In an article for Pastors.com, Rick Warren writes: \u201ca sermon without a conclusion is a message without a purpose. Changed lives come from great conclusions. John Stott said, \u201cIf there\u2019s no summons, there\u2019s no sermon.\u201d<\/p>\n
First, avoid these four common mistakes:
\u2022 Don\u2019t just summarize the message. Ask people to act.
\u2022 Don\u2019t announce that you\u2019re concluding, especially if you don\u2019t mean it.
\u2022 Don\u2019t blame the clock and rush to a conclusion.
\u2022 Don\u2019t introduce new ideas or extra points in your conclusion.
Instead, conclude by doing these things:<\/p>\n
1. Always point back to Jesus Christ. Jesus is center-stage.<\/strong> The goal of preaching is not to get people to fall in love with you as the preacher but to get them to fall in love with Jesus. Since the Bible is the story of Jesus\u2019 redemptive work, every sermon ought to draw people to the cross and the resurrection of Christ.<\/p>\n 2. End with emotional intensity.<\/strong> The conclusion should be the emotional high point of the sermon \u2013 the crescendo. The target of your preaching should shift from the hearer\u2019s head to their heart. I\u2019m not suggesting we use emotions to manipulate, but rather that we persuade the will of a person to respond. My hero W. A. Criswell used to say that \u201cpreaching is seeking to move a man\u2019s will God-ward.\u201d The conclusion is the place to do that most effectively.<\/p>\n 3. Ask for a specific response.<\/strong> A sermon\u2019s conclusion isn\u2019t dynamic until it\u2019s specific. The conclusion of a sermon should always answer the question, \u201cokay, now what?\u201d And if you ask people to do too many things in response to the message, you\u2019ve asked them to do nothing. Determine what one actionable challenge you should be offering at the end of this particular message.<\/p>\n 4. Make it personal.<\/strong> Every listener should feel that you are dealing directly with their heart as an individual, as if it is just the two of you in the room. One of the best ways to do this is to write out your closing prayer in advance that leads people in committing to the points of the message. Writing it out in this way keeps you from saying the same thing every week.<\/p>\n 5. Always offer an opportunity to receive Christ and expect people to respond.<\/strong> The Word of God really is powerful when it gets into the souls of your hearers. So be sure to allow the Holy Spirit room to work by giving everyone an opportunity to choose to follow Jesus. Then lead them in that commitment and expect that some will be saved. But as you do, avoid using manipulative pressure tactics. Our goal is not to close the sale and get commitments. Our goal is to help people begin a new life, transformed by God.\u201d [Read the full article]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In an article for Pastors.com, Rick Warren writes: \u201ca sermon without a conclusion is a message without a purpose. Changed lives come from great conclusions. John Stott said, \u201cIf there\u2019s no summons, there\u2019s no sermon.\u201d First, avoid these four common mistakes: \u2022 Don\u2019t just summarize the message. Ask people to act. \u2022 Don\u2019t announce that … Continue reading “5 Keys to Powerful Conclusions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}