A sermon outline format that keeps your voice
Most sermon outline templates you can download have the same problem. They are shaped like an essay, so the sermon that comes out of them sounds like an essay, and the pastor spends Saturday night trying to get their own voice back into it. This is a one-page format built the other way round: it makes you write the joints of the sermon in the words you would actually say, so the voice is there from the first line.
What an outline is for
An outline is not a shorter sermon. It is the set of decisions that make a sermon possible: what the text says, what you are going to claim, where the sermon goes and in what order, and how it ends. If those decisions are made well, the writing on Friday is mostly typing. If they are made badly, or not at all, no amount of writing on Friday will save it.
That is why the format below asks for full sentences in six specific places and short notes everywhere else. The full sentences are the joints. They are the parts the congregation will actually hear you say, so they need to be in your voice now, not translated later.
The format
Copy this into whatever you write in. It fits on one page, which is the point.
Sermon outline
- Text
- Passage and translation. The verses you will actually read aloud, if not the whole thing.
- Date and occasion
- Sunday, season, anything unusual about the service.
- The one sentence (full sentence, your words)
- What this sermon is for. Not a summary of the passage: what you want them to know or do when they leave. If it sounds like a commentary heading, rewrite it.
- What the text says about God (one sentence)
- Plainly.
- What the text asks of us (one sentence)
- Plainly.
- The tension (full sentence, your words)
- Why this is hard, or why the room is not already living it. This is your opening. Say it the way you would say it to a friend who asked why this passage matters.
- Move 1
- Sentence: where the sermon goes first. Verses that carry it. One illustration, if any. What it asks of them.
- Move 2
- Same four lines.
- Move 3
- Same four lines. Three is a habit, not a rule. Two moves is fine. Four is usually two sermons.
- The landing (written out in full)
- The last two or three minutes, word for word. The one sentence again, said a different way. One specific thing to do this week. Then stop.
- References to check
- Every verse you quote from memory. Check each against your translation before Sunday.
Why each part is there
The one sentence
Everything in the sermon serves this line or gets cut. Writing it first, in your own words, is what stops the sermon from becoming a tour of the passage. The test is simple: could you say this sentence to someone in the parking lot afterward and have it be the whole sermon? If it needs a subordinate clause and a footnote, it is not the sentence yet.
God and us
Two questions, two plain answers. They keep the sermon from being only about God (a lecture) or only about us (a pep talk). Most passages are clearer about one than the other, and noticing which is a useful early clue about where the sermon's weight should sit.
The tension
This is the opening, and it is written as a full sentence because openings are where borrowed voices creep in. A pastor who would never say "In today's fast-paced world" in conversation will write it at the top of a sermon at 10pm on Saturday. Writing the tension the way you would say it to a friend is the single biggest thing this format does for your voice.
Moves, not points
A point is a thing to know. A move is a place the sermon goes. The difference matters in the pulpit: points invite you to explain, moves invite you to take people somewhere. Each move gets one sentence in your voice, the verses that carry it, at most one illustration, and a line about what it asks of the listener. If a move has no verses under it, it is probably your opinion, and it should either find its text or go.
The landing, in full
Endings are where tired sermons unravel, so the ending is written out while you are fresh, before the body. It is the one part of the manuscript that is non-negotiable even for pastors who preach from notes. Say the one sentence again in different words, give one concrete thing to do this week, and stop. Do not add a second ending, a summary of the three moves, or a poem.
References to check
A misquoted verse is the thing the careful listener remembers, and every preacher misremembers under pressure. List every verse you quote from memory and check it against the translation you preach from. This is dull and it takes five minutes and it is the mark of a careful pulpit.
A worked example
Luke 15:11-32, the parable of the two sons, for an ordinary Sunday. The voice is plain and a little Baptist, because that is the pastor I imagined writing it. Yours would sound different, and it should.
Luke 15:11-32, ESV. Ordinary Time. Nothing unusual about the service.
The one sentence: The Father runs to both of his sons, and the question this parable leaves us with is whether we will come inside.
About God: God does not wait at the door with his arms folded. He runs.
About us: Both sons are outside the house, and both are invited in, and only one of them has answered by the end.
The tension: Most of us have heard this story so often that we have already decided which brother we are, and we are usually wrong about it.
Move 1: The younger son's leaving is uglier than we remember (vv. 11-16). Illustration: the way a family reads a will. What it asks: to stop softening what we have done.
Move 2: The Father runs before the speech is finished (vv. 17-24). Illustration: none; the text carries this one. What it asks: to let ourselves be interrupted by mercy.
Move 3: The older son is outside too, and the Father goes out to him as well (vv. 25-32). Illustration: the deacon who has never missed a Sunday and has never once felt at home. What it asks: to notice that resentment is also a far country.
The landing: The story ends with a door open and a man standing outside it, and Jesus does not tell us what he did. That is not carelessness. It is because the man outside the door is the one listening. The Father has already run to you. He is standing in the yard right now, out of breath, saying come in. This week, find the person you have been standing outside about, and go inside. That is the whole sermon.
References to check: v. 20 ("while he was still a long way off"), v. 24 ("was dead, and is alive again"), v. 31 ("all that is mine is yours").
Notice what the outline already has. The opening and the ending are written. The three moves each have a sentence the congregation will hear more or less as written. The rest of Friday's work is filling in the middle of each move, which is the easy part, and reading it aloud, which is the important part.
Using it for different kinds of preaching
- Expository, through a book. The text line becomes the week's section. The one sentence still has to be one sentence, which is the discipline that stops verse-by-verse preaching from becoming a running commentary. Keep a separate line for "where we have been" so the moves do not spend their time recapping.
- Topical. Choose the controlling text first and write the outline from it, not from the topic. A topical sermon with no text under its moves is the one that sounds least like you and most like the internet.
- Lectionary. Pick one of the appointed readings as the text and let the others appear, if at all, as verses under a move. Trying to preach all four readings is the commonest way an outline turns into a list.
- A series. Add one line at the top: "This week's sentence is not last week's sentence." Read the two side by side before you write. It is the cheapest protection against repeating yourself.
A note on tools, since we make one
This format is a piece of paper, and it works as a piece of paper. Where PastorPrep comes in is after the outline is done: it takes an outline like the one above and drafts a first version in your voice, learned from sermons you have already preached, with every verse checked against your translation. You then edit it the way you would edit any first draft, in the same words you wrote the joints in. The outline is yours, the sentence is yours, the sermon is yours. The tool just saves you the blank page and the verse-checking, and shows its work.
Want this outline filled in for Sunday?
Send us the passage you are preaching and where you are stuck. Within 24 hours you will have an outline back in this format, drafted by PastorPrep, in your own voice if you send two past sermons along with it. Vivian reads every request herself. Free, no account, no card, whether or not you ever pay us.
And for the weeks after that
PastorPrep keeps your main idea and outline word for word, drafts as much of the sermon as you ask it to, and checks every verse against your translation. $19 a month, one price. There is a 14-day free trial that starts when you write something, and no card to start. Start free, or see how it works.