching we need to be considerate of the mental energy of our listeners.

When I was growing up and preaching some early sermons (or versions thereof!), my church decided to believe the hype about concentration spans (i.e. it is impossible for contemporary listeners to concentrate beyond 15 minutes). They were conservative enough to want to keep their 30+ minute sermons, so they decided to break up the sermons with a hymn or chorus at the half-way stage. The logic seems clear enough. The idea was flawed. As a listener I could tell it didn’t work. When I preached I could feel the problem! After singing and switching off for several minutes, the preacher had to re-introduce the sermon in order to get listeners onboard again. Don’t try this at home.

However, listeners do need breaks in the intensity now and then. A good illustration can really help (as long as it is somehow moving the message forward rather than merely pressing pause). Humor carefully used can break tension, release some steam as people take the chance to laugh, then re-engage more willingly. Varying pace, pitch and power of the voice are critical, not to mention the strategic use of pause. In reality people can’t concentrate for even 15 minutes at once, it is more like 3-5 minutes – so carefully shape the sermon in appropriate length movements with very deliberate and careful transitions!

Concentration uses energy, even when people are motivated. So as a preacher don’t simply shrink every sermon or chop it up to allow for commercial breaks. Instead strive to stir motivation (interest, need, thirst), design sermons in suitable movements with careful transitions, and present with an engaging enthusiasm that provides appropriate breaks to keep people with you.

Concentration Confusion

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

We are regularly told that contemporary listeners have drastically diminished concentration spans due to the changes in contemporary culture (sound bite journalism, bite-size online reading habits, commercial break saturated television, etc.)  What these “concentration span experts” fail to mention is that movies seem to be getting longer, not shorter (whatever happened to the good old 87 minute tales of the 1980’s?)  They don’t recognize that people engrossed in a good book will still read for uninterrupted hours on end.  They omit to note that a good conversation still eats up many telephone minutes.

Undoubtedly our culture has shifted on numerous levels.  Perhaps people are less willing to tolerate boredom.  But concentration spans are not the issue.  A good movie, a good book, a good conversation all hold attention as they always did.  The issue is whether or not people are interested in what is before them.  With interest people will watch a movie without flinching, focus for hours on a football game (whichever football you think I mean by that!), with interest they will surf the web losing track of time, read a book for hours on end, converse without looking at their watch.  With interest people will even listen to a sermon.

So should we indiscriminately shrink every sermon?  No.  But we should be interesting.  We should craft messages that not only pique imagination, but create a thirst for God’s Word relevantly preached.  We should endeavor to improve every aspect of delivery so that we don’t get in the way of effective communication.  The CSEs (concentration span experts) point to the listeners and claim they can’t take preaching anymore.  I point the finger at us and say let’s prove the CSEs wrong!

Preparation Place

/ Peter Mead / 7 Comments

A good sermon in the pulpit will reflect hours of work in the study.  Hours of prayerful reading, careful thinking and sometimes tearful wrestling through the process.  But no rule says preparation has to happen at the desk.  In fact, the desk can be a place of distraction!

Personally I tend to work either at home at my desk, or at a friend’s house (quieter).  However, there are times when I find I need to prepare somewhere else.  Not because I have to, but because it helps.  I sometimes think and preach through a sermon while driving (sorry for the carbon footprint!), or on a walk, or pacing around in my living room.  One time I had to answer questions from the police about what I was doing at such and such a time (“Uh, I was preaching a sermon while staring out of the window, officer!”) – I happened to fail to see anything suspicious as a crime took place down the street, but my bizarre excuse precluded further questioning!

Anyway, where do you find preparation works best for you?  Driving, walking, pacing, sitting in a Starbucks to see and sense the reality of people?  There are no rules here, but I am interested!

Don’t Blame the Wrong Thing

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I regularly hear that contemporary audiences, or postmodern audiences, don’t appreciate or engage with traditional expositional approaches to preaching.  It is easy to blame the change in culture, or the shift in lifestyle, or the influence of MTV or video games.  People blame the diminishing attention spans, or the reduced openness to propositional truth, or the need for increased use of visual media.  There’s a whole lot of blaming going on.

I want to suggest a different target for our finger pointing.  Us.  People who tell me they don’t appreciate expository preaching are essentially telling me they haven’t heard any worthy of the label.  People who supposedly cannot concentrate for more than thirty seconds are somehow able to stick with good preaching for well over a snippet or micro-message.  People who are so resistant to propositional truth seem very willing to buy into presentations of truth that are carefully designed and effectively communicated.  Let’s not blame postmodernity, MTV, Nintendo Wii, or whatever.  Culture is culture and culture shifts.

We need to point the finger at ourselves.  People typically react against a caricature of expository preaching.  They react against unnecessarily dull monologues.  The solution is not to be found in gimicks, gross shrinkage of sermon length, or the random spraying of video clips.  The solution is, at least in part, better preaching.  Creative preaching.  Biblical preaching.

The finger is pointed our way.  Let’s respond well.

For Improvement Just Do This

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

It is easy to feel pressure to preach better. We put the pressure on ourselves. Others put the pressure on us, often unwittingly. Perhaps a lack of apparent response in recent months. Perhaps comments about other preachers. Perhaps the big shots on the radio. Perhaps a renewed passion to preach well that has stirred within.

When the pressure to improve is felt, things can often seem overwhelming. After all, there are so many books, so many ideas, so many aspects of effective preaching to consider, indeed, so many preaching traditions to learn from. Maybe you skim through previous posts on this site, or other sites, or magazines, or podcasts, etc. Perhaps you let your mind go back to seminary and you recall all the instructions you received there. It can all be so overwhelming.

This may sound overly simplistic, but just do this: prayerfully endeavor to do the basics well. Try to study the passage effectively so that you are clear on the structure, the author’s main idea and purpose in writing. Try to think through your sermon purpose in light of both the passage and the congregation. Try to determine a clear main idea (doesn’t have to be an all-time great one), a clear and simple structure, a way to start that will make listeners want to hear the rest of the sermon and a way to finish so that the impact of the text will be felt in a specific area of their life. Do the basics well. You’ll probably find the pressure lifts because your preaching is much closer to what you want it to be!

Effective Verse-by-Verse Preaching

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Following on from the previous post, I’d like to share Mathewson’s four suggestions for using a verse-by-verse approach effectively.  I could have written my own suggestions, but they’d be much the same as Mathewson, so I’ll let him have the credit for this:

1. Keep the big picture in mind. This means thinking in preaching units or paragraphs, rather than atomistically.  Verse-by-verse is a strategy that serves a larger goal, that of expositional preaching of a unit of Scripture.  Commit to work through a block of text, rather than stopping when the time runs out.

2. Highlight the contours of the text. Include structural observation to help people recognize the contours and shape of the text.

3. Determine which details to cover in depth and which to summarize.  What does the audience need explaining, validated or applied?

4. Use verse-by-verse preaching in concert with paragraph-by-paragraph preaching.  Some sermons in a series will cover larger chunks of text, while others will move verse-by-verse.  Give people both breadth and depth, they need both.