CLARITY

PREACHING + COMMUNICATING FOR CHURCH LEADERS

Nuts + Bolts

Ep.2 | BIG IDEAS

Hosted and Curated by Craig Smith

IN THIS EPISODE

  • The correlation between the quality of a message and how God uses it in our lives | 2:01
  • Focus on the bullseye of your message | 2:41
  • How do you create a great, “Big Idea”? – 4 simple steps | 3:30

INSTANT TAKEAWAYS

1 | HAVE THEM REMEMBER ONE THING

It’s human nature. When you get up in front of an audience, deliver an incredible Introduction, nail your big idea (keep reading/listening for more on that) they’re still only going to remember one thing you spoke on. Now, you just have to ask yourself, what is that one, indispensable truth that you want them to walk away with? and THAT is the big idea of your message.

2 | HAVE A SINGULAR FOCUS

You want your audience to come away remembering that one thing. Now how do you do that? Make sure that you don’t have a lot of little points you’re making along the way that are independent of your main idea. Each point you make within your message, you want to be pointing towards that aforementioned main idea.

3 | “How To” Create That Great, Big Idea
1. MAKE SURE IT’S A NATURAL FIT FOR THE PASSAGE

Don’t impose something on to the Biblical passage that isn’t what the passage is actually talking about. It’s a foundation of responsible Bible Teaching. Don’t say anything “In the name of God” that He didn’t actually say.

2. MAKE IT SIMPLE

Don’t try and get a piece of every idea into that “Big Idea” statement. Make that truth you want them to walk away with, bite-sized, so that they will remember it. The big idea should be your hook that your audience can hang everything else on from your message.

3. KEEP IT HIGH-LEVEL

There shouldn’t be any part of your message that doesn’t fit naturally underneath the big idea. And that requires that your big idea functions on a 30,000-foot level.

4. MAKE IT PORTABLE

Give your audience every possible chance for your audience to walk out of your church, into the world, with your big idea in hand. Push in to see if you can make it catchy in some way that makes it memorable. Alliteration. Rhyming. “Steal” a well-known phrase people are already familiar with.

SHOW NOTES

We are so excited to get into our mini-series, “Nuts + Bolts”, which we have batch released wherever you get your podcasts! This is our intro to this channel, so you can get a great feel of what we’re going to accomplish on Clarity as we get into the interview episodes coming up this fall. In the meantime, if you could review us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Also, if you have any questions, click the button below to send us an email today, or check out our Show Notes.

WHERE ELSE YOU CAN FIND US

You can also find us in the following locations, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Make sure to subscribe and leave us a review!