How to Write a Sermon Outline (Step by Step, With a Simple Template)

A good sermon outline does two jobs. It keeps you faithful to the text, and it keeps your listeners with you. When the outline is clear, the writing goes faster, the delivery feels freer, and people leave knowing what the sermon was about. When it's fuzzy, you feel it all week, and so does the congregation on Sunday.

Here's a step-by-step way to build one, plus a simple template you can reuse every week.

Step 1: Study the passage before you outline anything

It's tempting to start with structure. Resist it. An outline built before you understand the passage tends to impose your ideas on the text instead of drawing them out of it.

Read the passage several times, ideally in more than one translation. Note the context: what comes before and after, who the original audience was, and what problem the author was addressing. Mark repeated words, commands, contrasts, and turns in the argument. Only then open your commentaries, so they check your observations instead of replacing them.

A few questions to ask as you read:

• What is the author talking about?
• What is he saying about it?
• Why did the first readers need to hear this?
• Where does the passage turn — a “therefore,” a “but,” a change of scene?

Step 2: Find the big idea in one sentence

Before you write a single point, try to state the main idea of the passage in one sentence. Haddon Robinson's classic book Biblical Preaching popularized this approach, describing the big idea as a subject (what the passage is talking about) and a complement (what it says about that subject).

For example, a sermon on the parable of the lost son in Luke 15 might land on: “The Father runs to welcome sinners who come home, and invites the self-righteous to the party too.” That sentence becomes the spine of your outline. Every point should serve it. Anything that doesn't belongs in your notes, not your sermon.

If you can't say it in one sentence, you're not ready to outline it yet.

Step 3: Write a purpose statement

The big idea says what the sermon means. The purpose statement says what you hope it will do. Finish this sentence: “After hearing this sermon, I want people to…” Keep it concrete — trust God with a specific fear, reconcile with someone, start praying daily — rather than “grow closer to God.” The purpose will shape your application and your conclusion.

Step 4: Choose a shape that fits the passage

Not every sermon needs three points. Let the passage suggest the structure. A few common shapes:

• Follow the text. Walk through the passage in order, with each movement of the text becoming a point. This works well for narratives and tightly argued letters.
• Problem to solution. Name a real tension, show how the passage exposes it, then show how God's grace answers it.
• Deductive. State the big idea up front, then explain, support, and apply it.
• Inductive. Build toward the big idea, letting listeners discover it with you before you state it near the end.

Whichever shape you choose, aim for movement. Each section should take the listener somewhere the previous one didn't.

Step 5: Write your main points as full sentences

“Grace” is a topic. “Grace finds us before we find our way home” is a point. Full sentences force you to decide what you're actually claiming, and they're far easier for listeners to remember. Check that each point comes from the text, supports the big idea, and is distinct from the others.

Step 6: Support each point

Under each main point, plan three things:

• Explanation — what the text says and means, including any background people need.
• Illustration — a story, image, or example that makes the truth visible.
• Application — what this looks like in real life on Monday.

You don't need equal amounts of each everywhere. Some points need more explanation; others need a strong picture. But if a point has no application at all, ask whether it belongs in the sermon. For help with that last piece, see how to write sermon application people can actually live.

Step 7: Write the introduction and conclusion last

It's hard to introduce something you haven't built yet. Once the body is in place, write an introduction that raises the need your big idea answers, and a conclusion that lands your purpose statement. We go deeper on both in How to start a sermon and How to end a sermon.

Step 8: Test the flow out loud

Read the outline aloud, or talk it through with your spouse, a friend, or a staff member. Listen for gaps in logic, points that repeat, and transitions that don't connect. A one-sentence transition between points — “If that's true, then the next question is…” — does a lot of work for listeners who can't see your notes.

A simple sermon outline template

Copy this and fill it in each week:

1. Passage: the text you're preaching.
2. Big idea: one sentence — subject and complement.
3. Purpose: “After this sermon, I want people to…”
4. Introduction: the need, question, or tension that makes people want to listen.
5. Point 1 (a full sentence): explanation, illustration, application.
6. Point 2 (a full sentence): explanation, illustration, application.
7. Point 3 (optional, a full sentence): explanation, illustration, application.
8. Conclusion: restate the big idea and give one clear next step.

Where SermonLoom fits

SermonLoom was built around this kind of workflow. You can apply an outline template to any message, write each piece — points, illustrations, applications, closers — as its own block, and rearrange them until the flow is right. When the structure is set, the draft builder pulls your blocks together into a full outline or manuscript. See how it works.