Powerful Sermon Openings Make a Message More Engaging
“Why should I pay attention?” That’s the first question I assume every listener asks on a Sunday morning when I step into the pulpit.
I assume people ask this question because I ask this question. A couple of years ago, I stepped out of preaching full-time and found myself in the congregation. I found myself saying, “20 minutes is a long time. You’ve had all week to prepare. What do you have for me?”
I’m not alone. “Preaching” is not a positive word! If someone says, “You’re preaching at me,” it’s not a compliment! The assumption is that preaching will be long, boring, and moralistic. We’ve lost their attention before we had it, which is why we have to open every sermon strong.
Your First 180 Seconds
I believe we have 180 seconds to convince them to care because in the first three minutes, the entire congregation will decide whether to pay attention, zone out, or scroll on their phones. This is why YOUR FIRST 180 SECONDS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT IN THE WHOLE SERMON!
If you think that’s overstating things, speech coaches argue it’s too long. Some suggest we have only 1 minute, 30 seconds, or 15 seconds. My three minutes is quite generous!
So, if the first three minutes are the most important, then what should you put there? To answer that, I look to comedians. People pay good money to listen to them talk for an hour. That is why I think preachers can learn from stand-up comedians.
Think about how a comedian starts their act. They have a joke. They breathe heavily into the mic. They draw you in and engage your attention. Compared to comedians, most preachers fill their first five minutes with MINDLESS DRABBLE, disclaimers, quick notes, announcements, and throwaway lines. “Boy, I’m blessed to preach to you today from God’s word. I’ve so enjoyed this study, and I think you’re going to like this sermon. Don’t forget next week is the potluck.” Sound familiar?
The church might remember the potluck, but after this introduction, they won’t remember the sermon. Not unless the pastor literally sets themself on fire or has a heart attack. So, stop wasting your most important sermon time on announcements. You can open strong when you...
Structure an Engaging Introduction
Part of the problem is how we structure our services. The preacher volunteers to do the announcements or “mention something” during their message. This takes up valuable real estate in your sermon.
Comedians don’t waste the start of their message. Someone introduces them so they don’t have to take up time doing it themselves. If they introduce themselves, it’s at the end, “Don’t forget I’m Chuck McChuckles. Have a good night!” They understand that as soon as they speak, the stopwatch starts. 180 seconds go quickly. That is why we need to structure the service so we can start preaching immediately, without announcements or greetings.
Additionally, we need to structure our sermons to have a strong opening! If I spend 10 hours working on a sermon, 2 of those hours go to the opening 5 minutes. I will work, hone, craft, shape, and polish the opening lines to convince the church to listen.
I’ll be so familiar with it that I could deliver the introduction without notes, even if it’s not verbatim. My opener is structured and familiar, so I can make eye contact and even walk around. I want the introduction to feel conversational and engaging. I don’t memorize my whole sermon, so I’ll return to my notes at some point, but the plan is to have everyone hooked by then.
Use a Strong Opening
Crafting an engaging opener can be tricky. If you preach every week, it’s even more so because you can’t start your messages the same way week after week. Here are a few tools I like to use to draw people in when I’m preaching.
ASMR sounds like a sigh or whisper. Just breathing into the microphone (this is why I use a handheld) will make people look up from their bulletin (or phone) and simply wonder, “What’s going on?”
Related jokes that have a memorable punch line. For example, a sermon on surrender (letting go and letting God), you could tell this, “Knock, knock.” (You might have to repeat this until the church responds with, “Who’s there…”) “Control freak…now you say, ‘Control freak who?’” This joke will remind them of control, their control issues, and the need to let it go!
Real questions! Don't ask some ethereal, abstract, super-spiritual question, ask a real question. Ask a question that makes them think! If your text is, “Thou shalt not steal.” Don’t ask, “Are you tempted to steal?” Ask, “If no one was watching and $300 fell out of a book you were skimming at the library, would you turn it in?” This question makes them imagine a scene and wrestle with their thoughts.
News articles with a compelling story or a set of statistics. For example, when I preached on humility, I shared a news article about the Dunning-Kruger effect. This scientifically observed phenomenon causes people with the least expertise to be the most confident. Enough said.
Complaints engage people fast! There is a reason rage-baiting is a popular technique for drawing in social media views - it works! When you complain about traffic, slow customer service (don’t mention the story), or kids leaving things around, people resonate with those experiences. That said, I try to keep this light-hearted, more Jerry Seinfeld, less Larry David.
Crowdsource your introduction! Get the congregation involved by doing a poll (try a service like Mentimeter), raising their hands to survey opinions, making a list on a whiteboard, or having them turn and tell their neighbor something.
These are just some suggestions for creating an engaging opener. You can also use videos, stories, or an object lesson. Anything that causes people to lean in and listen works!
Plan for the Ending at the Beginning
As you engage the congregation, you are also introducing your topic. I like to say my BIG IDEA (link to that post) at the beginning because later it serves as a callback or refrain.
This is where the structure and art of comedy intersect with the practice of preaching. Jokes are funny, sure, but callbacks elicit the biggest laughs. Callbacks are those jokes that refer back to a joke earlier in the set. It might be a catchphrase from a story that all of a sudden shows up relevant and hilarious a bit or two later. Some comedians work hard to tie their whole set together with a recurring callback. Every time it shows up, it gets just a little funnier as new layers are added.
In the sermon, your BIG IDEA can be that callback. If you introduce it up front as a point of common agreement, it can then take on layers as you move through the message. For example, “Sometimes you have to laugh.” This was the big idea for a sermon on Isaac’s birth from Sarah’s point of view. The sermon opened with a frustrating story from a recent encounter with some bureaucracy. I said, “Sometimes you have to laugh.” Why? Because you can’t do anything else in the DMV.
Your callback might start as a punchline, then serve as a point of commonality, show up in the reading of the text, and then finally be the focus of your sermons application.
As we moved through the message and traced Sarah’s pain of infertility, the phrase was layered with the idea that sometimes you have to laugh because you would cry. Later, Sarah laughs at the idea that she would bear a son. She laughs at the spark of hope she has for a son. Finally, Isaac is born, and Sarah invites everyone to laugh with her as she names her child, "Laughter."
At the end, we see that sometimes you have to laugh because it’s the only possible response to God’s amazing grace. “Sometimes you have to laugh” became a very meaningful phrase throughout the message. It was introduced early without giving away the point, but then became a fixed point of reference throughout the sermon.
If you do this right, by the end of your introduction, the church should have at least heard your BIG IDEA, even if they don’t fully know what it means yet. Then when it’s over, everyone will remember that, “Sometimes you have to laugh!”
Test Drive Your Introduction
When I worked at a church full-time, I would often run my introduction material by the other staff. If it was a joke, I’d tell it and see how they responded. If it was an article or fact, I’d share it and see if they engaged. Now I bounce these ideas off my wife and kids…or anyone I meet! This helps me know whether what I think is engaging is truly engaging to others.
Once I have something I like, then I practice it out loud. I’ll read through it a few times until I have the flow (not the wording) memorized. Then, when I drive, I’ll turn off the radio for 5 minutes and practice my introduction. I want to say it so frequently that it comes naturally when I deliver my sermon. The goal is to look the congregation in the eyes and deliver my opener conversationally, as if we were at coffee.
The conversational tone of the opening prompts people to drop their defenses, lean in, and engage with your message. Your carefully curated content shows that you are prepared and have something worth sharing. Together, they create an introduction that leaves a church full of people wondering, “What will come next?” When you see people fully engaged you know you had a powerful sermon opening. There is nothing more a preacher could ask for.
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