Sermon planning

 When I served as a pastor I began planning my sermons out at least a month in advance. I had a title and a text which I would give our pianist who selected the music for each service. This gave her time to prepare a worship service that complemented the message. I am now serving my third church as the Transitional Pastor, and I have done the same thing in each of these churches. This allows for a better worship service because everything is connected.

Notice I said I have a title and a text. I know where I am going with the message, but I usually don't have the message prepared yet, but I can tell you it's much easier to prepare the actual message when you know what you are going to preach compared to when you get to Saturday night and you still haven't decided on a sermon for the next day. I've preached a few "Saturday night specials," and they aren't fun.

Eventually, I was able to plan out my sermons at least a quarter in advance. Again, this was just with a title and a text, but this helped me be even better prepared. For instance, when I pastored I would preach through a book of the Bible or a major section during the summer months. Knowing in advance which book or section I would cover enabled me to purchase needed commentaries or other Bible helps well in advance. This strategy also gave me an opportunity to explore a section of Scripture in more detail which, in turn, helped the congregation become better informed about what the Bible taught. An additional benefit was that it prevented me from skipping over the "hard" teachings of the Bible. Let's face it, there are some passages many preachers would just as soon avoid, but when you are committed to preaching through a biblical book you can't avoid those passages. (For total transparency, I still have not preached through the Song of Solomon.)

There are still some ministers who insist they never prepare their sermons in advance but depend upon the Holy Spirit to direct their words when they stand to speak. I've heard a few of those sermons, and I would not want to blame the Holy Spirit for them. Listen, He can lead you in preparing your messages a month in advance the same as He can lead you in preparing them on Saturday night or Sunday morning.

While I am a big advocate for planning your preaching in advance, I recognize events may require the minister to change the schedule. For instance, the Sunday after 9/11 I did not preach the message I had planned for that Sunday. Instead, I prepared a new sermon that addressed the events of 9/11 and tried to speak to the fears and concerns many people had at the time. Here is where the Holy Spirit can lead us in a different direction, and it's important that we are sensitive to that leading.

Whether one is a bivocational pastor or a fully-funded pastor, he or she struggles with time constraints. Planning your sermons in advance is a great way to save time in your busy schedule. While it takes time to plan a preaching schedule, you will save much more time by doing so.