How to Preach One Big Idea Without Forcing It

Last week I released my new and improved book Preaching Nuts & Bolts on Amazon. It even rose up to #1 on the best sellers list. Wow!

The response so far has been phenomenal! I owe a HUGE thank you to everyone who grabbed a copy, and especially those who wrote a review. It means a ton to me to put in so much work and get such positive feedback.

This weekend I got an excellent question from a reader that I want to share and answer.

Question and Answer

I really enjoyed your book (just finished it). I left a review for you on Amazon. One quick question: I struggle with how to implement the one idea in my sermon over and over again in the same sermon without it coming across awkward. Any thoughts? Maybe you could share on an upcoming blog post. Take care and may God bless you and your ministry!
—Troy

Great question, and great idea to share my answer in this blog post.

In the book, I suggest that every message should be focused on a singular Big Idea, taken from the key Scripture of your sermon.

You should be able to summarize your sermon in a sentence. That is the Big Idea. The more memorable, the better.

The question is once you have this Big Idea, how do you inject it into your sermon without sounding forced or like a broken record?

I preached a sermon on parenting recently from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. The passage is about passing on faith from one generation to the next.

After working through my process in the book, I landed on the following Big Idea: If you want your kids to follow Jesus every day of their lives, make him part of your everyday life.

I began the sermon talking about how the number one goal of a Christian parent should be the spiritual well-being of their children. This was a perfect part to inject the first half of my Big Idea.

So I said something like this, “What should you do if you want your kids to follow Jesus every day of their lives? That is the big question. How can I help my kids follow Jesus every day of their lives?”

In the intro of the message, I have already repeated part of the Big Idea twice.

Then, we dove into Deuteronomy 6:4-9 to find the answer.

After breaking down each verse, I then paused and emphasized the Big Idea: “If you want your kids to follow Jesus every day of their lives, make him part of your everyday life.”

Since I thought this was such a powerful phrase, I said, “You have to understand this. If you want your kids to follow Jesus every day of their lives, make him part of your everyday life.”

After this, I moved into the application part of my message. I suggested four different times (from the text) that parents can leverage to teach their kids about Jesus.

For each of the four times, I made the application point, and then repeated the Big Idea.

Finally, in the conclusion, I made sure to repeat it one last time.

This may sound a bit excessive. I don’t always repeat the Big Idea this much. However, when you have a powerful and memorable statement like this, the more you repeat it, the more likely people will be to remember it and—more importantly—apply it.

In fact, I had a conversation yesterday with someone who still remembered it weeks later!

Summary

I find the best times to repeat the Big Idea are after you draw it out of Scripture, in the application, and the conclusion.

Make sure it is not forced. But don’t waste an opportunity to repeat it anywhere it naturally fits.

You may also try asking your audience to repeat it after you. This can create some fun audience interaction and help them remember it. I wouldn’t do this every week, but it works great with an especially powerful phrase.

You could try deductive preaching, stating the big idea immediately and reinforcing it the rest of the sermon. But I gravitate towards inductive preaching—asking questions and taking my audience on a journey to discover the answer in Scripture.

I hope that helps answer the question.

Thanks again to everyone who has picked up a copy of the book already. Your questions and feedback have all been amazing.

If you haven’t read it yet, the Kindle version is available for a steal!

And, I am excited to announce that you can now order a physical copy of the book too!

If you use the Big Idea method when preaching, how do you repeat the idea without forcing it?