You’ve still got three cards up your sleeve, so this might be covered later, but I’ll ask anyway.

Taking the point that the sermon is more directed to confession-type applications, is there a reason why you’d hold the sermon so late in this template? Rather than having the 9.33-9.56 stuff happen in light of sermon/confession? Would you use this more often to have the particular 14:26 thing early, or because of the confession-from-sermon thing?

Hi Anthony.

This template is for situations where the 14:26-type segment is not really closely related to the sermon, or where it better leads into it rather than responds to it.

Even so, it’s pretty punchy. The preacher is on his feet 31 minutes after the start (which most preachers I think would find helpful!).

Incidentally, the kind of questions you’re asking lead us to a key point about utilising these templates. The Bible passage and the sermon are the key factors in determining which template to use (not the only factors, but the driving ones). Which means that the preacher needs to have pretty fair idea of where he’s headed with the sermon before the meeting can be planned. This is actually where a series of templates for different kinds of sermon/teaching/passages/topics can be so handy. Given that most preachers aren’t going to be really on top of where the sermon is heading until say mid-week (at the earliest?!), you don’t then have to start from scratch to design a meeting around it.  You’ve got a shape to work with that fits the kind of morning it’s going to be. It makes pulling the meeting together more achievable, while still allowing room for creativity/flexibility.

Of course, the ideal is to sit down and plan a month or two’s worth of meetings in advance, but this depends on the ability of the preacher to have enough work done to know what sort of theme or topic will drive each meeting.

Dear Fred,

Four factors affect the success of question times in the long-term (seems to me):
1.  in the early days, ask a few key congregation members to be ready to ask a question—even a very simple one—just to get the ball rolling (the best spontaneity is always organized!)
2.  just keep doing it each week, even if there are no questions; make it a norm.
3.  preach sermons that provoke questions! When I preach and get no questions afterwards, it’s very often because I haven’t really stirred people to think. I haven’t upset their equilibrium in any way. My fault not theirs.
4.  (and this is a hard one) you need to be the kind of person who can answer questions graciously and well; not everyone is gifted to do this—that’s no crime! If you’re not quick enough on your feet, employ a question box, and begin your sermon by picking up last week’s questions (which you’ve had time to think about).

Warm regards

Tony