The occasional musings of a gospel minister

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Considering Your Introduction
It is a near-fatal error for a preacher, teacher, or speaker to attempt to communicate without a well-planned introduction. Allow me to suggest to pastors and others engaged in training future pastors, missionaries, and/or Bible teachers that they give thoughtful consideration to their introductory remarks. These first words come out of their mouths when standing before their audience.

Why read this? I can think of several reasons why you should invest a few minutes reading something that will help you train communicators, the first of which is that it is a sin to bore people with the truth. This article will help you avoid that.

Crucial to any lesson, sermon, speech, or talk is your introduction. Suppose you divide your delivery (sermon or lesson) into three parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. In that case, your introduction is the critical bridge your audience crosses to travel from where they are (mentally, emotionally, spiritually) when you begin to where you want them to be when you arrive at the threshold of what you intend to say to them, your sermon, your message, your lesson.

But you already know that if you are an experienced Gospel minister or Bible teacher who has been successful over time. The challenge is to teach the importance of the introduction to future preachers, teachers, and trainers who might imagine their only task is to begin speaking, expecting their audience's attention.

I will pass over (at this time) the tendency of preachers, teachers, trainers, and other communicators to stand before their audiences dressed not only casually but disheveled, with one hand in a pocket and an untucked shirt. I am writing to draw your attention to the introduction.

A sermon, a Bible lesson, or a discipleship training session is a specialized form of speech, a topic of such importance to the ancients that the Greeks and Romans placed great emphasis on speaking, which they called rhetoric. That said, there are traits common to both speeches and sermons, as well as to lessons and training.

Here is a link to a YouTube channel I came across and wanted to share with you. The presenter summarizes and encapsulates features of a good introduction that you have indeed used in your ministry and will help you pass on valuable principles you have already learned.

Enjoy.