A pastor has about 90 seconds to grab their congregation’s attention. The sad part is that many pastors waste words and time in the opener of their message. Today, many people of all ages have a shortened attention span. Your sermon introduction needs to be precise, thought-provoking, and engaging.
Here are 11 powerful ways you can start a sermon:
1. Start Your Sermon with a Historic Illustration
This is one of the best ways to share something from history that illustrates or accentuates the big idea of the message. It should draw a parallel by painting a picture so the congregation can feel the information instead of just hearing it. A historic illustration also brings the message’s main point to life and gives it real-life meaning. The illustration can be a warning or a positive illustration.
2. Ask a Thought-Provoking Question
Another powerful way to start a sermon is by asking a thought-provoking question about the Bible or life. A story of a senseless tragedy followed by the question, “How can we believe in a good God who would allow this?” will get the congregation’s attention. The congregation either has struggled with this, or they have family and friends who don’t follow Jesus who struggle with this as well. You can easily capture everyone’s attention by building tension through a question.
You can also ask questions we have all had about stories in the Bible. For example, “Did Jonah really get swallowed by a fish? Is this just metaphorical? I wonder what Jesus believed about this?” This will directly get their attention.
3. Share a Startling Statistic
A statistic helps people understand the brevity of the problem that the sermon wants to solve. The key to statistics is to find multiple sources that come to a similar conclusion and ensure that the information source is from the most recent studies.
4. Watch a Movie Clip
People are visual and need their imaginations stoked. Your congregation may resonate with the narrative, especially through the format of movies. Starting your sermon with a movie clip can help bring to light the main idea of the message. Just make sure it is good quality, and if it is being live-streamed, it must also have a license.
If you don’t want to use a Hollywood film, plenty of mini-movies are readily available for pastors on websites like ShiftWorship.com. These are short, visual stories that can help underscore your message.
5. Tell a Personal Story of Success
Start your sermon with a personal story. People are attracted to stories of success. This story can be a story of triumph over an obstacle, a parenting win, or something in the pastor’s finances or marriage.
6. Tell a Personal Story of Failure
On the flip side, people also resonate with other people’s failures. The congregation needs to hear how the pastor has failed before. This levels the playing field, and the congregation ends up wanting to listen more to the pastor because they now feel they are understood.
Sharing stories of failure can be hard for pastors because they may want to maintain a certain image. Still, once they reveal their true, authentic selves to their congregation, the congregation is then permitted to be their true, authentic selves.
7. Use Props
A live illustration uses props and is performed by the pastor and/or staff on stage. One that has been used before is the “Big Rocks First” principle by Stephen Covey in his book, “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” The illustration shows that the order in which rocks and sand are placed in a jar will determine how much the jar can hold. If the sand is put in first, there is no room for the bigger pieces. On the contrary, if the bigger rocks are put in first, there is plenty of room for the sand to fit in all the in-between spaces of the rocks.
8. Make a Bold Statement
Start your sermon with a bold statement that is attention-grabbing. A statement as such could be made, “Jesus doesn’t want Christians. He wants something way more than that.” The answer is, of course, “disciples,” but this again gets the attention of those in the congregation.
9. Misquote the Bible Intentionally
Yes, misquote the Bible on purpose. For instance, the pastor could say, “Jesus said in his sermon on the mount, ‘I want you to be happy above everything else, at any expense.’” This will bring in humor and make a bold statement about what Jesus did not say to His listeners.
10. Tell Only the First Part of a Story
Whether personal, made up, or from another source, a story always has the same tension format, and then the tension gets resolved. Instead of telling the whole story at the beginning of the sermon, the pastor can share the part that leads to tension. Then, at a different part of the sermon, they can interject the other parts of their story to release the tension and bring a solution.
11. Go Directly into the Scripture
When all else fails, it is great to just go right into the Scripture or the historical context surrounding the Scripture. This is the reason people are there. They want to find out what God thinks about their issue and how they can solve the issue. So, going directly into the Scripture is a sure-fire way to have a solid introduction.
Connect with Your Audience
The importance of a concise, attention-grabbing introduction cannot be overstated in crafting a sermon that resonates deeply with the congregation’s hearts and minds. The introduction not only sets the stage for the message that follows, but also creates a crucial layer of tension, making the sermon more relatable, understandable, and memorable.
At SermonSearch, we have an extensive library of sermon illustrations that are available for you to use. These include stories, quotes, and even church-appropriate jokes that can help illustrate your message. To find these, visit SermonSearch.com.
