Pre-Sermon Intros?

Pre-Sermon introductions are the short presentations that I make prior to beginning my sermon. Primarily, I use these for addressing people in the audience who aren’t Christians. I use this space in time to engage the listener’s thinking. At least that’s my goal. My journey into using such introductions comes from two sources.

The first is from a practical observation. When I first started attending District Minister’s Conferences, one of the first UPCI Officials to lead our elections was Rev. Jesse Williams. In that instance, and at every district conference I heard him direct, the man never wasted words. Every time he spoke into the microphone, he had something valuable to say. He was sharing a sermon thought, sharing an interesting article he’d read, or sharing a ministerial insight. It was clear that he had spent time preparing his comments for each moment he would have to fill during the election process. His preparation kept my attention. And his studious use of those moments of time has become a personal goal for me.

The second comes from my exposure to the ministry team at Christian Life Center in Gaithersburg, MD. I’ve been privileged to minister there a few times. In one of my visits, the church had been in a series of Sunday morning services that focused on people who needed to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. As such, they had created a few minutes of introductory remarks that they used each week in order to prepare folks to receive it. As such, since I was preaching that Sunday morning, they would present the introduction prior to my sermon, or they could teach me the presentation, and I could give it prior to preaching. I chose to learn. And it worked.

From these two influences, I’ve created my own series of pre-sermon introductions. Some I’ve used many times, while others have been used just once. Maybe a reader will find them useful in his own setting.