illustrations, where I include planned pauses, even where I insert humor. While I don’t have a standard outline, I do follow a reasonably consistent order. (I will offer more detail later using notes from one of my sermons.) My introduction states a problem as experienced today, connects the problem to my audience, and then transitions to the Bible to find answers. I then describe the time, date, author, audience, and circumstances of the Bible passage to highlight similarities between our situation and