One Text
One Theme: What is God doing in or behind this text? Whose action in this text is like God’s? Write sentence arising from that text should be a declarative sentence, not a question … use a strong, affirmative [active] verb. What is God doing in this text? The theme is statement from what the text is saying (sermon in a sentence). What the text says in response to our condition. Make God the subject, doing the gracious verb.
One Doctrine: arising out of the theme sentence. Which doctrine best relates/connects to the theme? Say the theme in the form of a historic, substantive doctrine statement of the church.
One Need: in the congregation that the doctrine or theme sentence addresses. What question can this doctrine answer? Include the question 2x in the sermon. Imagine scenes of life to which this doctrine has particular relevance. What need does this theme or doctrine meet in anyone’s life?
One Image: to be wed to the theme sentence. Paint a word picture with specific, concrete objects - not abstract ideas. Use it in the intro, on 2 pages, and conclusion. Connect it with the theme of God’s action.
One Mission: call toward action. concrete idea for action.
After those things have been identified, you can move forward.
INTRODUCTION
Within the 1st or 2nd paragraph, make the theme statement or topic clear, with some hint to both its relevance and the destination of the sermon. Use variety. Don’t start with a question!
Ideas: 1) Tell a story that suggests the flip side of the theme sentence (start at the place where the action is, fill in details as the action unfolds). 2) Start with a not-too serious experience of the general theme (don’t shove people into the deep end). 3) Start with the biblical text (this would actually be the start of Page One). 4) Start with a social justice issue. 5) Start with a news item (not a tragedy unless it’s immediately relevant).
PAGE ONE
What’s the trouble presented in the text?
Determine the reason or occasion for what the biblical writer is saying. Is there a mutual condition that we and the original hearers faced?
Page One is about one idea only! It should be a theological idea about trouble in the Bible. This idea will lead to trouble in our world on Page Two and prepare for God’s action on pages 3 and 4.
Give this page its own theological focus, but it must serve the theme statement! (ie. Genesis 3 - Adam and Eve are expelled; 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 - The Corinthians are divided; John 9:1-12 - The man was blind). Make it short and sharp. Focus only on it, develop it, biblically and theologically help the hearer feel the pain.
Recreate the biblical as if it’s the first time hearing (not reading) it - for many it is! If unsure how to connect with the theme, try a focus for page one that is the flip side of the theme (ie. John 9 theme: Jesus heals the person who is blind; Page One: Many people needed healing). Still make sure it’s a legitimate interpretation of the text!
PAGE TWO
Pages one and two are preparing for the theme sentence developed on PAGE THREE.
Find similar trouble in today’s world. The focus of trouble on PAGE TWO is determined by the focus of trouble on PAGE ONE (examples: Israel must change, our world must change; the woman needed healing, many suffer today).
Primary similarities between then and now are the unchanging nature of God and the continuing nature of human behavior.
When we speak of trouble in the sermon, we speak of human failure to live as God ordained and of the ongoing consequences of allowing that which is not sovereign to supplant God’s place in our lives.
3 solutions for presenting our trouble effectively:
1) Develop a three part theological understanding of trouble
a) transcendent/vertical (individual sin: individuals need forgiveness from God)
b) immanent/horizontal (social sin: society needs intervention by God)
c) human = vertical + horizontal (individual & societal: humanity needs to be rehumanized)
2) Preach with global awareness (speak about the issues, both large and small, of justice on the world stage).
3) Preach grace in tension with trouble
The best preachers use vertical AND horizontal trouble in indicative forms [not imperative forms].
By the end of PAGE TWO the preacher takes seriously the questions people have uttered during the prior week. The preacher reshapes these questions into theological questions. PAGES THREE and FOUR will provide responses to those questions.
Use stories as metaphors of the post-fall human condition or as metaphors/demonstrations of the incarnation of God, suffering servant, crucified Christ. Many things to or explore that condition.
PAGE THREE
Transition from PAGE TWO: “We may think that God is distant in these situations, but the opposite is true.” Often the theme sentence is all that we need to start page three. It must be developed into something that gives purpose and theological meaning to the ordinariness of life. The focus is God’s actions in the text. Help people see God where they perceived him to be absent.
On this page we proclaim God’s amazing nurture and saving acts without further putting the burden of action on the congregation. It is a way of putting our trouble in perspective before the cross of Christ who has taken our place, entered suffering, and gone into death for us, and thereby accomplished something so decisive that all life is changed by it. The trouble puts the burden of responsibility on people to act; whereas grace puts the burden on God in Christ, who has already acted in Christ. What we needed God has done in an ongoing relationship that overcomes human sin.
On PAGE THREE, we return to the biblical text and turn to God. We shift attention from human trouble to God’s activity by turning to our theme sentence. God’s action is the focus of this page and the unifying theme of the entire sermon, what PAGES ONE and TWO were leading toward.
Our primary goal is not to speak about God abstractly, or turn the text into propositions about God; it is rather to render God’s actions in as visual a way as possible through the event that the text itself represents.
PAGE FOUR
The focus in God’s action in the contemporary world. Claims about God’s activity are difficulty to make, for we need to point to signs of God that are usually ambiguous in the world. To make a claim about God’s action is risky. We might be wrong: we might claim too much about the wrong things, or claim too little about the right things, or miss God entirely. By contrast, passive claims about God are safe: we risk little because they are general propositions and they require little evidence in experience - but they also do little to foster faith.
We simply follow the promptings of the biblical text from PAGE THREE that identified God’s action in the biblical text, and now on PAGE FOUR we seek signs of the same action in the world around us.
God is lover, beloved, and their mutual love (the Holy Spirit). Thus one can look to experiences of friendship, caring family relationships, and the inclusive community of free and equal persons as intimations of the eternal life of God as a communion of persons.
Just as pages one and two followed exposition/application of trouble, pages three and four repeat that process from the perspective of God’s loving action. If PAGE TWO presents mainly vertical trouble, listeners need vertical grace on PAGE FOUR. If PAGE TWO presents horizontal trouble, PAGE FOUR must develop horizontal grace.
As preachers, we provide people with a transformed vision of ordinary life that now has deep theological purpose and meaning. We are saying, in effect, the trouble is less than true, because this affirmation concerning God is true.
The preacher needs to be focused on one theme sentence and connect it with a single doctrine and point to where people might see God doing this specific kind of action today.
Some preachers might portray God’s action as though it were automatic and mechanical, part of the nature of the universe. The danger here is generalizing God’s action into a principle about nature (ie. “the way things are”), as though God’s action is something like cruise control in a car that turns on at the press of a button. Instead, each action is to be honored as personal and specific to a time and place, a gift of grace.
The mission is in partnership with God’s action. Suggestions for mission should be helpful ideas to enable what listeners will want to do out of thankfulness for God’s love. These are invitations to encounter God, to serve others, to have our faith strengthened, and to have our lives renewed.
On this page Jesus must be presented as the Savior, the one who equips and empowers us, and whose endeavors we join.
CONCLUSION
Point back toward the theme sentence and the doctrine, wed the theme sentence to the dominant image; point forward to the coming week; and inspire people to mission.
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