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 or not 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.
Stage 10: Prepare the introduction and 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 your congregation sits 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. 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. 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.
The possibilities for an opening statement that gets attention are as wide as your creativity.
You may start with a paradox: “Many children of God live as though they were orphans.”
You may use a familiar thought in an unfamiliar setting: “‘Honesty is the best policy.’ When a person says that, he may not be honest at all. He may simply be shrewd.”
Rhetorical questions reach for attention: “If it were possible for God to die and He died this morning, how long would it take you to find out?”
A startling fact or statistic may charm your audience into listening: “One out of three marriages ends in the divorce court. Only one marriage in six is happy.”
Having read your text, you can make a provocative comment about it: “There is a delicious touch of humor about this text. Jesus is deadly serious, but that fact does not interfere with his laughter.”59
At times a touch of humor can win attention: “A business-man, completing his annual checkup, was assured by his physician, ‘Sir, you’re as sound as a dollar!’ The man fainted.”
Your passage itself can be the basis of attention: “For many people Hebrews chapter six is the most perplexing passage in the Bible.” Occasionally you may go directly to the passage: “This morning I’d like to begin by making a confession. I’d like to bring you the message of another preacher. That is, after all, the way Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, introduces himself.”
All of us sit up and listen at the prospect of a story: “Mary Watson was a housewife in her late thirties. She thought of herself as young and still attractive even though she had been married fifteen years and was the mother of three children. In the space of a month she developed into an ugly, old woman.”
At other times you will drive directly to your subject with a confrontive statement: “If you claim to be a Christian, you must believe in the Trinity.”
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. Social scientist Arthur R. Cohen concluded that when audiences receive information that meets felt needs, two things happen:
more learning takes place
opinions change faster and more permanently than when information is given and then applied to life.
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.
Needs take many shapes and forms. Christians differ from non-Christians not in their needs but in the ways their needs are met. 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.
In your introduction you may touch the need in your audience 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.
The introduction may go beyond the subject and orient hearers to the main idea. 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 non-negotiable. There are other factors that usually appear in good 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 they feel sorry. If you are less prepared than you want to be, let the congregation discover it for themselves. In many cases they 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 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 they settle 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 them pay attention to the reading.
What about humor? The simple answer is “handle it with care.” If it directs the listener’s 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.
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.
THE CONCLUSION#
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. 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.
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.
A 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.
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.
A Question#
An appropriate question, or even a series of questions, can conclude a sermon effectively. A sermon on the Good Samaritan ended: “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 Pharisee, the preacher, without calling the people to prayer, cried, “O God, be merciful to us, the sinners. Amen.”
Specific Directions#
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, they 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. 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#
Visualization is a method that projects a congregation into the future and pictures a situation in which they 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.
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 listener’s mind 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.