Skill Builders

Home > Skill Builders

The Movement of the Sermon

How to make Jesus the "hero" of every sermon.

Tim Keller

Your outline has to have movement, progression, tension. I hear many sermons that are simply a string of good thoughts that could almost be set forth in any order—even if they are all faithfully taken from the text and in general accord with the sermon theme. That is actually a series of mini sermons, and it is invariably tedious, even when delivered with conviction. Each point in a compelling sermon must contribute something new to the theme, building on previous ones, sometimes making use of clues and undeveloped thoughts mentioned earlier but opened at just the right moment later on. In your sermons you must build some suspense that creates an eagerness to hear what is coming next and a sense of traveling to a destination. Skillful preachers can state earlier points in such a way that it will cause questions to be raised in listeners' minds: If this is true, doesn't it contradict that? or Won't this create a problem with that? If that is what the Bible says, how do ...