Video Transcript: Effective Conclusions Part 1

Welcome back to this class on so you've been asked to preach, or you've been  asked to teach, or you've been asked to speak at a function, we've been looking at, how do you structure a message, and then how do you conclude the  message effectively? And here's where we left off last time the discouraging  finish that can be an ineffective conclusion because it just creates too much  confusion for people. Another kind of ineffective conclusion is what we're going  to I'm going to call summarizing the whole tell them, tell them, tell them. Tell  them when I was taught to preach or when began studying preaching, I looked  at classical preachers in the United States from about the 1950s and I found that they had a style of organization that was, you know, in the conclusion, you tell  people, or the introduction, you tell people what you're going to tell them, and  then you tell the first point, and then you summarize the first point, and then you  tell them the second point, and Then you summarize the first point and the  second point, and then you tell them the third point, and you tell them  summarize the first and second and third points, and then on the conclusion,  you tell them again what you just told them. That can become a very repetitive  kind of thing that people in nowadays world of communication that is fast will  simply tune out. And so that would be a poor conclusion. Another kind of poor  conclusion is what I'm going to call I'm out of time. I've used that one, and you  only use that in great desperation, because all of a sudden these people say,  Well, wait a minute, you didn't quite wrap it up. You didn't quite finish the puzzle.  But sometimes you got to do that very early. When I was preaching, I was in  seminaries in a church in Phoenix, Arizona, and I was using a cassette tape,  back then 30 minute cassette tape, to tape my messages. And it was July 4,  Sunday, July 4, which in the United States is a big holiday, so you can expect  many people in the evening service where I was preaching, but I wanted to tape  my message, so I put my my recorder, tape recorder inside the pulpit, and I set it to record me when I started my message. And there weren't that many people  there that night, but I started going, I got lost in my message. I didn't have it well  organized. And that 30 minute blue group, the recorder clicked off, which is one  thing, except it was inside this wooden pulpit, and it was like a gunshot that door was reverberated through the whole sanctuary, and people were just kind of like, what was that? And took me a minute to realize it wasn't a gun shot. It was just  my tape recorder going off, and I said, I'm done. I'm done. And they were  relieved. I hate to say it, but that kind of thing says I didn't organize this very  well, did I? And then another kind of bad conclusion is the left field conclusion,  and that is that you've been building this case. You've been in this Bible study  passage with them. Are you in this topic with them? And then at the end, you go  off on something entirely different. Well, before I go, I just want to say something about this which has nothing to do with what you said that will tarnish your  message. And so that's, I call the left field conclusion. So those are a variety of  ways that don't work very well. What kind of conclusions do work well? What 

kind of conclusion? Now, this takes work to work on a conclusion that is  effective. But here are some kinds of conclusions that are very, very effective.  But remember the purpose of conclusions, emphasizing the main point, sending  people off with some kind of action, whether it's a thought or deed, and then  landing the plane, so that you come to a conclusion. And people are ready to  say, yeah, yeah. You know, think again of Tony Campolo and that message, it's  Friday, but Sunday is a coming. You know that main point came back at the  conclusion, where the conclusion was, you know, you people here gathered in  this place. You think you can't impact the world, but I'm telling you, it's only  Friday, and then they're all shouting at Sunday coming. Wow. It was a send off  with action to be engaged in the world, and it was a landing place for the  message. So how do you do that? Well, one way of doing it extremely well. That takes work, but it's incredibly positive, is to connect to your introduction. Now,  this man was a radio figure here in the United States for many, many, many  years, they had a radio program, and one part of his radio program he would call the rest of the story. So he'd tell a story about someone or something, and then  you get to the end, and you're kind of, you're kind of craving the end of the story, because there was usually a twist at the end of the story, and so he'd begin a  story about a young woman, for instance, who was a scientist, but she lived in  the middle of the 19th century in England, and women scientists were not  accepted, they were not received well, and as a result, she was somebody who  just didn't was not able to fulfill her destiny, she spoke once before a group of  scientists, and they criticized her to no end. So she decided to give up her  dream of being a scientist. But one of the things she then comforted herself with  was taking on a task in her life. She had a neighbor boy who was sick, and they  were looking for someone to care for him, and so she decided to care for him.  And while she was caring for him, she would tell him stories. And she created  this world of little rabbits, and the story of these rabbits and how they lived out  their life. And there were moral lessons along the way, and she illustrated them  well, and said, in a moment, I'll tell you the rest of the story. And he comes back  after commercial. And the rest of the story was, this is the story of Beatrix Potter, who's in the history of the United States, one of the children's authors, with a  story about Peter Rabbit. And it's that sort of thing. Now, when you do that in a  message, it can be incredibly powerful that you say, here's the introduction, and  I'm giving you part of the story so you want more, you're going to stay tuned,  and at the end, we're going to wrap this up. I heard this done recently with  somebody preaching about Joseph. It's a young man I was privileged to work  with for about seven or eight years, and he began his message by the point  where Joseph is 31 years old and he's in prison, and he says I was thinking  back to when I was 31 and he described his life when he was 31 he was a  worship leader in the church, and he had just gotten fired. His wife was pregnant with her second child. He found out their first child had some defects, some 

health issues that were going to maybe cost a lot of money over a period of time the economy was and therefore health insurance was a big thing. And the  economy was such that they owned a house, but they owed more on the house  and what they could sell it for. And so all of these issues going up. And now what is my future going to hold and I get fired by this new boss, new boss, and we  just didn't see right, same way. And then he told about Joseph in that situation,  and how things changed in a moment, how, you know, all of a sudden he's  hauled out of prison. He's forgotten, right the man that he said, please  remember me when you serve Pharaoh again. And forgotten him. He's forgotten for two more years, but then all of a sudden, he's called to go before Pharaoh, to interpret the dream. And he does. And all of a sudden, he's second ruler in  Egypt, and says, things turn like that at the end of the story, end of the message, he said last week, couple weeks ago, said I got to sit down with that man who  fired me when I was 31 and we acknowledged our own each our own culpability  and what went on and the way things had built. We we acknowledge all of that,  and then we apologized to each other, and we committed to each other as  brothers again, and he said, and I got to move on in ministry to where he was at  the present time, that kind of thing. That bracketing a message in such a way  that the introduction and the conclusion of bracket the message will bring power  to your message. So connect to the connect to the introduction. Variety ways  you can do that, but if you do it well, this will have power. Now, having said that,  a second way is use an illustration of your main point. You know, you've got a  main point that you've been emphasizing. Okay, bring an illustration of that  point, somebody who's lived out the action that you're calling people to that you  want them to understand. You want them to understand God's love. You know,  have somebody give a testimony as a conclusion. Have a picture of God's love.  I'm preaching on God's loving. So that's mine. I'm preaching on that this Sunday  church. And you know, I just think of John Harper's word, God is closer than you  think. So he ended a message on that by talking about being on a plane next to  somebody, a guy who's on his computer and he's looking at pictures of his  young son, and his son has gotten old enough that he recognizes dad now and  sees dad and smiles. And so, you know, this guy is telling John Ortberg about all these showing of all these pictures of his son that he's got us his computer or his phone and and John Ortberg is thinking about God's loving. Suddenly, I realized  this was. This guy's screensaver, a picture of his son. Him with his son. He said,  I realized I'm I'm on God's screensaver. That kind of conclusion. Illustration of  your point can be incredibly, incredibly powerful. Asking people to take an action  of some sort is another way that can just bring home your point. Now there are a variety of actions to think about that. I'm thinking of a woman named Rachel  Bloom who asked people to come up and light a candle as a prayer for  someone. And so at the end of her sermon, just asked people to come up a  bunch of candles up there. It was an action that allowed that message to be 

cemented in people's lives and minds. In the church I served in the last church I  served, we had a practice of this, you know, we had people come up and they  would do a variety of things, such as nailing, writing their sins out and then  nailing them onto a cross. We'd have people come forward for prayer. We'd  have people gather in groups praying together. One time, we had people picking up a stone or dropping a stone, or, you know, a one time we had to write on a  mirror, you know, what? What do you want to reflect of God's glory? What?  What is it you want to reflect and or writing names? One time, we had people  come up and just we had plexiglass frame, Plexiglas in a wood frame, and we  had people write names of people that they wanted us to pray for, that these  people would come to faith. These kind of conclusions are marvelously powerful, and they bring it home. Let's say they bring the message home in a powerful  way. So if you could find ways that ask people to take action of some sort,  whatever it is, it will cement your message into their hearts and minds more  powerfully. So you can do an action, you connect to your introduction, illustrate  your point in action, or an appeal. Now these appeals could be of a variety of  kinds. It could be an appeal to stewardship. I, my blog, not long ago, I talked  about preaching about money, and several posts and things you could do about  money. Well, you know, I've been involved, I think, in my ministry, in six different  building programs, and thank God, I don't have to do that again. But one of the  things we'd have to do is raise money for that. And so oftentimes I would give a  message, and the appeal would be, all right, would you make a pledge? Would  you make a three year pledge that will help us accomplish this leading of a  legacy, or help us accomplish this, reaching out in this community in an  impactful way for the next 100 years, or whatever? A stewardship appeal is very  important. An appeal that's a response to the gospel that if, in your message  you've been giving the gospel, and you say, you know, if you'd like to receive  Jesus Christ, today, I want to talk to you, or we've got people available here  afterwards to talk to you. It may be signing up for a program. Maybe you're  you've talked here in a sermon series about grief, and now there's grief share,  which is a marvelous program to help people who are grieving Come, come sign up for this program. It might be introducing a mission and and challenging  people to be part of that mission. Recently, the church that I'm a part of, and we  adopted a new Michigan, a new mission in Rwanda. And so there was a  challenge to say, Okay, there's this need within this community. How many of  you are willing to go to help build this school? How many of you are willing to  fund it, to pay for it? How many of you are willing? It's that kind of appeal, that  kind of challenge, that these kind of Appeals, and you may be thinking of others, but anything that appeals makes an appeal to people to engage the gospel  more effectively. It can be marvelously powerful. Now I'm going to continue this  next time. I think I've come back to the end of my time for this session, and so  next time, we'll begin session nine, and we'll see you then.