Story-Shaped

Regardless of the sermon form you are using, the part of the sermon you need to plan most carefully is the end. This is the moment of highest intensity, the time for decision, the point at which the truth of the sermon comes either to a triumphant climax or a tired fizzle. It is time to “land the plane” and if you do not have a checklist to follow, you may well find yourself circling the runway (or just flying out to sea) until you run out of gas and sputter to a crash landing.

I find it best to have a clear sequence to follow when planning the end of the sermon. This is as true for a story-shaped sermon as it is for a deductive one. Here is the sequence I recommend for Act III:

Act II is the quiet, persistent workhorse of the three-act plot. Act I grabs attention, introduces conflict and makes promises about where the sermon will lead. Act III gets the thrill of a climactic gospel turn and resolution. Act II inherits the expectations of Act I and carries the longest stretch of the narrative while laying the groundwork for the grand revelation of Act III. It is like a dutiful middle child, living in the shadow of the highly successful older brother while deferring attention and resources to the darling younger sister.

The work of Act II may not be as glamorous, but it is just as essential to the transformation we seek in the story-shaped sermon. It has several important jobs to do.

This is the job of Act I in a narrative sermon: to create interest through urgency by placing us in a story where the message really matters. How do you accomplish this? Here are four steps for stirring interest through urgency.

Before we begin to plot our story-shaped sermon, there are three preliminary items we need to define. Consider these to be narrative “add-on’s” to our Homiletical Conclusions. Taking aim in these areas before you begin will save time and establish clarity from the start.

These three components will help you establish the focus of the sermon, the tension of the sermon, and the moment of discovery that will help you get to the sermon climax in the end.

“Plot” is the sequence of events through which a story moves. Aristotle saw two fundamental movements common to all plots: the complication and the dénouement. (Poetics, XVIII) Contemporary fiction writers expand the list to five events. It is no coincidence that these correspond almost precisely to the five movements described by Lowry as the “homiletical plot.” (The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, 27-87) They are time-honored and universal—prominent in all narrative genres and media, from simple storytelling, to literature, to the silver screen. Film makers arrange these five movements into three acts.