Template: Me, We, God sermon

Me:

We:

God:

You:

This is where I explain who I am and what I’m all about.2

• Introduce yourself in the context of the main idea and answer the question, “Where does this truth or tension reveal itself in my life?”

“I have experienced [this thing] in life, and it’s been very [choose the emotion you’ve felt—hard, confusing, exciting, tempting, liberating, etc.].”

For example: “Often I’ve found myself at a loss for how my [wife, friend, significant other] and I can love each other so much, and yet be so at odds with one another.”

Once I feel like my listeners know me a little and trust me, then I’m ready to engage them.3

• Once you’ve introduced the audience to the main idea as it relates to your life, you can introduce why this topic is important to all of us. Explain “why this truth or tension is so important for all of us to discuss.”

• For example: “I bet you’ve experienced this confusion in relationships, too. The fact is, we all have.”

I take this emotional common ground I’ve established and introduce biblical truth into the discussion.4

• Now that you’ve engaged the listeners with the main idea in both Me and We, you can invite them to hear what God says about it, explaining “what the Bible has to say about this truth or tension.”

• For example: “Would you believe that God has lots to say about how husbands and wives are to treat one another? Seriously! Let’s check it out!” [Open, read, and examine the text.]

I encourage short-term actions that lead to long-term discipleship.

• The call to action provides everyday responses to the question, “In light of what God says about this important topic, how will you respond?”

“Based on what we learned in the Scriptures, let’s apply this principle to our lives, today, in practical and realistic ways.”

For example: “Choose the person closest to you (emotionally, not physically), and commit to place their needs above yours for the next week.”

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We:

Example Sermon Outlines This is a place to cast a common vision—a vision of what our lives, our church, and

even our world would look like if only we would apply the truth of God’s Word.5

• This is for both believers and non-believers—encourage people to put this biblical principle into action.

• For example: “Imagine if in our relationships we were each willing to put the needs of others above our own. What would happen in our schools, our workplaces, our families, our neighborhoods? Imagine if every person in our church committed to do this every day for the next week. What would happen?”

Bottom Line:

We’ve attempted to offer biblical materials that are flexible enough to be adapted to different speaking styles and traditions.

Regardless of your strategy for communication, these summary statements may be used to help you communicate the main idea each week.

This will also help facilitate conversations among people from different churches, unifying the effort among all participating churches.

Adrian Rogers outlined sermons using four phrases:

Hey You! (Get the audience’s attention)Look! (Examine the Scriptures)See! (Explain the passage)Do! (Make application)

Andy Stanley is famous for one-point preaching, but really breaks his messages into five movements:

Me (How do I struggle with this?)We (How do we all struggle with this?)God (What does the Bible say about this?)You (What should you do about this?)We (How can we all live this out together?)

And I’m not sure who came up with it, but another well-known system is:

Hook (Get attention)Book (Examine the Word)Look (Expound the passage)Took (Make an appeal)

The Puritans jumped right into point one of 27ish as they preached for several hours and there are plenty of other outlining methods as well. I’ve changed my system several times over the years, which I think is important to keep us out of a rut. Lately, I’ve been outlining my messages around three movements..

WHERE WE ARE

In the first part of the message, I speak about the problem or issue that the message addresses, hopefully in a way that motivates my hearers to identify with the problem personally as in, “Oh yeah, I struggle with that too!”

WHAT GOD SAYS

In the middle part (the longer part), I dig into the passage, or sometimes several passages, that address the issue, provide a historical context and expound on the meaning. Sometimes there are three or for “points” here, but not always.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Finally, I move to how we need to live out the solution that God’s Word has provided. I try to be as concrete as possible such as challenging people to go sign up for a ministry, buy a particular book, talk to their next door neighbor, etc.

I’ll probably tweak and change it up again soon, but for now, this system works quite well for me right now.