The issue is transitions. Whether the movement is from a sermon’s introduction to the first major move or from one point to another, listeners will not track your thought process if you move too abruptly from one to the other. In Communicating For A Change, Stanley observes: “It is easy to lose people in the curves” (p. 157).

One benefit of transitions, claims Stanley, is that they “give people a chance to catch back up with you. They provide the audience with an opportunity to rejoin the discussion. They may have lost track of where you are for a variety of reasons, many of which you have no control over. But by slowing down in the curves, by creating a break in the action, they are able to reengage” (p. 158).

I am also convinced that even people who are tracking with you will get lost if you don’t make it clear to them that you are moving from one concept to another. It takes time for thought to form in peoples’ minds. Because I know that I’m moving from cause to effect or from “what to so what,” I can handle an sharp turn. I’m ready for it. But my listeners are not. They need to be guided into each new direction the sermon is taking.

I’ve heard Haddon Robinson say on several occasions that transitions are the most challenging part of sermon delivery for him. When he listens to sermons he has preached, he invariably concludes that he should have worked harder on his transitions.

Transitions, then, keep people on track and also provide a re-entry point for people whose minds have wandered. I’m so convinced of this that I write out my transitions, and I practice them as well. How do you work at crafting transitions which keep people engaged when you head into the turns?