Ep. 7: The Three Movements of the Open

Most preachers spend the least preparation time on the part of the sermon the congregation experiences first.

Before you announce your text, before you say a word about the passage — something has already happened in the room. The congregation has already begun deciding whether to follow you. Not consciously. But the moment you begin speaking, something in them is evaluating whether this is worth their sustained attention.

That evaluation doesn't wait for your first point. It happens in the first sixty seconds.

In this episode, Jonathan McClintock unpacks the three movements of the Open — the sequential framework that turns a rushed introduction into a well-crafted on-ramp to the sermon. Each movement has a specific job. Each depends on the one before it.

The three movements:

• Grab Attention — Start where the audience is. Create a point of entry.
• Secure Interest — Bridge the listener's world to the coming truth. This is the passage from the shore to the deep.
• Introduce the Take-Home Truth — Lead the congregation to the central claim. It should feel like an arrival, not an announcement.

You'll also walk away with a practical guideline for how long your Open should be — and the one diagnostic question that tells you whether it's doing its job.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. The Open is that one chance.

Transcript

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Before you say a word about your passage, before you say one word about the text that you'll be preaching from, something has already happened in the room. The congregation has already begun deciding whether to follow you or not. Now the theology, not the exegesis, whether this is worth their sustained attention. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Clear Preaching Podcast. My name is Jonathan McClintock, and today we're going to look at the three movements of the open. The three movements of the open. So when you hear me talk about the open, it's what would normally people would call the introduction. Introduction, body, conclusion. I like to refer to him as the open, the build, and the close. And so what are the three movements of the open? I believe that the open should move, have three primary movements to it. The open's not the warm-up. It's not uh to get the crowd just necessarily warmed up and it just to get you comfortable in the pulpit. The open has more purpose than that. Now there are always going to be those pre-open comments, those pre-introductory comments. If you are speaking at a brand new church and you're wanting to greet and say thank you to the pastor and from everybody, or even when you're pastoring and speaking on a week-to-week basis, perhaps those first things you say when you get to the pulpit before the message begins, you might greet somebody, you might give an announcement, you might do something, but those are all pre-open comments. But when the open begins, there is a purpose behind it. It's not just a warm-up. What a lot of preachers think is the open's preliminary. It really doesn't matter. It's just it doesn't really matter a whole lot exactly what you say. Uh it doesn't really have a big purpose. It's just the warm-up before the real sermon begins. Now, not every preacher feels that way, but there are some. The truth is the open is the sermon beginning. It's part of the sermon. And what happens in those first 60 to 90 seconds really determines everything after. And most preachers spend the least preparation time on this part of the sermon, the one that the congregation experiences first. Now, what the open is actually for. Well, the congregation, first of all, needs to be prepared to hear the message profitably. They need their hearts, their minds, their ears, they need to be prepared for what's coming. So it cannot be haphazard in how we deliver it or what we say. There's got to be a purpose and a direction that we're heading. If the audience is not prepared, everything that follows lands on unprepared soil. In fact, looking at the open, kind of like the tiller that goes out to the ground and kind of digs at the surface a little bit and overturning some of the some of the soil so that the seed can go down into the earth. That's a little bit of what I see the open as. Sure, the word can accomplish a lot. The word is the ultimate. It is powerful, but the audience needs prepared. They walk in carrying the entire week with them on a Sunday morning. They're carrying Monday through Saturday with them. All the worries and the distractions and the conversation they had just in the parking lot. You know, husbands and wives are at that a little bit. They've struggled with getting the kids ready all morning long. Maybe they got a phone call on the way to church, weren't expecting on a Sunday morning, and it's kind of thrown them off a little bit. So the open joins in with all the other worship and prayer that's gone on to now really gear them for the message, for the idea, for the thought, for the truth that's getting ready to be presented. So the open's first job is to bring them into the room. Bring their minds that are wondering, bring their spirit, bring them present into the room. The second thing the open's actually for is to peak the interest of your audience, peak their willingness to follow. Their initial willingness to listen to you for the next 25, 30, 40 minutes has to be earned. It doesn't always happen automatically. So the initial willingness, peak that willingness to follow. And the third thing that the open is actually for is to address here at the very beginning, the open of the sermon, address the need of the hearer. The congregation comes with questions they haven't fully formed. You know, why does this matter? Why should I care what you're saying? And a good open answers long before those questions become obstacles. Now, I should say that majority of the people you might preach to on a Sunday who are churched people, they have heard preaching many years of their lives, they are familiar with the Bible, they have a relationship with Jesus Christ, they they have an understanding of what church is all about, and they know why they're there. Those people, which in most Sundays, on most Sundays, for most of us, that might be the majority of the congregation. And they'll probably give us a little more space to get down the runway, a little more uh willingness to sit there and wait on us to kind of get to the point. But for those that are distracted, for those that are burdened, for those that have a lot of their mind, for those that are unchurch, for those that aren't used to sitting and hearing preaching Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, the congregation comes with these questions. Am I going to hear something that's actually for me today? Am I going to hear something that's actually speaks to me today? Why should I care what the preacher is getting ready to say? And so helping answer those before they become obstacles. The open, here's the image, you kind of keep in your mind. The open takes the audience from the shore to the deep. The open takes the audience from the beach, from that sand that's between their toes, and maybe some of them are, and they're just they're just happy to have 30 minutes, an hour, hour and a half of just no work. And maybe even the kids are off in Sunday school or kids' church, and they're on the shore, and the open is going to invite them off out of the shore, off the banks, and out into the deep, gradually, intentionally, and with a purpose. So there's the shore, and then this transition that you're going to get them out to the deep. People have a natural aversion to abruptness. You can't just toss them into the water, and hey, time to swim. So this open is that bridge that carries people from the shore to the deep. So let's look at these three movements in detail for the next few minutes. Each movement has a specific job, and each depends on the one before it. So let's look at these and how I like to describe them. Here's the sequence. Number one, grab attention. Number two, just secure interest. Number three, introduce the take-home truth. Grab attention, secure interest, introduce the take-home truth. You cannot secure interest without grabbing first, grabbing attention. And you shouldn't introduce the truth that's going to be preached before interest is secured. So grab attention, secure interest, introduce the take-home truth. So look at this first movement of the introduction of this open, grab attention. My suggestion, and this is how, again, I'm giving you how I preach and I understand my way is not the only way. My way may not even be the best way for you. But I want to give it to you in this way that I understand it, that I see it, so that you can translate it into your preaching. And if you'd like to try it this way, uh more power to you. I think I think it can help. I think preaching is a very personal thing too. So you see how one person does it, and there are some things you'll copy and mimic. There'll be other things, ah, I like that, but I want to do it in this way. So this is just to kind of help give you context and help you in how you do your open, your introduction, and possibly maybe give you a new way to look at it, and maybe a new element to add and to help you grab attention, secure interest, and introduce the take-home truth. Grab attention. This is what I use that take-home truth that we're going to be introducing towards the end of the introduction, this take-home truth that the sermon is going to be all about, driving home this idea. I will use the from that take-home truth to grab a keyword or a concept from it, and then I will take that and try to decide, okay, where in that concept, in that keyword, is my audience living? Where can I bring this to where they are right now? I want to go to their world, take that concept, that idea, help them see that in their world. So through a story, a real life example, a quotation, a striking statement, start where the audience is and start and grab attention from there. The goal is to the goal is not to be clever here. We love it when we can be clever. We can be very creative, and we want to be as much as possible. But the goal is not just being clever. The goal is to create a point of entry for your audience. Remember, they're on the shore. You're inviting them out to the deep to see this truth you're about to present from Scripture, to see this truth in a way maybe they've never seen it before, or if they have, remind them of this truth so that they come out to the deep, they're reminded of this truth, and their life can be maybe some correction can come, maybe some encouragement can come, maybe some strength can come, maybe some new direction can come. So grabbing attention. Secondly, we want to secure interest. We want to bridge from that opening hook that concept, that key idea, that truth, that uh phrase, that key concept inside that take-home truth. And I'm gonna help bridge from the opening hook to the to the text now and to the take-home truth. I want to connect the listener's world to the coming truth. And this is the passage from shore to deep. This is the bridge from coming from shore out to the deep. And this is where most preachers rush. It's the movement that does the most relational work there. It's where you begin to really connect with your audience. And then finally, after you've grabbed attention, you've you've secured interest, showing them, taking them to the text, pulling them out, then you're gonna introduce this take-home truth. You introduce the central idea of the sermon. You introduce this one idea that you're gonna drive home and help them to see it from every angle that you can, every way that you can, you're gonna introduce this take-home truth. So you're gonna lead the congregation naturally to this central claim. And it should feel like an arrival, not announcement. If you build the open in a particular way, once you come to this idea of introducing the take-home truth, it should naturally flow. In fact, the audience should be leaning into it, ready to hear it. And then when they hear the take-home truth, it sparks something in their mind, their eyes are open, their ears are perked up, their heart is softened. So then you can begin to unpack this in the build of the sermon. They should be leaning toward the truth before they ever hear it stated. It should never land like, wow, that came out of nowhere. Or, man, I didn't see that coming necessarily, but okay. It should actually, once they hear that take home truth, it should be a natural, okay, I'm with you here. I'm with you. I want to hear more about this. Arrival not announced. An announcement is you state the take-home truth before the congregation is ready to receive it. Doing the right thing at the wrong time, giving them the truth before their heart's really ready to be prepared. Now, you're not unpacking the truth wholly and completely. That's what the build of the sermon is for. And then you're going to press it in on them when the close comes. But you're introducing, and I think sometimes we like this element of surprise when we're preaching. And I believe there are moments when that surprise comes around and just, wow, wasn't expecting that, and boom, truth bomb, drop, mic drop, all that. But most messages we preach, we're not spoiling anything by letting them in on the truth towards the beginning. We're not spoiling anything. In fact, if you build the open to what in the way that it can be built, you're creating intrigue. And then when you give them the the, you introduce the truth to them, they're not satisfied. They're not, wow, I can go home now. I want to hear more. You mean that's the truth. I want to know more about that. I want to see where that really fits in my life. And then you have this whole build section of the sermon to build that out. So it's not an announcement. You want the congregation ready to receive, but the congregation leans toward the truth before they hear it stated. The open earn their readiness. A preacher who announces the take-home truth before interest is secured has done the right thing at the wrong time. I have a course inside the Clear Preaching Academy, six lessons just on this open. And we dive deep into each one of these movements from grab attention, secure interest, and introduce the take-home truth. And there are examples in each one of those. I'm just kind of hitting on it right now. Uh the Clear Preaching Academy opens June 1st. Uh, you can go to the website, clearpreaching.com, join the wait list, you know, right when it's open. There will be that course on the on the open that will be live the moment that the Clear Preaching Academy opens. Uh, but I wanted to give you this today because hopefully, whether you join the Academy or not, and go through that course or not, I want to give you at least these movements so you know what you're looking for when you build that this open has a purpose, it has a direction. There, there's an aim that we're going for. And we we want to make sure that we don't want to waste these these first few minutes of the sermon and and and not take advantage of the the what can be uh if we handle this open right. There's there's a there's a rule called the 1080-10 rule. And when we apply this to the open, this means that roughly 10% of the term uh the sermon's total time belongs to the open. So if you're uh preaching 30 minutes, then around three minutes or so belong to that open. 80 minutes belong, 80% belongs to that build, and then another 10% belongs to the close. So we can go too short, we can we can not make the runway long enough, and we jump to the truth and jump to the the build of the sermon too quickly, the audience isn't ready. We can also go too long until we wear out the the audience, and they're it's they're already somewhat spent by the time we get to the build that maybe we oversell the truth at the beginning. We give too much away at the beginning. That can happen too. So, too short is a few rushed sentences before diving into the text. The congregation isn't ready. The aversion to abruptness goes unaddressed. But again, it can go too long, five, seven, ten minutes before the text appears and the bulk of the build appears. The congregation's patience is spent before the sermon even begins. So the goal here, this 1080-10 rule, is not a hard, fast rule. It's just something to keep in mind. But here's the real thing you want to pay attention to. You want the open to be long enough to prepare the congregation, but brief enough to serve the sermon. Long enough to get the congregation ready to not only receive that truth you share, but then I want to hear more about that. I want you to go deeper with that. I want you to help me understand that fully. So long enough to prepare the congregation, but brief enough to serve the sermon. So I want you to try this week, before you finalize your sermon, ask these three questions about your open. Number one, have I grabbed attention? Or did I just start talking? Was there a purpose behind that first sentence I even said? Did I grab their attention? Or did I just kind of hem-haul my way into it, just start talking? I'm going to find my way through this. We'll get there. Let me get you the heart of what I want to talk about. So have I grabbed attention. Secondly, have I secured interest? Or did I just jump straight to the truth before they were ready? Did I give it away before their hearts are really ready? If I do that, then sometimes I do we do have that moment where the congregation is like, okay, I know what I'm going to talk about. I'm checked out. But if you take time to grab attention and secure interest, then by the time you mention that truth, as I said, the heart, their hearts, I want to know more. I want to tell me more about this. Build this out. Show me where this fits in my life. So ask yourself have I grabbed attention? Number two, have I secured interest? Number three, have I introduced the take-home truth in a way that feels like an arrival, not an announcement. By the time I got to that take-home truth and this idea that I'm going to unpack and the build, when I got to the end of my open and I shared that, the way I shared it, was it like an announcement? Or did it arrive? Were people leaning into it? Were people ex maybe not expecting exactly what I said, but when I said it, yeah, that makes sense. Those three questions are the three movements. And that's the three movements of the open. So remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The open is that one chance. So I invite you, make it count. Amen. I pray that God uses you this Sunday as you preach his word. Again, check out the Clear Preaching Academy. We open to the public on June 1st. You can go to ClearPreaching.com, read all about it, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and look forward to seeing you inside the Academy. God bless.