Pastor's Pastor

Pastor's Pastor: Sermons and skeletons

Pastor's Pastor: Sermons and skeletons

Floyd Bresee is the Secretary of the General Conference Ministerial Association.

Bones tend to repel rather than attract. We draw back from the ugly leer of a skull. We use skeletons to frighten people. We speak of the ominous "skeletons in our closets," implying that a skeleton is something to be hidden, to be ashamed of.

Bones don't attract. Yet put skin and muscles on them, and we find them beautiful. In fact, without bones, the skin and muscles of the perfectly proportioned athlete and the beautiful woman would fall to the floor, a useless, unattractive blob. Skeletons aren't beautiful, but there's no human beauty without them.

In preaching we call the sermon out line or organization the skeleton. On this skeleton we hang the muscle of our biblical evidence, logical arguments, and practical content. Then we add the skin of our delivery and call it a sermon.

Sometimes as preachers we're tempted to treat the content and delivery as important while regarding the sermon skeleton or outline as unimportant and even unnecessary. We must remember that muscle and skin are of little value without the bones.

Notice three ways in which the sermon skeleton resembles the human skeleton: 1. Both are necessary. Bones make the body work, and good organization makes the sermon work.

Good organisation helps the listeners listen. The difference between a five-course meal and hash is organization. Diners prefer that the cook serve appetizer, soup, salad, entree, and dessert separately and in the proper order. If the cook were to mix together the ingredients that make up all five of these courses and serve them as hash, the diners would com plain.

Human nature instinctively desires order. In fact, listening to a disorganized sermon may so frustrate the housekeeper who has a precise place for everything in her kitchen and the man who keeps all his tools in a certain order on his work bench that they miss the message and lose the blessing.

Good organization helps the listeners understand. Notice the chapters of a book or the articles in a magazine. Almost invariably subtitles divide and simplify the content. If writers show their skeletons to make their work more understand able, it is doubly important that speakers do so. Readers can go back and reread what they have missed or misunderstood. Listeners cannot.

So a sermon head should not be entirely unrelated to those that have come before. Rather each should increase the listener's understanding by expanding on the previous points.

Good organisation helps preachers be logical. Organizing an outline forces the preacher to determine which idea is the tree, which is a branch of the tree, and which is a branch of a branch.

Good organisation helps both preachers and listeners remember—which provides additional advantages. By using a simple, easy-to-remember outline, a preacher can almost preach a sermon without notes. And when listeners go away remembering the sermon outline or parts of it, the sermon stays with them longer.

2. Both are inconspicuous. Skeletons are essential to human beauty, but you don't parade them around. You'd rather feature the muscles and skin. The skeleton is essential to a sermon, but you shouldn't allow much of it to show. Rather, focus attention on the content and delivery.

Make your sermon lessons, rather than your sermon heads, clever and unique. Beware of such heads as "Shin Bone, Wish Bone, Back Bone" and "Commentator, Dictator, Hesitator." Use such heads only if they say precisely what you want to say—not just because they're clever. Even alliteration ("Permanence, Price, Power") can be overdone.

Clever is good, but it is secondary. Clarity must always come before cleverness. Your listeners need deep thoughts simply expressed and practically applied.

3. Both are varied. Human skeletons vary vastly—from the tall to the short, from the wide to the narrow. Sermon skeletons that vary considerably from week to week help prevent listeners from getting bored with their preachers.

Vary the way you make the transitions within your sermons. Options include:

1. Numerical—"First, ..." "Second, . . .""Third,..."

2. Rhetorical—"Why does God love us?" "Does He love Christians more than non-Christians?"

3. Expository—Read the next portion of the text or passage.

4. Geographical—"Upper Room," "Gethsemane," "Caiphas* Courtyard."

5. Or simply announce each division —"Next, let's notice..."

Bones aren't beautiful, but there's no human beauty without them. Next time you preach, support your spiritual con tent and fervent delivery with a symmetrical skeleton that will help the flesh of your sermon attract your listeners to Jesus.


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Floyd Bresee is the Secretary of the General Conference Ministerial Association.

November 1989

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