With that in mind, I submit that pastors should never speak until it is time for the message. You might say, "Well, Ed, my church has fifty people." Others might respond, "You don't understand, Ed, I am the best guy to do it." I still believe the speaker should not utter a word until the message is at hand. Instead of stretching yourself too thin and taking away from the impact of your message, try an alternative. Train others for those roles that require leadership from the stage — for pastoral prayers, for Scripture reading, for the welcome, for announcements, for leading music, and for anything else that takes place during the weekend service.

If you are trying to do all of that and still give a powerful, relevant, creative message, you are not only setting yourself up for burnout but also taking away from the impact of the message. Give the ball of ministry to others and you'll develop competent stage leaders and ensure that the impact of those first few crucial words of your introduction will not be muted.

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Let me also suggest that you use a variety of approaches in your introductions. I know how easy and safe it is to come out week after week and use the same format for your messages. You tell a funny story, introduce the big idea, transition to your three main points and conclude with a summary and restatement of the big idea. That's not a bad approach, but it's also very predictable. If you're going to keep your audience guessing, if you're going to keep the connectivity high, you must keep the predictability low.

I'd like to offer a play-by-play description of a recent series I did, not to say that my ideas are the benchmark but to illustrate the randomness and variety that can be achieved in introductory remarks throughout a series of talks. A recent six-week series on the lordship of Christ was called “Thread: Reconnecting the Disconnected Fabric of Our Lives.” For the first weekend, which was Easter, we introduced the message with a video of a tailor making a special suit coat for me to wear on Easter. I came out wearing that coat (which is a departure from my normally casual attire) and talked about the fact that our culture is into fashion — a reality that is especially true in the Dallas area.

Then, as I was talking about our passion for fashion, I took off my jacket, grabbed a pair of scissors, and began to cut up the suit coat. The audience had no idea why I was doing that. Later, I revealed the reason — our lives are torn and fragmented and we need God's tailor-made coat, Jesus Christ, to make us whole again.

The next week I came out and asked the question: Where are you? and tied that into God's question to Adam and Eve when they first sinned. This led to the fact that we all hide from Christ from time to time and hide Him from others.

The third week I talked about our affinity for mirrors in the introduction; we all love to look in the mirror. That reflected the truth that we are to be mirror images of God, because that is why He created us in the first place.