Lesson 4 Practice

For the final project in this micro-course, you will submit a video of yourself preaching. In Lesson 7, you will finalize a manuscript of the sermon, although you are not expected to preach from the manuscript when you video yourself. However, we want you to begin working toward that sermon in this Lesson.

For this lesson, work through steps 1 and 2 of the process. First, you will need to “get a word.” This may be a hypothetical exercise for you – or it might not be. If you have to preach next week, you can use this process to develop a real sermon. Perhaps God is about to open a door for you to preach. Treat the exercise as if it is real. It may very well turn out to be.

Now study! What passage (perhaps with supporting passages) will point the congregation to Christ? Read some real commentaries on the passage, the kinds written by actual experts on the Bible rather than the latest blog post on the subject. What topics will the subject engage? Psychology? History? Culture? Seek out trustworthy sources to explore.

What will the destination be? What will the purpose be?

Now storyboard. Lay out the skeleton outline of the sermon. What are the main steps to get to the destination? What will the train of thought of the sermon be? Will you tell it in the form of a storyline? Will it have logical points relating to the topic? Will its points come from the flow of the biblical text?

Write up your steps/outline along with the “destination” and purpose of the sermon. Don’t just write down three points. Give a description of what you will cover under each point. Give subpoints. Upload your storyboard with the destination and purpose to the platform.