Imagine you’re taking a cross-country flight. There are at least two aspects of that flight you want to be particularly smooth. The takeoff and the landing.
It's the same way for listeners of your sermons.
If we appreciate a pilot who provides smooth takeoffs and landings, those who hear your sermons will appreciate messages with smooth, non-awkward takeoffs and smooth, definitive, purposeful landings.
This means you need to memorize at least the first and last sentences of your entire time in front of the congregation.
Not just the first sentence of the sermon (and yes, that, too), but when you still stand up to speak, you need to know where you're going from that very first statement.
Being comfortable and confident will set your listeners at ease. But if you get up nervous, stumble, and are unsure how to go, they'll feel like taking off in an airplane with a pilot with an unsteady hand on flight controls.
Yes, you can recover. But it helps to take off with a smooth start to your message.
The same is true for the landing.
When you're nearing the close of your message, you shouldn’t need to guess where the runway is. You don't want to circle the airport.
Rather, land the plane with the same purpose with which you started—with confidence and intentionality.
Now, there probably will be more important theological statements that you'll speak in your sermon, especially concerning the heart of the gospel. But as far as your listeners are concerned, the takeoff and the landing very well may be the two most important sentences in your message.
Granted, the spirit might move differently, and that's great, but as far as it is up to you in your sermon preparation, know exactly how you're going to start, and exactly how you're going to end.
Try it, and let me know what you think!
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