Six words

A tip someone once shared on preaching is to give your sermon a title fairly early on in your preparation, and to make this title revolve around a verb in the imperative.

So "Live out your union with Jesus", or "Glorify the goodness and patience of God", or "Pray in the Spirit always" for example.

The goal is to stop you rambling on all around the houses about this and that and not having a point, let alone never getting to the point. You may or you may not announce your title, but hopefully people would realise what your point is !

Well this whole 'six words" things made me wonder whether we coud sum up the point of a message in six words. For example, from Rev 2 to the church in Ephesus it would be Get back to your first love ! or similar...

Again any tip if it helps - it's all grist to the mill !

Comments

Maxime Soumagnas said…
I think it's good to See it as an exercise to clarify our thoughts rather than a rule set in stone!
10:45 am
Alan said…
Really ?

I should have made clear that this should be a RULE SET IN STONE and that nobody should ever preach again unless they have a six word title with the principal verb in the imperative.


Oops - forgot the word "not" in that sentence above.
10:56 am
Anonymous said…
it almost sounded like a despotic preaching rule!
11:39 am
Alan said…
I like the word "almost" in your comment :~)
1:17 pm
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