Reaching For Three-Point Preaching

A three-point sermon: can we preach anything else?

Some preachers seem so good at it. Not only do they shape any chapter or verse-no matter what the original configuration-into a trinity, but they also manage to give each point a catchy title that either (1) rhymes, or (2) alliterates, or (3), well, you get the point.

I began seminary with the three-point commandment well in hand. But I spent so much time breaking my first homiletical efforts neatly into three parts, I didn’t have much to say within the parts.

After one particularly well-structured but uninspiring attempt (Introduction, Message, Conclusion), I sought the opinion of a friend who had served ninety years on this planet and sixty years in ordained ministry, concurrently. He said, “A man, to be seen, has to stand up; to be heard, has to speak up; to be appreciated, has to shut up.”

Aha? Three points!

Inspired, I wrote in my notebook: “1. Get up there. 2. Say what you have to say. 3. Sit down.” Maybe I could still get the hang of it. (Later, I noted a congregation does the same thing in reverse: 1. Sit down. 2. Listen. 3. Stand up.)

Since that time, I’ve collected other three-point sermon outlines, which I’ve labeled by type:

The evangelist. 1. The question. 2. The answer. 3. The invitation.

The rabbi. 1. Tell the story. 2. Interpret the story. 3. Apply the story.

The apostle Paul. 1. Give thanks. 2. Pray. 3. Exhort.

The existentialist. 1. What it says to me. 2. What it does for me. 3. What it is for me.

The ship’s captain. 1. Get them on board. 2. Take them to their destination. 3. Send them off.

The manager. 1. The obstacles. 2. The resources. 3. The application of #2 to #1.

The possibility thinker. 1. What the mind can conceive. 2. What the heart can believe. 3. What you can achieve.

The moral philosopher. 1. How it is. 2. How it ought to be. 3. Why doesn’t anybody do anything about the difference? (Rhetorical question.)

Once in a while, of course, I give myself permission to break the rules. There are, after all, outlines that don’t have three points:

The golfer. 1. Hit it again and again until it falls in.

In any event, I try to remember one of the best bits of homiletical advice I jotted in my ragged preaching notebook: “The sermon is a truck, not a bus. Carry one heavy load.”

-Peter W. Clay

First Baptist Church

Payette, Idaho

Leadership Spring 1990 p. 135