Mastering the Five Questions That Transform Your Sermon Preparation - Part One

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Have you ever been on stage teaching or preaching and suddenly you forget where you are or what you’re talking about? You just go blank for a few seconds. I’ve been there, I’ve been in your shoes, and it can be terrifying to the point that you doubt your calling or purpose. 

But get this! 

What if I told you that every time you get up to speak, whether it’s a sermon, a wedding, or even a funeral, you could be confident and have authority in your words and your message? In today’s episode, we discussed the most important question you need to ask, and this one question changed everything I knew about teaching.  

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Top Five Questions For Sermon Prep

Bryan 0:01

Today we're talking about the top five questions you need to ask before your next sermon . Have you ever been on stage teaching or preaching and suddenly you forget everything you're trying to say ? Your mind goes totally blank . You're staring at the audience . They're staring back at you . You look down at your outline , you look back at the audience and you don't know what to say . I have been there , I have been in your shoes many times and it can be terrifying . It can even make you doubt your calling and your purpose as a preacher , as a communicator . So you want to be confident . Well , stick around as we discuss the top five questions you need to ask before your next sermon .

Bryan 0:56

Hello everyone and welcome to the Speak On Purpose podcast . I am your host , brian Cox . I am your host , brian Cox . What if I told you that the next time you stand up to speak maybe leading a meeting , maybe giving a sermon , maybe a wedding or even a funeral you could stand there with confidence . You could stand there with authority in your words and a message that would help people .

Bryan 1:27

I discovered this learning these five questions that Andy Stanley showed me in his book Communicating for Change , and it's been liberating for me once I learned to apply these to my message . So I want to jump into the first question right now , and here it is

Question One: What Do They Need to Know? Where are we going?

Bryan 1:48

what do they need to know ? Let me say that again . Question number one what do they need to know ? Now , this may sound simple , but I find this to be one of the hardest questions I've ever had to answer . When I sit down with my pastor friends and we try to figure out what do they need to know , we tend to come up with many things we want to communicate , but the goal is to get it down to one what is the destination ? Where are we going ? So I wanted to break it out for you in four steps To answer this one question . We're going to do this in four steps because it's very important that we get it down to one , because then you will be able to communicate it .

Bryan 2:46

I tend to think of it this way Imagine you're coming home from your vacation and the whole family's in the car and everybody's hungry and tired , and you turn around . You say hey , everybody , where would you like to eat ? If you know anything about this , you know what your family's going to say Chick-fil-A , probably . That's what my family said . And I'd say , no , how about McDonald's . They're like , oh no . And then the wife would come in and say , how about Subway ? And what I figured out was I'm never going to make everybody happy , but I have to make a decision .

Bryan 3:30

Same way with your sermon and your message you have to decide what you're going to say . Now . It may not be the most popular thing you say , but it might be necessary for this sermon . You've got to decide where am I taking people ? What is the destination ? So the first step in answering that

Step One: Define Your Audience

Bryan 3:55

would be this who are they ? You must define the they . Who is in the car ? Where am I taking them ?

Bryan 4:06

Okay , this is not a pronoun thing . Okay , this is who is in the room thing ? Who is in the meeting ? Who is going to be hearing what I'm trying to say ? So here's what I do .

Bryan 4:18

Here's kind of how I've always done this . I'll even write down , you know , like the venue where I'm going to be speaking , the environment , if it's a conference or if it's a Sunday morning , or is it a Bible study , is it a meeting . You know , write down that venue and then I would write down also the demographics of that room . What age groups ? Is it kids and family , is it teenagers ? Is it college and career ? Is it a mix of all ? Because what's going to happen when you think about they ? It'll help you understand what stories to tell , what analogies and metaphors you need to tell . You may need to hit each segment as you speak , and that's what we call gaining common ground , because without common ground , without knowing the they , you're not going to be able to be convincing . You're going to have to hit people where they are . So that's why it's important still okay to be very specific . What destination can I take all these people ?

Bryan 5:31

I've heard this one time a pastor . He got up to preach a Christmas sermon and he was preaching and the opening line was this . Now , the opening line was I remember the day I stopped believing in Santa Claus and the room just got quiet because it was a Christmas service . So everybody was in the room , all the kids , all the adults , and you could just like feel that , oh , what do I do now ? He did not think about the room . Who is going to be hearing this ? Define the they . That is your first

Step Two: Pinpoint Your Key Verse

Bryan 6:10

step . Now let's move on to the second step Pinpoint your key verse .

Bryan 6:17

I like to think of the Bible this way , like it's a map , what I would call a map to a treasure of truth , a truth so great it could change the hearts and the minds of people that are listening . If you think about it , where would we be without maps ? Most of us would be lost right , especially if we're on a dark highway or a dusty road . I know I've been there before and hoping the GPS will work , but I'm of the age when in my early classrooms we had rolled up maps hanging above the chalkboards . We also would carry maps in our dashboards of our cars . You could buy books of maps at any gas station . In those days . I think we called it the Road Atlas . I remember my dad was an expert at reading maps . He was a truck driver for Walmart for almost 40 years and he could pinpoint just about any location on a map . You could say he could read the Bible , or , let me say it this way , he could read the map like it was the Bible , pun intended . And all this was before GPS or map apps were on our smartphones .

Bryan 7:41

And , just like reading a map , what treasure of truth or verse will you pull from this map we call the Bible . You know when we dig and we mine the Bible , as has happened to me so many times , we discover the most amazing truth and spiritual knowledge . I always get something different out of it . No matter how many times I've read a verse , something always new , some nugget of truth always comes out . So you've pinpointed your key verse . That verse you're going to pull truth and treasure from . That verse you're going to pull truth and treasure from and you're going to communicate that truth to your audience or your congregation or wherever you may be .

Bryan 8:32

Okay , so I wanted to give you a quick example illustration of how I do this . Maybe that'll help you . So I'm going to pick one of my favorite verses , pull some truth out of it and we're going to break it out into these steps . Okay , my verse here . I love this verse . It's Joshua 1.8 . And what I like to do when I have a verse , when I'm creating a sermon , you know I want to read it in multiple translations . I really want to know and understand the context of the verse and that could be a whole nother podcast . But I want to understand who wrote it , who it was written to , what does it mean ? I want to make sure I'm pulling truth and treasure from it and not adding to it . Okay , so here's my verse . I love this verse , joshua 1.8 . And I'm going to read it to you in two translations , and then we're going to map it out and break it out . I'm going to show you how to do that . So let me read that to you now .

Bryan 9:39

This is the New International Version . It says keep the book of the law on your lips national version . It says keep the book of the law on your lips , meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it . Then you will be prosperous and successful . Okay , now I'll read it in the New Living Translation Study this book of instruction . Continually Meditate on it day and night , so you will be sure to obey everything written in it . Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do . That is so powerful . It's so simple . You know Meditate on His Word night and and day , and you will be prosperous and successful . What a great idea . And we can teach on that .

Bryan 10:35

And once I get the foundation and the context of that verse who wrote it ? You know who it was written to . Then I can move on to our next step , where we're going to break out our verse , and

Step Three: Mapping Your Route

Bryan 10:50

I call this step three , mapping your route . And so what I do ? I go back and I study this verse and I'm going to tell you the few things that I highlighted that I thought was important . The word keep it's a verb . You need to keep it . You need to do this . Next word was the book it's an object . Keep the book of the law . Again , it's simple , but it's important to get to the truth . Keep the book of the law on your lips , a highlighted lips , because another way to say speak is constantly speak these words .

Bryan 11:34

Again , I highlighted meditate , another verb . And then I highlighted day and night , location or times , so that you will be careful to do so . Here's really interesting . I highlighted the you . In the context , you is Joshua , but we can definitely make that work for us . We can definitely apply that to us or those who are listening , and if we are careful to do this , careful to do everything written , which is another verb then we will be prosperous . I highlighted that word and successful . This is the result of what we're doing . This is the result of the truth that we're finding here . If you do these things , this is what will happen .

Bryan 12:26

And then I take this same idea and I read another translation and here is the additional translation . It says study the book again of instruction continually , which is another word you know constantly . So I highlighted continually Again . Meditate day and night times . Be sure to obey Another one I highlighted . Be sure to obey another one . I highlighted everything written in it . This was unique to this translation . It said only then I thought that was interesting only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do .

Step Four: Make A List (Follow Directions)

Bryan 13:18

So I take all of that truth , all those words that I've highlighted , and I move them to the next step , which I call step four , and it's called make a list . But what I would ask you to do before you move on to the next step , that you would try this If you got my outline , if you got the worksheet , go ahead and do this for yourself , begin to study it , pick your translations , begin to break it out , meditate on it , like it says , highlight some words and then we'll move on to step four , where we'll make a list , what I would call follow directions .

Bryan 13:51

Have you ever bought some furniture from Ikea ? I know most of us have and you get it . And if you're like me , you're kind of impatient and you just start putting it together . You look at the picture on the box and you just start putting it together . Then , when you get done , or you think you're done , you look on the floor and there's some screws left , there's a piece of wood left . You're like I left something out . Same way here . We can't just take it and look at the picture . We have to understand it . We have to read the directions , we have to contemplate what is being said , when it's being said , who it's being said to and what we can take from that . What truth can we apply to us and those who are listening ? We need to follow directions or we'll never understand the true picture . The point is , you got to make a list , you got to follow directions if you want to have a chance of understanding the true picture of what needs to be said and what not to say . And if you do this , you won't get lost along the way , I promise you .

Bryan 15:04

So here are the categories . First one who are the characters ? Who is in the story ? We can see that . We can write down the word you that was highlighted . I'd also write down because of the context , joshua . We know God is talking to Joshua , so we would write that under our first category who are the characters ? Second category locations and times . It was very evident in both of our translations that day and night , day and night definitely needs to go there 24 hours a day .

Bryan 15:47

Basically , our third category is objects . What objects did we see ? We saw the book , we saw law , we read lips . We need to speak these words , we need to speak the truths . So that would be under objects . And then our fourth category would be actions and movement within the text , which I wrote a good bit . I wrote keep , meditate , be careful to do written , and I even wrote prosper and succeed , because when we do these things it moves us forward . It's movement in the text that shows us a result .

Bryan 16:35

Once I have that list , then I can move on to one of my favorite things to do , and that is step five . Step five is create your own sentence . How can I say this ? You need to make it relate , make it understandable , but it needs to be truth . What you need to understand here is we're not making up a truth . We're going to know the context , we're going to look at the list of words we have and we're going to create a sentence , at least two sentences that point to the truth and point to the context . Truth and point to the context .

Bryan 17:14

My daughter , when she was younger , we were opening a box , I guess , of a toy and my wife said to her said well , lily , you can't do this because you need supervision . And she said well , mom , I don't have supervision . I just thought that was so cute and funny the way she saw it . She saw it differently . So we don't want to change , we don't want to make it something that it's not . We want it to be clear , we want the vision to be clear and understandable . So that's why context matters while we do this .

Who Is Speaking And Why? Context

Bryan 17:55

So what we do ? We take these lists of words . We asked ourselves who is speaking ? This is God , and why is he speaking ? Context he's telling Joshua if you do these things and you lead Israel this way , good things will happen . But you must meditate on my word day and night . You must follow it , and only then will you see

Step Five: Write Your Own Sentence

Bryan 18:22

good things . Write your own sentence using these list of words you made . Okay . For example , here's what I came up with Looking at my list .

Bryan 18:31

In step four , I said if you speak and meditate on the law , you will be careful to do what is written . Very simple , but in context . You again is Joshua in the context , but it can be applied , I think , to our lives . The second one I wrote was this If you speak and meditate on this book , then , and only then will you be successful . That then , and only then , came from the other translation , which I thought was pretty awesome , that it's basically telling us the only way to be successful and prosperous is to meditate on God's word day and night . You must keep him in your life . I think I could preach that . I think that would be a good main idea and , again , this is a very simple process to pull that truth out . So our truth if you speak and meditate on this book , then , and only then will you be successful .

Step Six: Name Your Destination

Bryan 19:36

So let's answer that question again . Step six name our destination .

Bryan 19:39

Now that we know the verse , we understand the context , we've made a list , we've made a sentence . Now we need to ask that question

What Do They Need To Know?

Bryan 19:47

again what do they need to know ? Basically , what do they need to know ? They need to read and meditate on the Word of God every day . That's our truth , very simple , but to the point they need to read and meditate on the Word of God every day . This is just the first question what do they need to know ?

Bryan 20:14

I have five of these . Some are not as detailed , but before you speak , before you stand up to say anything , you must know what you're trying to say . You see , we're still in the defining stage of the sermon . Once we answer all the questions , then we can begin to put together an outline that communicates this idea . Well , I hope this has helped you , and I wanted to say this before I leave today Be sure to download the PDF notes . There's a worksheet there with a sample of what I've been talking about . Also , there's a blank worksheet there that you can use on your own , so make sure you download that from the podcast notes . Also , I wanted to let you know I will be working on our next question , which is this why do they need to know it ? This is a fun one . No-transcript .