Preaching (part 8)

I will be describing the process of writing a sermon as scripting the plot of the sermon. The easiest way to visualize the script of the sermon’s plot is by using a storyboard. Of the various forms possible, the sermon script below allows flexibility. All sermons preached in my classes must follow the sermon script format. The sermon script resembles the structured episodes found in storyboarding.¹ Buttrick calls each episode in the storyboard a “move.” Moves are internally developed primarily using arguments, stories, and images. The storyboard depends upon understanding sermon form as narrative. Narrative is the larger category and “story” is a sub-classification. Of the various ways narrative is used in the literature, I am delimiting the definition to narratival logic or the plotting of thought and action.² More on the storyboard method below.

Three Modes of Narrative Plot

Mode of Immediacy.³ The Mode of Immediacy works primarily with narrative texts. With my emphasis on the rhetorical and narratival structures, I can incorporate this mode easily to all literary genres in the Bible. I do this by emphasizing the present tense. The text presses upon consciousness in the present time. It makes connections as it is being preached to my lived experiences. As the sermon progresses through the plotline, the hearer follows and the connections to live experiences continue through time. We hear and are formed by the performative movement of the text. In the mode of immediacy, plot comes from the text.

Mode of Reflection: Buttrick prefers the mode of reflection for non-narrative texts. Hebrews is an example. The Hebrew preacher is reflecting on the story of Jesus concisely outlined in Hebrews 1:1-4. The Hebrew preacher is standing back and considering the story as a whole and making the point about Jesus as mediator of a better covenant based on better promises and a greater priesthood, therefore we should remain faithful to our salvation. It is a reflection on the story not as a retelling of the story. The plot of Hebrews is based on reflection of the gospel story and not the gospel genre (Matthew – John). Hebrews has plot and narratival substructure. It uses stories. It utilizes an “exemplar, conclusion, exhortation” logic.⁴ But it is not told as a story. It is told more like a meditation, “a word of exhortation.”

Mode of Praxis: I handle the Mode of Praxis by incorporating action throughout the sermon. I do not make this a separate category or mode at all. Function statements have strong verbs with behavioral and affective ends. Belief and action in concrete situations are bound and cannot be separated. How one lives in the world as a Christian and how the text/reflected theology connects to our world is the same to me. Here is where Buttrick is the most ahistorical. He does not need a text but only a theological field of meaning. Theological fields of meaning bear witness to situations that affect Christian behavior. He is right. We do this all the time. He is making it overt. However, for me, I want to make the connection between the text and the text’s witness to theology overt. In the Mode of Praxis, the plot comes from the situation of our lives and how a field of meaning addresses that situation.

Plotline of Sermon: A plotline, another word for sequence or arrangement, is a way to follow the flow or movement of the episodes of the sermon from the beginning to the ending. Indicate if the sermon is in the mode of immediacy or the mode of reflection. To compose a plotline, write a paragraph consisting of the first sentences of each move (sometimes it might be the first two sentences of an episode). When writing the plotline paragraph, separate the first sentences of each move using an asterisk (*). In other words, write a paragraph that includes a copy and paste of the first sentences of each episode/move.⁵

Concluding Hints for Storyboarding

1. H. Abrams, Glossary of Literary Terms. “The plot in a dramatic or narrative work is the structure of its actions as these are ordered and rendered toward achieving a particular emotional and artistic effect.”
2. Scripting the whole sermon by way of plot will also require you to pay attention to sequencing thought within each episode.
3. Sermons come alive using concrete, significant detail that is appropriate for the audience’s experiences. Abstractions communicate understanding but appealing to the five senses motivates the soul. The old writer’s cliche is true, “show, don’t tell.” For example, teaching someone to drive a clutch on grandpa’s rusty pickup in the K-Mart parking lot communicates more than “it is like learning to drive.” A concretization is a story or image that enables people to experience the gospel in the present For example, what illustrations do I use to communicate the theology of transformation? Many preachers opt for the illustration of a butterfly’s metamorphous life cycle. But does talking about caterpillars make any difference to Agnes on Tuesday? She may understand the theory better, but does cognitive clarity change her heart? Instead, find a concretization about the transforming power of God in someone’s life.
4. Think about a sermon as a road map that is seeking a destination. Go down this road, take this turn, stop here, and turn left, then right, until you reach your goal. A map is like a directed, purposeful conversation that follows not the rules of logic but the less predictable contours of human Each new road you take when following directions is an episode. There might be a different set of directions that would get you where you are going, but that would be a different route or a different plotting of the directions. The model of a road map is a conversation that is headed toward a conclusion. You are trying to get somewhere. The quality of the end of one idea suggests the turn to a new idea; therefore, the turns or transitions are important. You always start with the end in mind. Once you reach your destination, STOP! Don’t park next door, don’t circle the block seven times, simply stop because you have arrived at your destination.
5. Moves are more like a movie than a picture book. The arrangement of thought is more conversational in development; it is a series of interlinked assertions, not proofs. It is a combination of deductive and inductive There is a thesis but, because it is a
   metaphor, you don’t know what the movie means until the end. Although the sermon is teeming with images, arguments, examples, and stories, the scaffolding of the progression is simple.

Sermon Script Format

Sermon Title

(Sermon Text)

Rhetorical and Theological Argument of the Text: Approximately 200 – 300-word summary. Identify the form and function of the genre. If the pericope has a significant literary device (e.g., parallelisms, inclusio, diatribe, chiasmus, etc.), then describe how the device is working.

Focus Statement of Sermon: A theologically-oriented subject and an active verb that states what the sermon is all about. Be clear and concise.

Function Statement of Sermon: The sermon’s intent. Naming the “hoped for change.” Format: “To [strong behavioral or affective verb] [identify the audience] to [second active verb] …” Be clear and concise.

[Core Affirmation: An alternative to the Focus and Function Statement given above: What difference does the Divine action of God make in our world of experience? Format: “Because God has acted [is acting/promises to act] in the following way–[therefore]–we are able to do the following … (the sentence finishes with a brief description of some faithful action ow made possible for us in the word ‘opened up’ by God’s action).”]

Plotline of Sermon: A paragraph consisting of the first sentences of each move. Indicate if the sermon is in the mode of immediacy or the mode of reflection. When writing the plotline, separate the moves using an asterisk (*). [First sentence from the introduction. *First sentence from Move 1. *First sentence from Move 2. * First sentence from Move 3. *Etc.].

Describe: Mode of Reflection or Mode of Immediacy, Point of Entry, & Point of View

Script

Introductions indicate intention toward but do not solve or provide resolution. Makes a promise to the hearer about the nature and focus of sermon. Should indicate the direction the sermon will take. The need for the sermon, the “itch” (antithesis, trouble, or tension) is highlighted. The introduction is a transition from the liturgical setting to Move 1.

Move/Episode 1 [Do not use a sub-heading to name the Moves].

• • The transition or connector.¹ First sentence of the move [same as the first sentence of your plotline].
  • Description of the move indicating development: argument, image, and/or story (50 words). ²
  • Closing sentence [an inclusio of the first sentence of the move]. Make sure you affect closure of an episode before transitioning to the next.

Move/Episode 2

• • transition: First sentence of the move [same as the second sentence of your plotline].
  • Description of the move indicating development: argument, image, and/or story (50 words).
  • Closing sentence [an inclusio of the first sentence of the move].

Repeat the pattern for the remaining moves and/or episodes.

• • transition: First sentence of the move [same as the next sentence of your plotline].
  • Description of the move indicating development: argument, image, and/or story (50 words).
  • Closing sentence [an inclusio of the first sentence of the move].

Last paragraph of the conclusion: The climax must cohere with the focus and function statements.

¹The transition is a connector. A connector could be a pause, a repeated refrain, a transitional phrase, a summary statement that completes one move and leads to the next, or a transitional story or example. Often, transitions are the most difficult parts of sermons to write, and if you find that you cannot find an appropriate connector to tie two parts of a sermon together, then the problem may lie in the logical flow of the sermon.

• • • Make sure there is closure before you transition to something new.
    • Transitions point to the path, the direction you are heading.
    • Transitions connect to the next (and, but, yet, if, then, reconsider, etc.)
    • Transitions anticipate content of the next step in the homiletical journey.

² Include 4–7 analytical footnotes explaining why you do what you do (specifically relating to, theology, exegesis, genre, and homiletical method). Include 4 – 7 footnotes connecting the sermon to a specific contextual analysis.

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1. See STORYBOARD for a link to various templates. Or simply use Google images and search for “storyboard” or “storyboard ” Also see David L. Barnhart & L. Susan Bond, “Homiletix: Using Comics to Teach Buttrick’s Model.”
2. Ronald Allen, “Theology Undergirding Narrative Preaching,” in What the Shape of Narrative Preaching? Edited by Mike Graves and David J. Schlafer (St. Louis: Chalice, 2008), 27–28. See my examples of Buttrick’s modes in “Preaching Ephesians: The Fourfold Fountain of God” Restoration Quarterly 62 (Second Quarter 2020): 81–97. My articles in Restoration Quarterly can be found at https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/restorationquarterly/
3. Narrative Modes comes from Buttrick, Homiletic, 333-448. Examples of the modes of immediacy and reflection are found in my article “How Lonely Stands the Preacher.” Restoration Quarterly 59 (Fourth Quarter 2017): 234-
4. Wills, “The Form of the Sermon in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity,” 277–99.
5. Examples of focus statements, function statements, plotlines, and manuscripts are found in “Preaching Ephesians,” 81–97.