Andy Stanley is a communicator, author and pastor who founded Atlanta-based North Point Ministries in 1995. Today, North Point consists of eight churches in the Atlanta area and a network of 180 churches around the world, serving over 200,000 people each week. Andy is the author of more than 20 books, and each month people access over 10.5 million of his messages, leadership videos, YouTube videos, and podcasts.
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Other Episodes in the Great Communicator Series
Rick Warren on the Kind of Preaching That Changes Lives
Wilfredo de Jesús: How (Not) To Turn Your Sermon Points Into Stop Signs
Charlie Dates: Why Your Church Needs To Identify and Raise Up Young Preachers
J.D. Greear: How Your Sermons Will Benefit From a ‘Multitude of Counselors’
Beth Moore on the ‘Most Important Part of the Process’ of Teaching God’s Word
Ralph Douglas West on the Benefits of Being Shaped by Black and White Preaching Traditions
Max Lucado: ‘The One Thing That Has Helped Me More Than Anything Else’ as a Preacher
Sam Chan: How the Topical Preacher Can Avoid Getting on a Hobby Horse
Priscilla Shirer: ‘Message Preparation Is the Hardest Thing I Do in Ministry’
Key Questions for Andy Stanley
-How do you craft your messages in a way that draws people in?
-How is a one-point message different from having three or four points, and why is this structure important to you?
-You tend to stretch your argument across multiple messages, which often causes people to react to the parts while you’re building your argument. Why do you do that?
-How do you develop “sticky phrases” for your sermons?
Key Quotes From Andy Stanley
“Here’s what impacts me: preparation and passion.”
“When a communicator begins with a topic or a what instead of a who, I think that impacts how they put messages together.”
“My temptation is to ask the question, what am I going to talk about? What am I going to cover? What’s the topic? What’s the text? But the better question, if we can discipline ourselves to ask it, is who am I talking to Sunday?”
“I stumbled upon something that I’ve done intuitively that I’d never put words around. And I said, I think I do it this way. You know, what’s going on with me that’s probably going on with you. What does God have to say about it? What should you do about it? And what if we all did something about it?”
“I don’t follow that meticulously because sometimes that same framework creates a series of messages, not just a single message, but that simple way: me/we/God/you/we…has become kind of a driver.”
“I’m not against it, but I mean, most of the time when I hear somebody say, “And the fifth thing and the sixth thing,” I immediately think, wow, that is a message series. You just used up a lot of good stuff in one week…if it’s worth saying as a point, why not just preach a whole sermon around it?”
“If I’m preaching for life change and if I want to make it portable and memorable, then just craft one really good statement and…say it over and over in such a way that people walk away with the point of the message.”
