hey everybody today we're gonna talk about Andy Stanley's method for outlining sermons it's called me we got you we and it's from this book right here called communicating for a change and it will revolutionize the way you preach every message you preach and the way you give any piece of communication at all so stick around this is preaching donkey my name is Lane and we're all about helping preachers communicate with more effectiveness and more clarity than you've ever preached with before so make sure to hit that subscribe button also give this video a thumbs up and be sure to share in the comments okay so let's jump in to the method of me.we god you we what this is is preaching your message with a framework that brings you along from me to we to God to you to we now if you're if you're new to this you're gonna be saying what is the me we God you we what what is that well what it is is basically as your preaching your sermon you are walking through those five things and you're not telling people that you're doing this it's not like you're gonna get up and say now I'm in the we section okay now I'm in the God section it's not the way it works this is for you the communicator to know where you are and to walk people through so very simply here's what me we got you we is first the Me section what is the me section in the Me section of your sermon you are going to relate personally to your people and personally to the topic the goal here is a little bit of ethos building that is trust building with people it's also a way to show how you personally relate to the topic that you're going to speak on now the way that we typically do this at my church is our Me section begins with something very light-hearted I'll give you an example I preached the message last week from Matthew 16 24 through 26 where Jesus says if anyone wants to follow me they must deny themselves take up their cross and follow me whoever wants to hang on to their life will lose it whoever gives up their life for my sake will find it and then he says what what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and yet lose their soul is anything worth more than your soul that was the passage now my point in that passage was that I experienced the culture of heaven aiex because we're doing a series in the kingdom of God we've defined that as the culture of heaven coming to earth that when Jesus prayed that his kingdom would come he was praying that what's true of heaven the culture of heaven would come to earth in such a way that we would see it that it would be realized in our lives and we think this is possible like jesus prayed for it so it must be possible and one of the ways that we experience the kingdom of heaven one of the ways that we experienced the culture of heaven is when we give ourselves freely to Jesus when we stop hanging onto our way and we let that go deny ourselves take up our cross follow Jesus so in order to walk people through that message I started out with me now the Me section I was focusing on a couple of ways a couple of examples where I wanted something really badly but I didn't get it and so I talked about a story where I was sold really hard on this opportunity for a business when I was 18 and it turned out to be this is financial services company that wasn't a good fit for me and it was gonna be very expensive for me to join it and it was basically just a hard sell to get me to do it and they promised me wealth and happiness and all this stuff and as an 18 year old kid I thought it was pretty cool and I wanted to do it really badly I just didn't have the money to join and so I wasn't able to but then I looked back and I realized wow I dodged a bullet I'm so glad that I didn't do that and the point of that story was really just to kind of illustrate a situation light-hearted I made it funny I made some jokes but it was a light-hearted way to illustrate this idea that sometimes we want things and we don't get them and we're disappointed and we're bummed and we realize that in the end it's better that was the Me section now what is the wee section all about the wee section is about bringing people into the experience bringing people into the point bringing people into the tension that you're building so that they begin to relate as well so they're so it's great that you can relate a lot of preachers tell the story about themselves and then move straight out of the content the problem with that is most people are not going to make the connection they're gonna say what a neat story that's funny it's moving its touching whatever then you go straight into the scripture and they don't have a personal connection to it so in the we section what you're really doing is you're trying to show more broadly how this applies to everybody so the way I did this is I went from my story to asking the question have you ever had a time where you wanted something really badly you wanted your way and it didn't work out and then it ended up being better and I gave a few examples that maybe you wanted to get into that College really bad and you had your heart set on it and it didn't work out and you were so bummed and you thought your life was over and you got into a different college and you look back and you go wow I'm so glad that that worked out or you wanted that relationship really badly we had your heart set on that guy or you had your heart set on that girl and now you're happily married to someone else and you're just looking back going I'm so glad that didn't work and I'm giving several examples like this and my goal is really just to get people to to nod their heads and to to find some commonality so that me and we we all together have experienced this tension if I wanted something I didn't get it and then if I'm honest I had to look back and say you know what it's probably a good thing that I didn't get it and then so that's me and that's we typically in the we section you want to start out pretty light-hearted and funny and then you want to move to more serious now this is certainly drab and drudgery but just touching on more real-life things that people feel as you're moving into the gods' section so so far we've done me that's an example about myself how I relate to this on ethos building I'm trying to build a sense of shared experience then I move on to we where I really demonstrate that we all in fact have this shared experience we all get this we've all experienced this and I kind of hang out in the we section until I basically feel like the whole room is with me everybody's gone on their heads going yep even if I don't have that exact experience I know someone who does or I have experience like that or I've experienced something I've experienced that tension of experience that frustration I'm asking that question I feel that this is tension building and this is something that I've talked about a lot of preaching donkey I talk about it a lot in my book preaching killer sermons how to create and deliver messages that captivate and inspire building tension on the front end of your message is crucially important because it signals to everybody to lean in that this is important that what we're talking about matters to you because we're talking about real-life stuff that you're actually really dealing with so me and we now the gods section is the part of the message where you go to the passage you go to the Bible you go to the text and what you find in their answers the tension that you built in the beginning of the sermon it answers the struggle it answers the question and so if you do a good job in the me and the we section a lot of people are leaning in going what's the answer and that's where you say the Bible speaks to this God speaks to this the Scriptures talk about this in my case with that sermon I'm going all the way around in the manway section about how we all want things we don't get them and here's the spiritual principle when it comes to our relationship with God sometimes we hang on to our way we hang on to what we want and we don't even consider what God wants we don't consider that God may want a different way and when we hang on we really suffer but when we let go we experience something so much better so my bottom line my main point was I experienced the culture of heaven only when I give up my way for God's Way and so by the time I get to making that point I've built this tension in the me and we section demonstrating all these areas in our lives where we think we know the right way we think we want something we think we have it all figured out and really in reality we don't so for the time I make that point everybody in the room who's paying attention obviously not a hundred percent of people but everybody who's actually listening is leaning in to try to figure out well how do I solve this problem so then I jump into the scripture and I look at what Jesus says Jesus says if any of you wants to be my follower if anybody wants to be my disciple you must deny yourself take up your cross follow me and I walk through that passage and along the way I'm making points that support my bottom line by the way I'll link to this sermon and the books I'm referencing in the description of this video if you want to check out what this looks like in a real sermon so in this passage in the god section I'm making points along the way that support my bottom line and I'm I'm allowing people to see with every step that the Scriptures answer this question that God has the answer that the answer is found in Jesus and I'm pointing people to the text on pointing people to Jesus and I'm pointing people to what he said and I'm teaching them sermon by sermon point by point to show them that when you have tension when you have struggle when you have a question you go to the scriptures you go to God you go to Jesus you go to the gospel and so when you use me we got you we it's a way of reinforcing that Jesus is the answer the Bible is the answer that in the scriptures in the text you find the truth that you need to be able to walk with Jesus to be able to live a spirit-filled life to be able to have freedom and victory to be able to find the answer to the question that you're asking so we have the Me section the wee section and the gods' section now one of the things I want to point out is during the the gods' section which is really the bulk of your message typically speaking you spend the most time at least I do it's been the most time in the passage itself walking people through that and as I make points along the way here's a little pro tip I've written about this extensively at preaching donkey you want to do three things with every point you make you want to explain the point you want to illustrate the point you want to apply the point so explaining it or teaching it is just here's what here's what I mean I say this here's where you find in Scripture the teaching aspect the illustration is here's what it looks like in real life and then applying it is here's how you live it out in your life so those are the three things you do with every point now the way that I love to do this using the me we got you we method is when I make a point I actually do me and we with every point so when I Ellis trait any point I'm doing me examples and we examples me examples and we example so here's an example from the recent sermon that I did one of my points was simply this when I hang on I lose but when I let go I experience something so much better this point was derived as kind of a summary when Jesus said if we try to hang on to our life or save our life will lose it but whoever gives up their lives for my sake will find it I kind of summarized that point by saying when I hang on I lose but when I let go I experience something so much better and I really wanted to illustrate the idea of hanging on and thinking that it's gonna be better and then letting go and finding out that that's actually better so I told a story about my little girl when she was about 18 months old we'd take her to the playground she was scared of the slide she wouldn't slide down the slide I put her up there and she wouldn't come down and then one day she finally came down the slide when she finally let go she realized oh my gosh going down the slides the best thing I've ever done and so from that point on she was just upside down the slide up to slide down the slide we couldn't keep her off the slide and so I went from that to an example of my dad when he first started using computers he didn't think he wanted to use YouTube because I had made the mistake of telling him that sometimes people post videos of their cats and videos of their baby and he's like I don't care about cats and babies so he thought YouTube was just cats and babies and he's kind of hanging on to that no matter what I told him until one day he goes whoa I discovered this thing called YouTube and you can do all kinds of things I watched a Mike Tyson fight in an Elvis concert and all of a sudden my dad loves YouTube because we finally let go he was able to experience something so much better so those are a couple of me examples and then I gave a couple of you examples some of you you never wanted to try sushi because you thought it was gross and weird and then you it was amazing some of you like hate musicals and any time somebody breaks out into song a movie it makes you want to gouge your eyes out but you went and saw the greatest showman you finally let go and you realize that that movie like transcends reality and it's the best thing you've ever seen so basically what I'm doing here is I'm just trying to make that point come alive in people's lives so basically when I hang on I lose but when I let go I experience something so much better I've done some me I've done some we and then at the end of that I just say with Jesus it's no different with your relationship with God what you've done is you've hung onto your way you've clung to your way you've said no god I've got this hey God you just need to trust me and what you've experienced when you've let go for those of you who have let go is that when you let go you experience something so much better that when you when you were hanging on you're actually pretty miserable like jesus said you've actually lost your life you lost the very thing that we're holding on to but when you let go you experienced freedom peace hope joy you really experience the kingdom of God the culture of heaven being realized in your life and then goes back to the bottom-line I experienced the culture of heaven only when I give up my way for God's Way and so I hope you can see that this me we guide you we thing is a very effective tool and you use it at every step of the way so in the gods section when you're making points consider how you can do a little bit of me and a little bit of we as you're walking through okay as you're giving your points just a little pro tip so me.we God the fourth section is you now this is where the application really comes in strong I do want to say that application should happen all throughout your message you're always asking the question how does this apply what are the takeaways how can you do this but in the you section is where all of it comes together the me the we all that experience all the tension how we've seen the truth in the scripture we've seen the truth in Jesus all of that culminates into the you section where as the preacher you really put it on the people and say now how is this going to take root in your life what is this going to look like for my sermon in Matthew 16 much of my youth section was questions much of my youth section was what is the thing that you're hanging on to what what would you say that when you think about hanging on you think about trying to save your life what is the thing that comes to mind that you really need to let go before you can really experience the best of what Jesus has for you before you can really experience life and so I went through a few examples of what that might be but essentially it was basically just questions trying to draw out of them a little bit of introspection to look inside and say what is the thing that I'm hanging on to and then the we so we've done me we God you that's the application now it's on to the Wii the Wii section at the end is really a visioning it's and this is incredibly powerful this is where you paint a picture of what it would look like if we all did it okay that's why it's called we'd like what if we all embrace this idea that we can only experience a culture of heaven when we give up our way for God's Way what if we all did that what would it look like how would our church look different how would we be able to reach more people how would we be able to disciple more people and multiply more how would we impact our community in a bigger a better way if we did this and so in the Wiis section you just want to get people to feel a sense of wow like this is amazing what could happen what would be how amazing would it be if we did this and then some of this is intertwined because you may throw you back in there what I like to do is really paint a very great big vision with we and then go back and say but here's the thing you've got to have a stake in this as well because we're a church made up of individuals and so all of us together collectively make the church but if you don't do it then who will and so really kind of always going back to that you part and so that's me we God you we me is the ethos the I have experience with this we is the shared experience and attention God is here how here's what the Bible says here how here's how this is answered here's how this is found in scripture you is how are you gonna apply it and then we is what if we all did can you imagine the difference that would make so that's really the whole deal one last thing that I want to say is it's good to add me sections throughout so throughout this particular sermon I had my story kind of woven through out of tension that I felt when I was really trying to hold on to my way it's actually my story about how God called me to ministry and I was very reluctant to do it for a variety of reasons so I really go to that story a lot throughout each section to kind of show here's how this is lived out in a real life you can check out that sermon and in the description like I said as well as the books and I'm gonna hear from you do you use me we got Huey and if so what ways do you do it what have you found that works what have you found that doesn't work please share in the comments I'd love to hear from you that's it for today remember if God can speak through a donkey he can speak through you we'll see you next time