WEBVTT
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All right, I want to give you a test today that takes about 30 seconds that it's going to tell you the truth about your last sermon.
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I call it the shuffle test, the shuffle test.
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And here is the shuffle test.
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Take your movements from your last message.
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Two, three, four, how many movements?
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Take your movements and swap their order.
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Put movement three first, put movement one last.
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And now ask yourself, look at the sermon and ask yourself honestly did anything break?
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Does everything still make sense?
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Because if you can shuffle those movements and the sermon works just as well, what you have is a list.
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And a list can be true, a list can be biblical, well illustrated, but still leave the room exactly where it found them.
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Clear Preaching Podcast.
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My name is Jonathan McClintock, and this podcast is for preachers who take the craft of preaching seriously.
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We work on one thing in this: helping preachers say what they mean so their people listen, believe, and act.
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And in today's podcast, we're going to build on what we discussed last week and show how to make sure we are progressing with our sermon's movements so that the sermons do what they are supposed to do, move people to action.
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Right.
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So last week we traded our points for movements.
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We talked about why.
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We said a movement is a complete sentence that moves the sermon toward its destination.
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Points are simply subjects or topics.
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There need to be a complete thought, and it needs to move the sermon somewhere.
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And we said every movement should land on the same take-home truth.
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And so today we're going to add the other half.
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And these two together are the whole architecture of a build.
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The build is my terminology for the body of the sermon.
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Here's where we're going today in the next few minutes.
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Every movement lands on the same truth.
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And each movement gets your people closer to believing that truth.
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Same destination, but forward motion.
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And that is progression.
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Progression is what we want.
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Progression has a counterfeit.
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It shows up in a lot of our sermons, including Plenty of Mind, and I call it accumulation.
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So let's get into this and look at this today.
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Accumulation says one thing multiple ways.
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Progression takes multiple steps, but it's heading toward one place.
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Let me show you the difference real quick.
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The way it sounds actually sounds from behind a pulpit.
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Here is what I call accumulation.
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Movement one, God is faithful.
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Build that out.
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Movement two, God has never failed.
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You build that out.
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Movement three, you can depend on him.
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You build that out.
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And movement four, he is always there.
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You build that out.
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Now that was four movements, but one single claim, not really motion, kind of just went in circles, kind of spun your will, staying in the same place.
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Everything, every movement said the exact same thing, just in different words.
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The room gets louder, the excitement builds from the preacher, but the sermon is just completely standing still.
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Didn't move forward.
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Just kind of stayed in the same place for 25, 30 minutes.
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Now, listen to progression on that exact same subject.
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This is what progression would look like.
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Movement one, God was faithful to Israel when they had no reason to expect it.
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Build that out.
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Movement two, God has been faithful in your life in ways you did not notice at the time.
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And then you'll build that one out.
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Movement three, God will be faithful next week when the thing you are dreading actually arrives.
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Three movements, same truth, but the sermon now is traveling.
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Did you feel that it wasn't spinning in the same kind of circular motion, wasn't spinning in the same kind of area and idea?
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We dealt with past and present and future movement.
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It kept moving forward.
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We started in Israel's past, we came to our present and then to our future.
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Each movement needs the one before it.
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You couldn't really shuffle those three without the sermon limp sermon limping a little bit.
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You couldn't put God's been faithful in Israel's past, you couldn't put that to movement three, and then he'll be faithful in our future as movement one.
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We kind of moved backwards.
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We need these movements to carry us forward, driving home, building and landing that one truth.
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And when each movement needs the one that came before it, then our people, our congregation, the audience is being carried closer to the truth.
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Instead of being handed the truth like accumulation, the same truth four separate times, just said four separate ways.
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Now, progression comes from the text first, and then from your listener's struggle second.
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We want to find the progression of the idea in the text first.
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And then we're going to build in what's the struggle of the listener, and how does the how does the listener fit in this?
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So, where do you find real progression?
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How do we build real progression in the build or body of our sermon?
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There's two places, and I've already mentioned them really, but the first one really is better.
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We build progression first by the text.
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The text usually supplies it.
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Read a narrative from scripture.
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That narrative has sequence built right into it, right?
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That narrative builds, it grows, it progresses from the beginning of the story with the background and the setting till the climax and then the settling down and the resolving of that conflict, resolving of that conflict.
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The narrative tells us this happened and then this and then this.
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So a narrative has progression built in and an epistle, Paul's epistles, Peter's epistles, that it argues in steps.
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Very often it's because of this, therefore that.
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So when you preach the passage's order, you inherit its momentum for free.
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It's got momentum built in, has progression built in.
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So the first place you need to look for the progression of your movements in your sermon is in the text progression.
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A lot of sermons that lack progression are sermons that abandon the shape of the text.
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And they laid a topical outline on top of it.
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Now, topical outlines are not bad.
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Topical sermons, I love topical sermons.
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But the danger in a topical sermon is making sure those movements are progressing and not circling and spinning their wheels on the same idea.
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So we look at the text first, because the text is going to show us it's going to progress, it's going to move forward.
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So we look at the text first.
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The second place we can find progression is laying this over the listener's struggle.
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What do I mean by that?
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Well, first ask yourself this question: What needs to happen for someone in the audience to believe the take-home truth?
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What needs to happen?
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This is going to help you build progression.
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If you're building a topical sermon, let's say you're not really borrowing from the progression of the text, you're going to, you're going to kind of lay a topical thought idea over it.
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Well, you need to build progression.
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We got to build towards that take-home truth.
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So what needs to happen to allow someone in your audience to believe this take-home truth, which is the whole, the whole goal of the build of the sermon, of the body of the sermon, is to get people to believe the take-home truth, that truth you're preaching.
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So, how do we get somebody to believe it?
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Well, first of all, maybe they need to believe that the problem that you're talking about is actually real.
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Secondly, maybe they need to realize that God actually addresses it, that scripture actually addresses it.
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And then maybe thirdly, need to show them that it applies to them personally.
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So, right there, there's three movements.
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Show them the problem's real.
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Show them how the Bible or God addresses it, and then show them that it applies to them personally.
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Three movements.
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But progressing the sermon forward, genuine sequence.
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Because when you're building an argument, you can't skip a step.
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This plan for clear progression in the build of the sermon is making sure every movement moves your people one honest step closer to believing the truth that you are preaching.
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Hey everyone, before we get back to the rest of this podcast episode, let me take a moment once again and briefly mention the Clear Preaching Academy.
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It's in a community of preachers who take the craft seriously.
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And it's built around the Clear Preaching Framework.
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It's got self-paced courses, small group cohorts, live coaching, direct feedback on your actual sermon.
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There's even a tool on the inside called the Clarity Coach, where you can submit a sermon and it will audit your sermon against many of the criteria of the Clear Preaching Framework, but also against six criteria in the build or the body, which we're covering in these last couple podcast episodes.
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And progression is one of those that it covers.
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More than that, the Clear Preaching Academy is a place where preachers work on this craft of preaching together instead of figuring it out all alone every week.
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If that sounds like something you would like, something you're interested in, come take a look at clearpreaching.com.
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I'd love to see you on the inside.
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Now, not only should movements progress, but I believe movements ought to rise.
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So the close of the sermon inherits some momentum.
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Here's one thing, and this is what separates a good build, a good body of the sermon from a great one.
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Your movements should do more than simply progress.
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They should elevate.
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They should rise.
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Each movement should carry a little more weight than the one before it.
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There ought to be, as you progress, there ought to be not only there ought to be more at stake.
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Now, think about what that does if you do it that way when you get to the close.
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If the sermon has not only been progressing, but been climbing the whole way through the body, the build of the sermon, the close inherits all that momentum, the emotions already in the room, the convincing, the spirits taking place, and the close simply has to land the truth.
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Now, here's the honest part.
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When the build stays flat, your clothes has to generate the entire weight of the sermon all by itself in about five, six, seven minutes.
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That's why so many preachers get loud at the end and they ramp up the energy.
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It's not just to draw people to a uh a decision, but the body, the build of the sermon hasn't built that momentum and hasn't risen in momentum.
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And so now the close carries the entire weight.
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And so the volume at the end is simply compensation for a build that never rose, never climbed.
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I've preached that sermon more times than I care to admit.
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And a rising build means every movement gets your people closer to believing the truth and acting on the truth.
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And then the close gets to land what the build already built.
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So let me bring this home today.
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Every movement should land on the same truth, the take-home truth.
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And each one should get your people closer to believing it.
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That's the goal of the build.
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The open, you introduced the take-home truth.
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You introduced, this is what where we're going.
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The build takes time to, all right, here's a reason to believe it.
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And let me make this one a little more weighty now.
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Here's another reason to believe it.
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And let me do it again.
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And this is a little more rate, you're rising.
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Here's another reason to believe it.
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Think about the person who walked into your auditorium last Sunday carrying something really heavy.
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Maybe it was a diagnosis they got just a few days before.
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Maybe a marriage they're worried about, or a child who stopped calling and chat lives far away and stopped checking on them.
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And the whole sermon was true all the way through.
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Every word of it was biblical.
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But the people walked out exactly the same way they walked in.
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Same burdens, same struggles.
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The content was good.
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You preached great content.
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It was true.
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The sermon just never went anywhere.
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It never traveled anywhere.
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It stayed in the same place.
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It never progressed.
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They never felt more weight.
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They never felt a pulling forward.
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It never rose.
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It never built.
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So here is your one thing this week.
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Look at the last few sermons you've preached and run the shuffle test.
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Right?
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Run that test where you mix up your main movements.
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You're looking for a pattern.
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But when you find a sermon that shuffles freely, nothing breaks, I could have preached movement three where movement one is and movement two where movement three is.
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I could have done that, and the sermon would have just felt the same.
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When you find a sermon that does that, rebuild it.
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How could I build this?
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Well, first of all, what order should these movements go in if each one had to earn the next?
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What's the text saying?
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What's the text movement?
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If you can shuffle your movements freely, what you have is a list, instead build something that progresses, something that travels, something that moves the listener, the audience closer to believing that one truth you've built your entire sermon on.
00:14:57.039 --> 00:15:00.799
Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Clear Preaching Podcast.
00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:05.679
If you have enjoyed it and you haven't yet decided to follow the podcast, please do so.
00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:08.960
If you haven't yet, give it a rating, a five-star rating.
00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:12.720
That would really help other people find this podcast also.
00:15:12.960 --> 00:15:18.399
And if you think there's somebody or the preacher out there who maybe has never listened to this before, share it with them.
00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:23.440
If you think they might benefit from the content on this podcast, would love if you do that.
00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:26.720
And once again, check out clearpreaching.com.
00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:27.600
There's a lot going on.
00:15:27.759 --> 00:15:29.840
The community is growing and we're excited.
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New people are coming in, connecting with those already on the inside, learning together, joining, joining small group cohorts, being a part of small groups together, and elevating preaching in our lives so we get better.
00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:46.159
We are striving to be better at clearly communicating the word of God.
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God bless you.
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I'll see you next week.
00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:07.440
All right, I want to give you a test today that takes about 30 seconds that it's going to tell you the truth about your last sermon.
00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:11.039
I call it the shuffle test, the shuffle test.
00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:12.960
And here is the shuffle test.
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Take your movements from your last message.
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Two, three, four, how many movements?
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Take your movements and swap their order.
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Put movement three first, put movement one last.
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And now ask yourself, look at the sermon and ask yourself honestly did anything break?
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Does everything still make sense?
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Because if you can shuffle those movements and the sermon works just as well, what you have is a list.
00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:53.200
And a list can be true, a list can be biblical, well illustrated, but still leave the room exactly where it found them.
00:00:54.799 --> 00:00:57.280
Hey everyone, welcome to the Clear Preaching Podcast.
00:00:57.359 --> 00:01:04.319
My name is Jonathan McClintock, and this podcast is for preachers who take the craft of preaching seriously.
00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:11.760
We work on one thing in this: helping preachers say what they mean so their people listen, believe, and act.
00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:25.920
And in today's podcast, we're going to build on what we discussed last week and show how to make sure we are progressing with our sermon's movements so that the sermons do what they are supposed to do, move people to action.
00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:27.280
Right.
00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:30.799
So last week we traded our points for movements.
00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:32.000
We talked about why.
00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:39.840
We said a movement is a complete sentence that moves the sermon toward its destination.
00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:44.480
Points are simply subjects or topics.
00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:49.920
There need to be a complete thought, and it needs to move the sermon somewhere.
00:01:50.159 --> 00:01:55.280
And we said every movement should land on the same take-home truth.
00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:57.439
And so today we're going to add the other half.
00:01:57.519 --> 00:02:01.920
And these two together are the whole architecture of a build.
00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:05.200
The build is my terminology for the body of the sermon.
00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:09.439
Here's where we're going today in the next few minutes.
00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:13.120
Every movement lands on the same truth.
00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:19.280
And each movement gets your people closer to believing that truth.
00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:22.879
Same destination, but forward motion.
00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:24.560
And that is progression.
00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:26.080
Progression is what we want.
00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:27.919
Progression has a counterfeit.
00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:33.680
It shows up in a lot of our sermons, including Plenty of Mind, and I call it accumulation.
00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:36.800
So let's get into this and look at this today.
00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:41.360
Accumulation says one thing multiple ways.
00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:46.639
Progression takes multiple steps, but it's heading toward one place.
00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:48.639
Let me show you the difference real quick.
00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:52.719
The way it sounds actually sounds from behind a pulpit.
00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:56.000
Here is what I call accumulation.
00:02:56.319 --> 00:02:59.680
Movement one, God is faithful.
00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:00.800
Build that out.
00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:03.759
Movement two, God has never failed.
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You build that out.
00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:07.680
Movement three, you can depend on him.
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You build that out.
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And movement four, he is always there.
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You build that out.
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Now that was four movements, but one single claim, not really motion, kind of just went in circles, kind of spun your will, staying in the same place.
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Everything, every movement said the exact same thing, just in different words.
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The room gets louder, the excitement builds from the preacher, but the sermon is just completely standing still.
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Didn't move forward.
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Just kind of stayed in the same place for 25, 30 minutes.
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Now, listen to progression on that exact same subject.
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This is what progression would look like.
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Movement one, God was faithful to Israel when they had no reason to expect it.
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Build that out.
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Movement two, God has been faithful in your life in ways you did not notice at the time.
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And then you'll build that one out.
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Movement three, God will be faithful next week when the thing you are dreading actually arrives.
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Three movements, same truth, but the sermon now is traveling.
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Did you feel that it wasn't spinning in the same kind of circular motion, wasn't spinning in the same kind of area and idea?
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We dealt with past and present and future movement.
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It kept moving forward.
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We started in Israel's past, we came to our present and then to our future.
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Each movement needs the one before it.
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You couldn't really shuffle those three without the sermon limp sermon limping a little bit.
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You couldn't put God's been faithful in Israel's past, you couldn't put that to movement three, and then he'll be faithful in our future as movement one.
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We kind of moved backwards.
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We need these movements to carry us forward, driving home, building and landing that one truth.
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And when each movement needs the one that came before it, then our people, our congregation, the audience is being carried closer to the truth.
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Instead of being handed the truth like accumulation, the same truth four separate times, just said four separate ways.
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Now, progression comes from the text first, and then from your listener's struggle second.
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We want to find the progression of the idea in the text first.
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And then we're going to build in what's the struggle of the listener, and how does the how does the listener fit in this?
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So, where do you find real progression?
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How do we build real progression in the build or body of our sermon?
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There's two places, and I've already mentioned them really, but the first one really is better.
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We build progression first by the text.
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The text usually supplies it.
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Read a narrative from scripture.
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That narrative has sequence built right into it, right?
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That narrative builds, it grows, it progresses from the beginning of the story with the background and the setting till the climax and then the settling down and the resolving of that conflict, resolving of that conflict.
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The narrative tells us this happened and then this and then this.
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So a narrative has progression built in and an epistle, Paul's epistles, Peter's epistles, that it argues in steps.
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Very often it's because of this, therefore that.
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So when you preach the passage's order, you inherit its momentum for free.
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It's got momentum built in, has progression built in.
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So the first place you need to look for the progression of your movements in your sermon is in the text progression.
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A lot of sermons that lack progression are sermons that abandon the shape of the text.
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And they laid a topical outline on top of it.
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Now, topical outlines are not bad.
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Topical sermons, I love topical sermons.
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But the danger in a topical sermon is making sure those movements are progressing and not circling and spinning their wheels on the same idea.
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So we look at the text first, because the text is going to show us it's going to progress, it's going to move forward.
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So we look at the text first.
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The second place we can find progression is laying this over the listener's struggle.
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What do I mean by that?
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Well, first ask yourself this question: What needs to happen for someone in the audience to believe the take-home truth?
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What needs to happen?
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This is going to help you build progression.
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If you're building a topical sermon, let's say you're not really borrowing from the progression of the text, you're going to, you're going to kind of lay a topical thought idea over it.
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Well, you need to build progression.
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We got to build towards that take-home truth.
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So what needs to happen to allow someone in your audience to believe this take-home truth, which is the whole, the whole goal of the build of the sermon, of the body of the sermon, is to get people to believe the take-home truth, that truth you're preaching.
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So, how do we get somebody to believe it?
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Well, first of all, maybe they need to believe that the problem that you're talking about is actually real.
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Secondly, maybe they need to realize that God actually addresses it, that scripture actually addresses it.
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And then maybe thirdly, need to show them that it applies to them personally.
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So, right there, there's three movements.
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Show them the problem's real.
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Show them how the Bible or God addresses it, and then show them that it applies to them personally.
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Three movements.
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But progressing the sermon forward, genuine sequence.
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Because when you're building an argument, you can't skip a step.
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This plan for clear progression in the build of the sermon is making sure every movement moves your people one honest step closer to believing the truth that you are preaching.
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Hey everyone, before we get back to the rest of this podcast episode, let me take a moment once again and briefly mention the Clear Preaching Academy.
00:09:29.919 --> 00:09:32.879
It's in a community of preachers who take the craft seriously.
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And it's built around the Clear Preaching Framework.
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It's got self-paced courses, small group cohorts, live coaching, direct feedback on your actual sermon.
00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:58.799
There's even a tool on the inside called the Clarity Coach, where you can submit a sermon and it will audit your sermon against many of the criteria of the Clear Preaching Framework, but also against six criteria in the build or the body, which we're covering in these last couple podcast episodes.
00:09:59.039 --> 00:10:02.559
And progression is one of those that it covers.
00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:12.559
More than that, the Clear Preaching Academy is a place where preachers work on this craft of preaching together instead of figuring it out all alone every week.
00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:17.840
If that sounds like something you would like, something you're interested in, come take a look at clearpreaching.com.
00:10:17.919 --> 00:10:20.320
I'd love to see you on the inside.
00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:26.879
Now, not only should movements progress, but I believe movements ought to rise.
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So the close of the sermon inherits some momentum.
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Here's one thing, and this is what separates a good build, a good body of the sermon from a great one.
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Your movements should do more than simply progress.
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They should elevate.
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They should rise.
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Each movement should carry a little more weight than the one before it.
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There ought to be, as you progress, there ought to be not only there ought to be more at stake.
00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:05.519
Now, think about what that does if you do it that way when you get to the close.
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If the sermon has not only been progressing, but been climbing the whole way through the body, the build of the sermon, the close inherits all that momentum, the emotions already in the room, the convincing, the spirits taking place, and the close simply has to land the truth.
00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:26.240
Now, here's the honest part.
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When the build stays flat, your clothes has to generate the entire weight of the sermon all by itself in about five, six, seven minutes.
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That's why so many preachers get loud at the end and they ramp up the energy.
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It's not just to draw people to a uh a decision, but the body, the build of the sermon hasn't built that momentum and hasn't risen in momentum.
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And so now the close carries the entire weight.
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And so the volume at the end is simply compensation for a build that never rose, never climbed.
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I've preached that sermon more times than I care to admit.
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And a rising build means every movement gets your people closer to believing the truth and acting on the truth.
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And then the close gets to land what the build already built.
00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:26.960
So let me bring this home today.
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Every movement should land on the same truth, the take-home truth.
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And each one should get your people closer to believing it.
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That's the goal of the build.
00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:40.960
The open, you introduced the take-home truth.
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You introduced, this is what where we're going.
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The build takes time to, all right, here's a reason to believe it.
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And let me make this one a little more weighty now.
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Here's another reason to believe it.
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And let me do it again.
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And this is a little more rate, you're rising.
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Here's another reason to believe it.
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Think about the person who walked into your auditorium last Sunday carrying something really heavy.
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Maybe it was a diagnosis they got just a few days before.
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Maybe a marriage they're worried about, or a child who stopped calling and chat lives far away and stopped checking on them.
00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:18.000
And the whole sermon was true all the way through.
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Every word of it was biblical.
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But the people walked out exactly the same way they walked in.
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Same burdens, same struggles.
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The content was good.
00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:32.799
You preached great content.
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It was true.
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The sermon just never went anywhere.
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It never traveled anywhere.
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It stayed in the same place.
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It never progressed.
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They never felt more weight.
00:13:44.799 --> 00:13:46.879
They never felt a pulling forward.
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It never rose.
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It never built.
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So here is your one thing this week.
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Look at the last few sermons you've preached and run the shuffle test.
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Right?
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Run that test where you mix up your main movements.
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You're looking for a pattern.
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But when you find a sermon that shuffles freely, nothing breaks, I could have preached movement three where movement one is and movement two where movement three is.
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I could have done that, and the sermon would have just felt the same.
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When you find a sermon that does that, rebuild it.
00:14:24.399 --> 00:14:26.240
How could I build this?
00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:34.159
Well, first of all, what order should these movements go in if each one had to earn the next?
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What's the text saying?
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What's the text movement?
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If you can shuffle your movements freely, what you have is a list, instead build something that progresses, something that travels, something that moves the listener, the audience closer to believing that one truth you've built your entire sermon on.
00:14:57.039 --> 00:15:00.799
Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Clear Preaching Podcast.
00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:05.679
If you have enjoyed it and you haven't yet decided to follow the podcast, please do so.
00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:08.960
If you haven't yet, give it a rating, a five-star rating.
00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:12.720
That would really help other people find this podcast also.
00:15:12.960 --> 00:15:18.399
And if you think there's somebody or the preacher out there who maybe has never listened to this before, share it with them.
00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:23.440
If you think they might benefit from the content on this podcast, would love if you do that.
00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:26.720
And once again, check out clearpreaching.com.
00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:27.600
There's a lot going on.
00:15:27.759 --> 00:15:29.840
The community is growing and we're excited.
00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:41.440
New people are coming in, connecting with those already on the inside, learning together, joining, joining small group cohorts, being a part of small groups together, and elevating preaching in our lives so we get better.
00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:46.159
We are striving to be better at clearly communicating the word of God.
00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:47.039
God bless you.
00:15:47.120 --> 00:15:48.799
I'll see you next week.
