How I Preach: Outlines

This is the first of what I hope to be many posts I make which will share how I preach for the benefit of others learning the craft of Bible teaching and sermon delivery – an art that, though old (even ancient) is never outdated, and yet must grow and evolve from preacher to preacher, culture to culture, and even with various points in time.

If you’ve ever heard or watched me preach more than a few times,  it’s very likely that you’ve made some observations about my preaching style and the cadence, or flow, of my preaching. That’s not just practiced familiarity. It’s deliberate planning. People process information in a consistent pattern. So understanding how they do so should be important for any communicator – especially a preacher.

I’ll note right upfront, that my preaching style is intended for more than information sharing. I preach with the goal of being a catalyst to life-change. I’ve written elsewhere about expository vs. topical preaching, which you can read here. But regardless of the way I organize my message around Scripture, or whether my message has 2 points or 10, 99% of my preaching follows the pattern I’ll lay out in a moment.

I’ll also note that my preaching has been heavily influenced from several great communicators including James McDonald, Rick Warren, Steven Furtick, and especially Andy Stanley. But it would be unjust for me to share this without giving a nod of appreciation to two key people who heavily influenced my life, let alone my preaching. It was my father, Jesse Markum – a very talented speaker and preacher, to say the least – who first taught me how to preach and speak in public. I was 10-18 years old learning the art of preaching from him. I was extremely fortunate for his guidance in this foundational area of my life and ministry. Also, one of my many mentors, the great Dr. Mel Brown, whom I worked for at Edgewood for 4 years. My preaching ability and repertoire could quickly be summed up in what these two men alone taught me.

At any rate, do you want to know the secret sauce to my preaching? It’s really simple, and once you understand it you’ll see it in virtually all of my preaching.

Here it is:
Every point I preach, in every message I give, has precisely four supporting sub-points. No more. No less. Ever. And each one serves a separate but vital function from that of it’s other sub-points. Those four sub-points always follow this rhythm:

• A) Interpretation: Answers the questions – “What did the verse/passage say?” “What does it mean?” “What context shapes it’s meaning?” The simplest and first part to any good preaching point… You can’t preach Biblically in my opinion without this part.
• B) Illustration: Answers the questions – “What does this look like?” “What example do we have today?” I often tell stories here, because that was Jesus’ favorite way to make a point stick. I also leverage videos and sometimes props to add emphasis to a good illustration. Some consider illustrations to be filler in a message. I consider it vital to the next sub-point working properly.
• C) Application: Answers the questions – “So what do I do with this?” “How do I take this to work tomorrow morning?” This is the payload that the entire point is suppose to deliver. I try to keep this simple enough to be a tweet. Without this, you’ve delivered information without transformation which creates stagnation and frustration. #Selah
• D) Exhortation: Answers the questions – “Why should I do that?” “What will be the payoff to doing this?” “What motivation is there for me?” All good preaching leads to this: a place where you call people to action or a point of decision.

If you look at any preaching outline I’ve ever dropped after a Sunday, you’ll see each of my “C” sub-points and know – that’s the application. Preaching this way creates a predictable but powerful cadence to my preaching. Do you do any preaching? Give this a try. You’ll like it,…

Blessings,
Pastor John