7 Ways To Grab A Listener's Attention: Designing More Effective Sermon Introductions
"Don't jump out from behind the same tree every week," once said a wise preacher. His point is simple. In the same way that variety is the spice of life; variety is the spice of a compelling sermon introduction. Therefore, like a gourmet chef, who uses a diversity of spices to enhance the appetizer, we as preachers need to use calculated variety in our appetizers — the sermon introduction. Specifically, how can we put more variance into our leads? Sheree Bykofsky, Lynne Rominger, and Jennifer Bayse Sander, in their book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Magazine Articles, have seven recommendations:
"When you ask a question you expect a answer. By asking a question in your lead, you've personalized the lead to the reader by asking her a question. It's as if you wrote the piece with the reader in mind."
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For instance you might open by asking, " Why do you get out of bed in the morning? What is your purpose for existing? Do you know why you are here?"
Now why are questions such an important tool in the arsenal of a preacher? Greg Lewis and Ralph Lewis in their book Inductive Preaching say that questions allow the listener to "jump in and take part of the sermon". In other words, questions help get the audience involved in your message.
Did Jesus, the master preacher, use questions? He sure did (Matt 17:25; Matt 8:12; Matt21: 28; Matt 22:42; Luke 10:36; Luke 13:2; Luke 13:4).
In this introduction, "You give the reader who, what, when, where, why and how things came down. You entice the readers with the bare minimal in the hopes of engaging them and keeping them reading."
For example, you might lead by saying," He launched a movement, baptizing "many thousands" of people, probably tens of thousands. He started about seven hundred churches. He ordained over one thousand priests. What's even more impressive, is that he accomplished all this amongst a group of people whom the Romans labeled "unreachable".1 His name? St. Patrick. Today, on St. Patty's day, we are going to look at the example of St. Patrick and gleam lessons on how we can reach are "unreachable" generation."
"In the descriptive lead, your writing provides the reader a mind movie, projecting across the brain's screen the five sense of the experience."
To illustrate, you might begin by saying, "The scene was bleak. Havoc and restlessness abounded. You could see the flashing red and blue lights. You could feel the hopelessness in the air."
Paul Scott Wilson in his book the Four Pages of the Sermon says, "Listeners can visualize something if we give them visual clues, such as Grey hair or the elegance of movement. In general, we should be as visual and sensory with the Bible as we are about current events, when we speak of someone today wearing jeans (name the color and the specific label) and a t-shirt from the Hard Rock Cafe or of a hospital room with a single birthday card on the window ledge, for these small details paint bigger pictures of individual lives". In other words, when you're painting the scene in the readers mind use a fine tip brush, not a broad one. Be specific. Give details, details, and more details.