Stages in the Development of Expository Messages
New Concepts
Introduction
Major characteristics of an effective introduction
Conclusion
Introductions and conclusions have significance in a sermon out of proportion to their length. During the introduction an audience gains impressions of you, the speaker, that often determine whether they will accept what you say. If you appear nervous, hostile, or unprepared, they are inclined to reject you. If you seem alert and friendly, they decide you are an able person with a positive attitude toward yourself and your listeners. Your introduction, therefore, introduces your congregation to you. In the final analysis listeners do not hear a sermon. They hear you. While it has always been important for hearers to like a speaker, it is particularly true today. Men and women in our culture value relationships, and they will make a judgment about you and your attitudes before they will give their attention to what you have to say.
Stage 10 Prepare the introduction and the conclusion of the sermon.
The Introduction
Not only does an introduction introduce you to the audience, but your introduction should introduce your audience to the subject of your sermon idea, to your central idea, or in the case of an inductive sermon, to your first major point. The characteristics of effective introductions grow out of that purpose.
An Effective Introduction Commands Attention
An introduction should command attention. When you step behind the pulpit, you dare not assume that the members of your congregation sit expectantly on the edge of the pews waiting for your sermon. In reality they are probably a bit bored and harbor a suspicion that you will make matters worse. A Russian proverb offers a bit of wise counsel to the preacher: “It is the same with men as with donkeys: whoever would hold them fast must get a very good grip on their ears!” The opening words of a sermon therefore need not be dramatic; they need not even be plain; but they must go after the minds of the hearers to force them to listen. If you do not capture attention in the first thirty seconds, you may never gain it at all. Producers of television dramas know this well. The action starts immediately. Only later on do we get titles or names of actors and actresses. Producers are aware that viewers sit in front of a screen with clickers in their hands. If they do not catch attention, then viewers are off to seventy-five other channels to find something else. When people come to church, they come with clickers in their heads. If you do not get their attention fast, they may be off to the menu for dinner, to a baseball game in the afternoon, or to some conflict they’re having at work.
Writers have been struggling since Homer to define the art of opening a story. Charles Dickens in The Tale of Two Cities had a memorable opening: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Some publishers believe that readers buy books on the strength of the opening paragraph. Herman Melville in Moby Dick opens with three words: “Call me Ishmael.” Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina grabs our minds with: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Amy Tan has an arresting opening in The Kitchen God’s Wife: “Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.” You cannot help but wonder what will follow when Joseph Heller starts Catch–22 by saying, “It was love at first sight. The first time Youssarian saw the chaplain, he fell madly in love with him.” So a sermon resembles a conversation between you and your audience. Based on your opening your listeners decide if they are interested in pursuing the conversation any further.
The possibilities for an opening statement that gets attention are as wide as your creativity.
However you begin, make the most of your first twenty-five or thirty words to seize attention. An ear-grabbing opening is a clue that what follows may be worth thirty minutes of everyone’s time.
An Effective Introduction Uncovers Needs
An effective introduction should also uncover needs. You must turn voluntary attention into involuntary attention. When you start, the people listen because they ought to listen, but before long you must motivate them to listen because they can’t help but listen. Paul O’Neil, a writer for Life magazine, evolved O’Neil’s Law: “Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tag line.”2 Social scientist Arthur R. Cohen concluded that when audiences receive information that meets felt needs, two things happen: (1) more learning takes place; and (2) opinions change faster and more permanently than when information is given and then applied to life.3 All of this says that the important point of contact with a congregation lies in answering, “Why bring this up? Why do I need to listen?”
Charles R. Swindoll began a sermon on 2 Corinthians 1:3–11 by raising a question that exposes the raw nerve of need:
El Tablazo looked so close. Too close. It happened so fast. Exploding into the jagged 14,000-foot peak, the DC–4 disintegrated with a metallic scream.
What was left of the Avianca Airline flight bound for Quito, Ecuador, flamed crazily down the mountainside into a deep ravine. One awful moment illuminated a cold Colombian mountain in the night, then the darkness returned. And the silence.
Before leaving the airport earlier that day, a young New Yorker named Glenn Chambers hurriedly scribbled a note on a piece of paper he found on the floor of the terminal. The scrap was part of a printed advertisement with a single word, “Why?” sprawled across the center.
Needing stationery in a hurry, Chambers scrawled a note to his mother around the word in the middle. Quickly folding this last-minute thought, he stuffed it in an envelope and dropped it in a box. There would be more to come, of course. More about the budding of a lifelong dream to begin a ministry with the Voice of the Andes in Ecuador.
But there was no more to come. Between the mailing and the delivery of Chambers’ note, El Tablazo snagged his flight and his dreams from the night sky. The envelope arrived later than the news of his death. When his mother received it, the question burned up at her from the page—Why?
It is the question that hits first and lingers longest. Why? Why me? Why not? Why this?4
Need can be touched quickly. Asking “Can a woman who works be a good mother? What do you say? What does the Bible say?” touches need in less than twenty words.
Sermons catch fire when flint strikes steel. When the flint of a person’s problem strikes the steel of the Word of God, a spark ignites that burns in the mind. Directing our preaching at people’s needs is not merely a persuasive technique; it is the task of the ministry. Leslie J. Tizard understood what preaching must be about when he declared, “Whoever will become a preacher must feel the needs of men until it becomes an oppression to his soul.”5
Needs take many shapes and forms. Christians differ from non-Christians not in their needs but in the ways their needs are met. Abraham H. Maslow, a noted psychologist, believes that needs build on one another. Throughout our lives we move from one cluster of needs to another as motivations for our actions.6 One basic set of needs, he argues, springs from our bodies. These physiological needs are met by food, drink, recreation, sexual expression, and elimination, and if they are not met, they dominate thought and life.
Men and women also have needs that result from living with other people. These social-dependency needs include the desire for esteem, love and affection, security, self-realization, and self-expression. People want to know that they are loved, that they have worth, that they can grow, develop, and realize their potential.
On another level people also need to have their curiosity satisfied. Maslow maintains that curiosity as a strong motivation comes only after physical and social-dependency needs have been met. In your introduction you may touch the need in your listeners to have their curiosity satisfied. But you should be aware that satisfying curiosity does not cause people to respond at the same depth as when they understand how God meets their longing for self-esteem, security, affection, and love. The more basic the need, the stronger the interest.
Early in the sermon, therefore, your listeners should realize that you are talking to them about themselves. You raise a question, probe a problem, identify a need, open up a vital issue to which the passage speaks. Contrary to the traditional approach to homiletics, which holds the application until the conclusion, application starts in the introduction. Should preachers of even limited ability bring to the surface people’s questions, problems, hurts, and desires to deal with them from the Scriptures, they will bring the grace of God to bear on the agonizing worries and tensions of daily life.
An Effective Introduction Introduces the Body of the Sermon
Introductions should orient the congregation to the body of the sermon and its development. To introduce is a transitive verb. An introduction must introduce something. Therefore, there is no such thing as “a good introduction”; there is only a good introduction of a particular sermon. To put it another way, an introduction should introduce. At the very least it should introduce the sermon’s subject so that no one needs to guess what the preacher plans to talk about. If the subject alone is introduced, then the major points usually complete it. For example, if you raise the question, “How can we know the will of God?” the audience expects that the major assertions of the sermon will provide steps to the answer.
The introduction may go beyond the subject and orient hearers to the main idea. An exposition of Romans 1:1–17 that raises the issue of what must be done to evangelize society may lead to the statement, “When the effect of the gospel is all-important in the church, then the force of the gospel is unstoppable in the world.” Once you state your complete idea, however, you must then raise one of these basic questions about it: What does this mean? Is it true? What difference does it make? While you may not use these exact words, you must raise one of these questions to expand your idea. If you fail to do so, directly or indirectly, the sermon is over even though you speak for another thirty minutes. Effective sermons maintain a sense of tension—the feeling that something more must be said if the message is to be complete. When the tension goes, the sermon ends. Therefore, through the developmental questions you explore what must be done with your idea in the remainder of your sermon. You may develop it as an idea that needs to be explained, a proposition that must be proved, or a principle that has to be applied to life.
If your sermon is to be developed inductively, then your introduction introduces your first main point. As far as your audience knows, the first point is the idea of the entire message. As the message develops, your first point must then be linked to your second point by a strong transition. This transition serves like another introduction. It raises a question or uncovers a need that comes out of your first point. It leads the listeners into the second point. In the same way, your second point must be linked to the third. In an inductive sermon your complete idea emerges only in the final movement of the sermon.
An Effective Introduction May Exhibit Other Characteristics
An effective introduction must get attention, uncover needs, and orient the listeners to the body of the message. These characteristics are nonnegotiable. There are other factors that usually appear in good introductions. For example, most introductions are contemporary. They start in the twenty-first century AD and not in the twenty-first century BC. Ultimately, we are using the Bible to talk to people about themselves. We’re not talking to them about the Bible. Since the object of the sermon is the listener, the beginning of the sermon grapples with the needs of the contemporary audience. It is a matter of accurate reporting, however, to say that this is not always true. Some sermons talk immediately about the biblical text. They raise questions, give arresting descriptions, or point to needs in the biblical settings that clearly reflect similar needs today. But you must have good reason to start your sermon in the ancient world rather than in the modern world.
The strongest introductions will usually be personal. While you may quote statistics about broken homes and broken marriages in our society, you will have a stronger introduction if you also talk to the people in front of you about their marriages. A sermon on relationships in the family will have greater force if you’re talking about the arguments that people in front of you have had with a spouse three weeks ago that have not been resolved. Men and women will listen if they feel you are talking about the strains and temptations they feel as they try to keep their marriage vows. At times, however, you will back off from being personal because it is so forceful. If in the introduction people feel afraid or upset or angry with what you’re saying, they may close their ears to anything else in the sermon. So as a general rule that has exceptions, the strongest introductions are personal.
Other things may be said about introductions. Don’t open your sermon with an apology. When we use an apology, we hope to win sympathy. But at best we gain pity. A congregation is seldom persuaded by someone for whom it feels sorry. If you are less prepared than you want to be, let the congregation discover it for itself. In many cases it will never find out.
Keep the introduction short. After you get water, stop pumping. Unfortunately, no percentages will help you here. Most introductions take about 10 percent of the sermon time, but your introduction needs to be long enough to capture attention, uncover needs, and orient the audience to the subject, the idea, or the first point. Until that is done, the introduction is incomplete; after that is done, if you continue, the introduction is too long. An old woman said of the Welsh preacher John Owen that he was so long spreading the table, she lost her appetite for the meal.
An introduction should not promise more than it delivers. When it does, it is like firing off a cannon to shoot out a pea. Sensational introductions to mediocre sermons resemble broken promises. When you fail to meet the need you have raised, the congregation feels cheated.
Someplace at the opening of the sermon, you will usually read your text. Some ministers place the Scripture reading immediately before the sermon because the sermon should be an exposition of the passage. Unfortunately, unless the text is read skillfully, congregations may regard it as a necessary exercise that comes before it settles down to hear what is said about the Bible. As a general rule, if your text is short, read it following your introduction. When you do this, you give the audience a mind-set that helps it pay attention to the reading. If you read your text before you introduce your sermon, you will help your listeners if you give them “glasses” for the reading.
For example, if you were to introduce a reading from James 2:1–13, you might do so by saying, “We don’t often preach about ushers, but they play a crucial part in any church. In James 2, James describes a church service that went wrong because the usher didn’t do things right. Listen to what James says.” People will read the text in a more discerning way. There is a subtle benefit in doing this. When people know what they are looking for as you read the text, they often discover that they can read the Bible for themselves. Understanding the Scriptures is not something reserved for the professional elite.
What about humor? The simple answer is “handle it with care.” If it directs the listeners’ attention to the idea, then laughter serves as a useful tool. If it merely entertains, humor can make the sermon feel like a letdown. Sometimes when you’re speaking to a new audience, humor helps you to build a bridge, but too many jokes may cause listeners to write you off as a comedian. When humor is used, therefore, it should be used deliberately. It should relate the audience to you or to your message.
How you step into the pulpit tells your audience a lot about you. If you move in an unhurried, confident manner, your body language communicates that you are in control of yourself and that you have something important to say and that the audience would do well to listen. Before you speak, you should pause several seconds to capture attention. You and the congregation ought to start together even though you might not finish together. Look at the people, not at your notes or even at your Bible. In private conversation, if someone does not look you in the eye, you feel uneasy. That is also true when you speak to people from the pulpit.
When you are nervous, tension can make your voice high and squeaky. Therefore, you need control in order to speak your opening words in a composed, relaxed manner. Take a deep breath before you start. As you begin, use a large, definite gesture after the first couple of sentences. Large gestures will direct nervous energy into positive bodily movement. You will find that nervousness and tension will also be reduced if you know before you get on your feet exactly how you will begin the sermon.
Before you speak, there are things you can do to relax your throat. For example, while you’re in your study, move your head slowly to touch your left shoulder, then move it slowly in the other direction to touch your right shoulder. Do that four or five times. Then slowly turn your head as far as you can to the left; then turn your head as far as you can to the right. Repeat that several times. Finally, let your head fall on your chest and then slowly roll it to the back and then to your chest again. Repeat that exercise five times. While you’re waiting to get into the pulpit, run your tongue to the back of your mouth. Try to lick your tonsils. Or yawn with your mouth shut. All these exercises will help you to relax your throat.
There are three types of preachers: those to whom you cannot listen; those to whom you can listen; and those to whom you must listen. During the introduction the congregation usually decides the kind of speaker addressing them that morning.
An experienced pilot knows that landing an airplane demands special concentration, so an able preacher understands that conclusions require thoughtful preparation. Like a skilled pilot you should know where your sermon will land.
In fact, the conclusion possesses such importance that many ministers sketch it after they have determined the sermon idea and the purpose for preaching it. Whether or not you use that technique, you must work on your conclusion with special care. Otherwise everything comes to nothing.
The purpose of your conclusion is to conclude—not merely to stop. Your conclusion should be more than a swipe at getting out of an awkward situation: “May God help us live in the light of these great truths.” It should be more than asking the congregation to bow in prayer so you can sneak off the platform when they’re not looking. You should conclude, and the conclusion should produce a feeling of finality. Like an able lawyer, a minister asks for a verdict. Your congregation should see your idea entire and complete, and it should know and feel what God’s truth demands of it. Directly or indirectly, the conclusion answers the question, “So what? What difference does this make?” And your people face another question as a result of an effective conclusion: “Am I willing to allow God to make that difference in my experience?” Big-band leader Paul Whiteman understood the demands of introductions and conclusions when he advised, “When you begin, start with a bang, and when you quit, quit all over!”
Depending on the sermon, the audience, and the minister, conclusions take different shapes and forms. Because the element of freshness adds interest to preaching, work to vary your conclusions. What are some elements used to land a sermon and to bring it to a burning focus?
A Summary
In many conclusions preachers look back over the terrain and restate the major points covered along the way. When you do this, however, review the important assertions so that you can bind them into the major idea of the sermon. A good summary ties loose ends together. It should not be a second preaching of the sermon.
An Illustration
An anecdote that summarizes the idea or better shows how it works out in life adds impact to a conclusion. The illustration must hit the bull’s-eye so that the listeners grasp its meaning in a flash without explanation. When you have offered the illustration, stop. The illustration should be so transparent that only a sentence or two need to be added. It has even more power when the illustration needs no explanation at all.
Peter Marshall ends a sermon on James 4:14 with a gripping story:
An old legend tells of a merchant in Bagdad who one day sent his servant to the market. Before very long the servant came back, white and trembling, and in great agitation said to his master: “Down in the market place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd, and when I turned around I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Master, please lend me your horse, for I must hasten away to avoid her. I will ride to Samarra and there I will hide, and Death will not find me.”
The merchant lent him his horse and the servant galloped away in great haste. Later the merchant went down to the market place and saw Death standing in the crowd. He went over to her and asked, “Why did you frighten my servant this morning? Why did you make a threatening gesture?”
“That was not a threatening gesture,” Death said. “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”
Each of us has an appointment in Samarra. But that is cause for rejoicing—not for fear, provided we have put our trust in Him who alone holds the keys of life and death.7
A Quotation
Sometimes a well-chosen quote used in your conclusion can state the sermon idea in words stronger and more vivid than you can craft yourself. If you use a quotation, it should be short, and you should have it memorized. Long quotations are difficult to read well, and at a moment when you need directness, a long quote becomes indirect. A few lines taken from a poem or hymn may capture the truth of your sermon effectively. Generally, poetry, too, should be brief, as well as clear and to the point. When a hymn is quoted and then sung by the congregation, its impact may be doubled. Sometimes a single verse of Scripture, taken from the text you have expounded, may sum up your entire sermon and even apply it. When that verse is quoted at the end of an exposition, its force, strengthened by the sermon, can nail the truth to a listener’s mind.
An appropriate question, or even a series of questions, can conclude a sermon effectively. A sermon on the Good Samaritan could end like this: “Let me conclude where I began. Do you love God? That’s splendid. I’m glad to hear that. A second question: Do you love your neighbor? How can we talk about loving God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love our brothers and sisters and our neighbors, whom we do see? If you do love your neighbors, do you mind if I ask them?”
A Prayer
A prayer can make a fitting conclusion, provided it is an honest petition and not a device to summarize the sermon or make an indirect application to the audience. When a desire for God’s work emerges from a response to the sermon, then it can be expressed in an earnest prayer. For example, at the end of a sermon on the publican and the Pharisee, the preacher, without calling the people to prayer, cried, “O God, be merciful to us, the sinners. Amen.”
Specific Directions
On my desk in my office I have a bit of doggerel. It reports that
As Tommy Snooks and Bessie Brooks
Were walking out on Sunday,
Said Tommy Snooks to Bessie Brooks,
Tomorrow will be Monday.
While this may rank as the ultimate low in social conversation, for a preacher it ranks high.
What can your people do to carry out the truth of Sunday morning’s sermon in Monday morning’s world? Your conclusion can answer that: if you do not face this question for your congregation, it may not be able to answer at all. Although some people stumble over biblical truth because they ask the question why, far more fail to apply biblical truth to their lives because they cannot answer the question how. Ask yourself this question: If people in my congregation took this idea seriously, how would it work in next week’s world? Could they use it where they work? Does it make any difference in the kitchen? Or the bedroom? Does this idea have much application for a teenager struggling with peer pressure? Does it have anything to say to a couple facing retirement? Does this idea speak any word to people overwhelmed by grief who would rather not be in the service at all, but have come only out of a sense of the routine? In other words, take a trip through your congregation, and ask yourself, “How would people apply this biblical truth to the way they live?” Then, for God’s sake and for their sake, tell them!
Not every sermon can end with “how to do it.” Some preaching explores great questions, and it accomplishes its purpose when people gain understanding of how God works in the world. No clear specific duty can be spelled out. At times the only proper response to a great biblical text is to fall down and worship. Yet your preaching will more likely be incorporated into the structures of people’s lives when you offer practical suggestions on how to translate scriptural truth into life experience.
Visualization
In the mountain passes of the Pacific Northwest, highway signs warn motorists, “Beware of Falling Rock.” The signs seem to be an exercise in stupidity. If those massive boulders tumble from their resting places, it is usually too late to dodge them.
Not all truth can be acted on immediately. Much of our preaching prepares people for “falling rocks” that may crash upon them in some indefinite future. Visualization is a method that projects a congregation into the future and pictures a situation in which it might apply the truth that we have preached. Visualization takes on force if the situation it envisions is possible, or better still, probable. Listeners can imagine themselves in that situation or one like it before it takes place. In concluding a sermon on work that has as its basic idea “Remember the workday to keep it holy,” you might visualize a scene like this:
If you take this truth seriously, you may face difficult days ahead. Sometime in the future, you will have a boss tell you to do something that you know is wrong. He or she may urge you to falsify your spending account: “It’s all right to be honest,” your boss tells you, “but your overactive conscience is making other people in the department look bad.” You know, however, that you ultimately will not give an account to others in the department; you will recognize that you’ll give an account to God. In as polite and gracious way that you know how, you will say, “I’m sorry. I simply cannot do that.”
You may discover that your boss does not appreciate your commitment to honesty. In a short time, through trumped-up charges, you may lose your job. If that happens, you will feel overwhelmed. You will not be tempted to sing a cheery chorus. You’ll be threatened. You’ll wonder about your future.
Perhaps in those grim hours, you’ll remember the truth of this text. Your master is in heaven. He does not pay off on the first or fifteenth of the month. But he promises that he will reward you for any good thing you do on your job. You will come to a place in your life when you have staked your job, your security, and even your future on what God has said. What a commitment! What a witness! What courage! In the confidence that God can be trusted, even with your job, you have remembered the workday and kept it holy.8
Whatever form your conclusion takes, there are several other things to keep in mind. Don’t introduce new material in the conclusion. These final moments should drive home what you have said, and they should not take the audience off into new avenues of thought. A sermon moves the guns into position. Now is the time to fire the shot at the listeners’ minds and emotions. Spend these important moments driving home the central idea of your sermon.
Do not tell your congregation that you intend to conclude and then fail to do so. Unfortunately, words such as “finally” or “in conclusion” sometimes promise what they don’t deliver. In fact, words such as these should be used sparingly. In a well-planned sermon, conclusions should conclude without announcing their appearance.
Your conclusions need not be long. At times a sudden stop can have powerful effect. You will find your strongest conclusions are those that stop a sentence or two before the audience expects it. Poorly prepared conclusions that wander about looking for an exit line leave a congregation looking toward the exit. In the words of an old farmer, “When you’re through pumpin’, let go of the handle.” William E. Sangster puts it clearly:
Having come to the end, stop. Do not cruise about looking for a spot to land, like some weary swimmer coming in from the sea and splashing about until he can find a shelving beach up which to walk. Come right in, and land at once. Finish what you have to say and end at the same time. If the last phrase can have some quality of crisp memorableness, all the better, but do not grope even for that. Let your sermon have the quality that Charles Wesley coveted for his whole life: let the work and the course end together.9
Conclusion—gives the congregation a view of the idea, entire and complete. It brings the central concept to a burning focus and drives home its truth to the minds and lives of the listeners.
Introduction—exposes the congregation to the subject, the major idea, or the first point of the sermon.
Major characteristics of an effective introduction—
Questions and activities for this chapter can be found in the student exercises section at the back of the book.
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1. Clovis G. Chappell, Questions Jesus Asked (Nashville: Abingdon, 1948; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), 30.
2. In George Hunt, “Editor’s Note: Attila the Hun in a Tattered Sweater,” Life, November 13, 1964, 3.
3. Arthur R. Cohen, “Need For Cognition and Order of Communication as Determinants of Opinion Change,” in The Order of Presentation in Persuasion, by Carl I. Hovland et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 79–97.
4. Charles R. Swindoll, For Those Who Hurt (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1977).
5. Leslie J. Tizard, Preaching: The Art of Communication (London: Allen and Unwin, 1958), 22.
6. Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1970).
7. Peter Marshall, John Doe, Disciple: Sermons for the Young in Spirit, ed. Catherine Marshall (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 219–20.
8. For an extended discussion of visualization, see Alan H. Monroe, Principles and Types of Speech, 327–29.
9. William E. Sangster, The Craft of Sermon Construction, 150.