SERMON ASSIGNMENT

You will now begin assembling a sermon using the CUMULATIVE SUMMARY on the following pages. This summary consists of the main points of the entire textbook, including the chapters following this current chapter and on to the end of the textbook.

1. When you assemble your sermon you are to reference every point in the CUMULATIVE SUMMARY and decide if they apply or do not apply to your sermon. If they do not apply you are to mark that point of the summary as NA, meaning not applicable and you do not have to include the textbook chapter reference for that point.
2. The other points in the summary are to be marked with a brief note. The note can state such things as: that you have considered them and either utilized them or not utilized them; or that you have adjusted your sermon according to their precepts; or that you have incorporated them into your sermon; or other brief statements concerning each of those points. Include in the brief statements how you used the precepts stated in the point or how it affected the way that you used them in the indicated part of your sermon.
3. Also include any other pertinent facts that you want in the brief statements.

4. Also include the chapter reference from the textbook for the points in the summary that you do use.

5. Both the Cumulative Summary and the outline are to be submitted to the college and accepted by us before you submit your Finish Sign In form and your Closed Book Test Contract form for the course. Even if you are planning to write out the sermon verbatim for your own use, you must still complete, and submit and have accepted, an outline written according to the precepts taught in the textbook and completing the Cumulative Summary as you write the sermon. You cannot pass the course without completing both parts of this assignment.

CUMULATIVE SUMMARY

A sermon is: An oral address - to the popular mind - upon religious truth -as contained in the Scriptures - and elaborately treated - with a view to persuasion.

A sermon is a structure: it is something put together with care.  It has: unity - coherence - proportion - a beginning - a middle - and an end.

Sermons may be arranged in four classes, -the explanatory, the illustrative, the argu mentative, the persuasive.

1. The preponderance of one method, not the exclusion of others, gives character to every class.
2. These four elements of discourse cover every variety of oratorical composition.
3. The proper classification of sermons is fundamental to the subject of unity of discourse.
4. A sermon cannot be pointed in its aim if it has no oneness of rhetorical character by which to classify it.
5. Proper classification is equally fundamental to the subject of proportion in preaching.

Numbering in this summary:

The roman numerals used to enumerate the main points of this summary are not the same as the roman numerals used in the textbook to divide the text into lessons. They are only for the purpose of numbering the main sections of this Summary.

Doc Van