Sermon Outline

A New Approach

A fresh new approach to sermon writing is offered with this series. This series is formatted in the five movements created by Andy Stanley, Senior Pastor of North Point Church and author of Communicating for a Change. This format is simple, yet powerful and provides enough flexibility to adapt to a wide range of contexts. If you haven’t tried it, please do.

Who What Transition
1. Me Start with a personal story, often (but not necessarily) funny or slightly self-deprecating to help humanize the speaker and root the sermon in real-life experiences. “And I think we all deal with this issue in one way or the other…”
2. We Make sure every listener has decided that the sermon actually applies to them, otherwise, they don’t need to pay attention.  Take the time to articulate the different ways the sermon can apply to the different types of people listening. For example, if you are preaching about fear, talk about the fear of failure, losing a loved one, change, becoming obsolete, parenting, unemployment, etc. “As it turns out, scripture has a lot to say about this; let’s take a look at our passage…”
3. God Unpack the scripture passage. Offer context, provide helpful historical orientation and clarify what God might be saying to us about this topic. “So in light of all this, what does this mean in our own lives?”
4. You Get to the action. What is a specific challenge we can make to our listeners? Is there a way to remember this challenge midweek? How is today’s message going to affect lives on Tuesday afternoon? “Can you imagine if our church/community/world actually did this?”
5. We Take a moment to imagine a world where people actually lived out the challenge from the sermon. Are people’s lives better? Is the Kingdom of God lived out in a real way? “May we hear God’s challenge to no longer ________, and as a result, may the world know ________. Amen.”