What is your favorite part of the sermon prep process? Is it the sermon research? Is it the studying of the scriptures? Is it the sermon outlining? Is your favorite part of the sermon process the actual preaching itself?
No matter what your favorite part of the sermon prep process is, if there is a portion that feels like a grind, it’s going to be really tough to preach regularly. You don’t have to love every part, but it sure does help if you have a sermon prep process that you enjoy — even if there is a part of the process that isn’t your favorite.
If you’re anything like me, any time a preacher talks about his process, I am hooked. I’m in the 27% of preachers who love everything about the preaching process, from reading, to research, to outlining, preparation, and then preaching. Getting to learn what other guys are doing is especially exciting because I find the whole process enjoyable.
It’s intriguing to hear what others are doing because, on one hand, there is a lot that makes sense, and I want to give what they’re doing a try, and then, on the other hand, there are things I hear and think, “Holy smokes, I’d never do it that way in a million years,” yet, it works for them.
How do you prepare a sermon? What’s the art of preparing a sermon? What’s the science of preparing a sermon?
The truth is, there isn’t a right way to prepare a sermon, but in this article, I am going to share with you “my way” to prepare a sermon. And it’s just “one way” you can do it.
Whether you are preparing a sermon for the first time or you have preached hundreds of times. You are just looking for ways to improve or evolve your process; I am going to share with you what has worked for me. I encourage you to steal anything that sounds intriguing and consider anything that sounds less intriguing and how you might adapt it to your own process.
The process of how to prepare a sermon will vary from person to person but the core elements in every process will largely be the same.
- Sermon series planning
- Reading
- Researching
- Study
- Prayer
- Outlining
- Illustration
- Argumentation
- Application
- Delivery
- Follow-up
My work week in and week out is very “head” intensive, and in my off hours, I enjoy doing things with my hands. That being the case, I’ve taken an interest in cooking, and over time, I’ve seen my sermon prep process overlap much of the cooking process. I will often relate much of the sermon prep process to cooking because I find the metaphor to be incredibly helpful.
That said, before you get to cooking, you need to decide what to cook and consider all of the different options. This is where I begin my sermon prep process, months out from actually preaching the sermon.
Assumptions, Beliefs, and Convictions About Preaching
Every preacher needs to develop, articulate, and write down their assumptions, beliefs, and convictions about preaching.
I have my preaching ABCs, and I do not believe every preacher needs to adopt my preaching ABCs. But they should go through the practice of identifying their own and then preach out of those ABCs.
Learn more about the ABCs of Preaching here.
Part of identifying your voice as a preacher, your rhythms as a preacher, and your unique wiring is through the development of your personal ABCs.
I have developed my ABCs, and while I won’t go too in-depth here in this article, I do want you to be aware of where I am coming from as I share my sermon preparation process with you.
- Preaching is an essential tool for making disciples.
- Preaching is the most significant tool for leading a local congregation.
- Preaching is one of the main ways God disciples the preacher.
- Most life change happens in the moment.
- But a lot of change happens over the long haul, too.
- People remember what the preacher emphasizes and gets excited about.
- People want to be challenged, which is both good and bad.
- Gospel preaching is more like news than advice.
- Preaching improves with reps and feedback.
- Most preaching is underwhelming.
Study. Practice. Teach.
One passage that has really shaped and formed my approach to preaching and teaching comes from Ezra.
“10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” — Ezra 7:10
The order is significant.
Study. Practice. Teach.
The temptation is to study and then teach. Study, then teach. Study, then teach. It becomes easy to skip the practice.
One of the things I always want to have as a part of my preparation process is not just, “Why do people resist this truth,” but to examine, “Why do I resist this truth? What is God trying to do in me?” Because many preachers preach weekly, we don’t always get to become the ‘after photo’ weekly because Sunday comes quickly.
But to continually realize that I am to be coming up under this word, be convicted by it, and to be preaching from a place of sharing what I’ve seen and experienced as the word has been soaking into my heart and coming out of my life.
Creating A Preaching Calendar 6-18 Months in Advance
Your ability to effectively preach a sermon will be significantly influenced by the amount of time you have to prepare for that sermon. The preaching calendar is really the first step in the sermon prep process. You have to figure out what you’re going to preach on.
It is possible to decide what you’re going to preach 18 months in advance or 18 hours in advance — I believe there are a lot of benefits and good reasons why it’s worth planning closer to the 18-month mark.
And it’s not just figuring out what you’re going to preach, but it’s also deciding when you’re going to preach it. Establishing a preaching calendar sets in motion the sermon preparation process and opens the door to a lot of great opportunities for study, comprehension, research, and delivery that just wouldn’t exist in a shorter time frame.
This article is about the sermon preparation process, so I am not going to go super in-depth on what goes into my preaching calendar, but I will share a few details that will help you understand my context and provide some insight into why I do things the way I do them.
Insights for a Preaching Calendar
First and foremost, our sermon calendar is organized by sermon series. Our series will vary in length. Some as short as 3 weeks and some as long as 40 weeks. The general framework I follow in regards to scheduling out sermon series is similar to this:
Old Testament Series
Gospels Series
New Testament Letters Series
Topical Series
It doesn’t necessarily have to go in that order, but I like to be in a flow that resembles the above. When looking at the Old Testament, New Testament Letters, and the Gospel, I don’t think of this as having to preach through an entire book, but rather, it could be an entire book or just a portion of the book.
Here are a few series I’ve done in recent years and how I have broken them down:
Isaiah — 3 Weeks Old Testament, “Big Problems Bigger God”
- Week 1, Isaiah 40:1-8 — The Glory of God
- Week 2, Isaiah 40:9-26 — Behold Your God
- Week 3, Isaiah 40:27-31 — He Does Not Grow Weary
Colossians — 10 Weeks New Testament Letter
- Week 1, Colossians 1:1-14 — How to Pursue a Life That Pleases God
- Week 2, Colossians 1:15-23 — Why Jesus is Worth Everything
- Week 3, Colossians 1:24-2:5 — Do The Work
- Week 4, Colossians 2:6-23 — Vegan Clothes & Forgiven Loans
- Week 5, Colossians 3:1-4 — How to Be True to Your True Self
- Week 6, Colossians 3:5-17 — Spiritual Autoimmune Disorder
- Week 7, Colossians 3:18-19 — The Music of Marriage
- Week 8, Colossians 3:20-21 — The Power of Parenting
- Week 9, Colossians 3:22-4:1 — Reworking Work
- Week 10, Colossians 4:2-18 — How The World Gets Changed
Luke — 3 Weeks Gospel Series, “Rich Towards God”
- Week 1, Luke 12:13-21 — Don’t Be a Financial Fool
- Week 2, Luke 12:22-34 — How to Stop Stressing About Money
- Week 3, Luke 12:35-48 — Managers Not Masters
Love — 7 Weeks Topical Series, “Lies About Love”
- Week 1, Proverbs 3:5-8 — Should You Follow Your Heart?
- Week 2, Ephesians 5:21-33 — Is Marriage a Fifty/Fifty Relationship?
- Week 3, 1 Corinthians 6 — Is Sex Just Physical?
- Week 4, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 — I’m Better Off Alone
- Week 5, 1 Corinthians 6 — The Truth About Singleness
- Week 6, Colossians 3:12-14 — 5 Exercises to Heal Relationships
- Week 7, James 3:2-12 — Words Will Never Hurt Me
Having this regular rhythm is a nice way to provide a complete diet of God’s Word. Not leaning too heavily on one collection of works and also not neglecting another collection.
If I spend the majority of my year in the Gospel of John, the following year, I probably won’t do another Gospel series. Likewise, if we spent much of the year in an Old Testament Book, I will look at doing a New Testament letter and maybe a topical or Gospel series the following year.
Once I’ve evaluated what we’ve done, I will start having conversations with our other pastors and key leaders in the church, not about what we should preach on, but rather for them to get me a temperature check on what’s happening in their lives and their ministries. Their answers will probably have some impact on what the sermon calendar looks like, but I’m not relying on their answers to help dictate direction.
It’s just another input to consider.
There are also some things we are preparing for as a church, such as a capital campaign or moving into a new building. In the fall of 2023, I announced that the multi-congregational network of churches we had been a part of was separating into distinct congregations, and as a result, we were changing our church name. I organized the sermon calendar in such a way as to support this change.
These kinds of major shake-ups, which impact everyone or almost everyone, are another consideration for my preaching calendar, and as a result, how I prepare for those sermons in advance.
Other inputs I’ll consider are other series I’ve learned about from other churches, non-fiction books that do a good job of capturing key ideas that are relevant or timeless, and even looking at our past sermon series that are more than 7 years old and considering whether or not to redo them.
A good example of this is a series I have done twice called The 4Gs, based on Tim Chester’s book, You Can Change. I did an entire episode of Preaching Through Podcast sharing this sermon series, and my co-host, Dave Shrein, was not a part of our church either of the times when we did this series, so it was new to him. In the days and weeks following that episode, he sent me several text messages explaining how the 4Gs were shaping his life. I thought, “You know, this would be a great series to preach again. We’ve had so many new people at our church who have never heard this,” and so in 2024, we preached through the series again.
Have A Plan, Rely on the Spirit
One argument against a preaching calendar is that it doesn’t provide room for the Holy Spirit to work. I think that’s a ridiculous phrase. Think about it…
“Allow the Holy Spirit to work.”
As if God is saying, “Well, gosh, I sure would love to do something but there just doesn’t seem to be any room to move.”
I appreciate the sentiment that we want to be open to the prompting and movement of the Holy Spirit, and I agree with that, but God can move in the moment, and the Spirit can also move and prompt 18 months in advance.
If you’ve never seen this image from Chris Harrison, it’s an incredible depiction of cross-references in the Bible.
Credit: Chris Harrison, Bible Cross References
Scripture is littered with cross-references where God, generations in advance, prepared the way for his work that wouldn’t take place until thousands of years later. If you want to challenge God’s ability to move and prompt, using scripture as a reference, God doesn’t even break a sweat at 18-months… or ever.
Have a plan for where you want to take your preaching in the coming months and years. Rely on the Spirit to lead and guide you every step of the way.
When You Plan In Advance You Have Options
Having our preaching calendar established so far in the future gives me options in my study, research, reading, and discussions. With so much time available, I can go incredibly deep in my preparation for sermons or series that will be more challenging, or I may not be as familiar with. If I’m deciding the week of, or three or four weeks in advance what I’ll be preaching on, those options become much more limited.
In the fall of 2023, I taught 6 out of 11 weeks of our Revelation series. That’s a series that you can do several different ways. The advanced planning allowed me time to get strategic about how we would approach the series in terms of attitude and structure and also plenty of time to study portions I had never taught.
Every moment between adding Revelation to the preaching calendar and actually preaching allows me the chance to catalog anything I encounter that might be relevant to the series. Book titles, podcasts, other pastor series, discussions, illustrations: I can begin digging the well in advance of needing to access that well.
Without that lead time, your hands become tied, and your options become few.
Examining How Others Have Taught A Series
Because there are so many different ways you can approach a series in terms of focus and number of weeks, if I am having a tough time narrowing in on what I want for our church, I will take time to examine how other churches may have done a series or how they might have organized it.
I’m not trying to copy what someone else has done, I am more or less trying to see what options others have gone with and how might those options influence what I decide. If a church did Revelation in 20 weeks, I could look at how that was structured and use that to help determine how in-depth I want to go for our series.
If we’re doing a series based on a non-fiction book (for instance, Truth We Can Touch by Tim Chester), how did Chester break down the chapters in his book, and how might we be able to hand-pick certain sections and either expand or condense them.
There are no rules for how you may decide to structure a series, and because I’m planning so far in advance, there is time to weigh the different options and choose the best option for our context.
Sources for Advanced Sermon Preparation
Have you noticed when you’re in the market to purchase a new car, you begin noticing with greater frequency that make and model of car on the street? Everyone seems to be driving that car.
Or when your family is expecting a child and you now notice more pregnancy or newborn related messaging?
This phenomenon is known as frequency illusion, or the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, and explains our natural cognitive bias. Just as it’s true for the above examples, it can also be true for the series we plan to preach.
Knowing the upcoming preaching content puts the topics and themes on my radar and I am now more keen to spot sources that can help me in my advanced sermon preparation.
I am always gathering materials, however, a couple months before a series, I am going to try and do intensive work in a relatively short period of time. Depending on the content, my familiarity with the content, or what my schedule will allow, I will dedicate an entire day or maybe a couple of days over a couple of weeks to do one or more of the following related to the book or theme I’ll be preaching on:
- Take a seminary class.
- Read several related books.
- Enroll in an online course.
- Listen to lectures or other sermons.
This is not the week of preparation, but rather, preparation that helps you to develop a lens through which you can look at the entire sermon series. There are so many great resources that I want to access, and I will get to as many of them as I can during this window for advanced sermon preparation.
I will use the months before preaching a particular series or sermon to take in training to help get my mind and headspace in a good place to begin preaching the particular book or topic.
What I Am Not Reading In Advance
The time is going to come for me to read commentaries and dig down deep into the weeks of a particular text, but at this point in the process I want the big picture, the larger themes, the main ideas. I want to zoom out and develop a lens to read this book.
Materials that help me get the lay of the land are what I find most helpful at this point in the process.
Recommended Study Resources
You most likely have your favorite go-to study resources. If you’re looking for additional sermon preparation and study resources, here are a few that I have used and would recommend.
IV Press New Studies in Biblical Theology
These are a little more on the academic side of materials but what I love is many of them have a thematic big picture approach to understanding a topic or a book. Sometimes when you get lost in the trees of the passage, framing it up a few months in advance with the big picture, insights into the most important themes, and here are the things that continue to surface, I find it very helpful.
The Bible Project Classroom
You may be familiar with YouTube videos produced by The Bible Project. In recent years, the same organization released Classroom, which offers free, seminary-level courses on various topics and books.
The Gospel Coalition Courses
TCG has a large collection of free materials on books of the Bible, practical theology, doctrine, and many other topics made up from different resources and sources. In many cases, they have curated free materials from around the web and ordered them in such a way to create a cohesive, systematic learning curriculum.
N.T. Wright Online
It’s not free, but for $50-60 you can get any of his online courses and go through it at your own pace. I really appreciate both his Old Testament and New Testament materials, though he is mostly known for his New Testament resources.
Ministry Pass
The team at Ministry Pass has created large collections of example sermon series that offer suggested sermon series titles, series angles, breakdowns, and week-by-week research materials. This can be helpful, not only in the process of deciding how to break down a series (Ministry Pass may have 5 different ways of preaching through the book of Colossians) but also insights you could consider for each message within that series.
Sermon Prep Two Weeks Before Preaching
A lot of what I do two weeks before preaching the sermon is based upon the systems we’ve developed as a church and teaching team. Much of my process has created habits that I believe I would continue to do even if I were the lone preacher.
About two weeks out I am beginning to touch the specific text. Whatever I am going to be preaching on I want to review the text. I want to read it a couple times. I want to read it in a couple of different translations. I want to get familiar with this.
This is not, “Oh wow, this is the first time I’ve ever read this,” but rather, this is a more intentional reading. I’ve been thinking about this text, to some extent, over the last several months, but now it’s looking at the specific passage with the specific intent of preaching it.
During this part of the process I would begin jotting down observations, asking questions, make some notes based upon those observations. I will mark up my digital Bible on the iPad and mark up where I see repeating words or themes.
I will try to do all of this on the Monday or Tuesday, two weeks before I preach the text. This is approximately 12 days before preaching the text.
During this two-week out period I begin to have a strong sense of where the sermon is headed based upon the specific text I’m preaching.
How Long Do You Spend on Sermon Prep
I do not have a bible verse that commands how long you should spend on sermon preparation. When I consider how long to spend on prep, I am specifically talking about my ‘week-of’ preparation which I will begin sharing below.
If I am very familiar with the verse or passage I’m speaking on, it might be less. If I am not as familiar with the text or if it’s a particularly tough text, it might be more.
Rarely, though, will my prep move beyond 12-14 hours or be fewer than 5-6. I just don’t think you can regularly do a good job, no matter your familiarity with the text, with less than six hours, and likewise, I don’t think your sermon will get much better beyond the ten hour mark.
In addition, preaching is only one aspect of my responsibilities as the Lead Pastor. I am also called to be a shepherd, and it’s not possible for me to be a good steward of that calling if I spend 20 or 30 hours a week on sermon preparation. I don’t believe that spending 16 instead of 8 hours on my sermon will make it twice as good.
Years ago, I was a part of a panel with several other preachers, and this question was brought up.
The first panelist said 22 hours. The second said 30 hours. The next said 25 hours.
I said, “About eight.”
Pastors have people to care for, a church to lead, and leaders to develop.
Just because you spend twice as much time on a sermon doesn’t make it twice as good.
Week-of Sermon Preparation
The bulk of the work on my sermon is done the week-of.
Going back to the original illustration of cooking a meal, this is where things get real practical in that process.
*MONDAY
No matter if I preached on Sunday or not, rarely am I ever doing anything with the sermon on the Monday, week-of.
*TUESDAY
Tuesday morning is a big chunk of study time. In the cooking process, I look at this as gathering the ingredients. I’ve already touched the text, and made some observations. I have probably had some conversations with others, and I’ll revisit my notes. I will study a bit more in-depth, such as inductive bible study.
After the above, I will start going through the commentaries, and as I read it, I will highlight, cut, and paste into an Evernote folder anything that I find interesting.
I am gathering ingredients.
Depending on the passage and commentary, there may be 20 bullet points of things I’ve copied. I’ll move on to the next commentary and do the same thing… and then go to the next commentary and do the same thing.
Usually at the end of this process I look at all the ingredients I have and begin to identify “the best” ingredients. I will identify the things that I think just have to be included from my own personal study and from the commentators I’ve read.
Going back through all my notes, I will highlight the best ingredients in yellow as a way of saying, “Whatever you do, this has to make it into the message.”
By end of late morning Tuesday, I have all the “stuff” that could make it into the message.
I have the flower.
I have the eggs.
I’ve got the salt.
I’ve got the protein.
It’s still not clear exactly what I’m making, but I have all the ingredients I’ll need to make something.
*WEDNESDAY
Generally speaking, I will not do individual sermon preparation on Wednesday.
Instead, our church does what we have labeled a Sermon Insights Meeting. This gathering is me, our teaching pastor, a few additional people who speak regularly at our church, and some of our additional staff, including our care pastor, counseling director, and student & kids ministry staff. There may be 8 to 10 people in each meeting.
During this meeting, whoever is preaching the upcoming week will share where the message is going and then open up the floor to hear what others have to say about the topic. This type of meeting gives whoever is speaking an opportunity to listen to how God’s Word might land on one person differently than another, simply based on their own experiences.
This is a great way to ensure that the message is not just relevant to you, the preacher, and not just relevant to the people closest in your life, but a chance to hear how God has moved in the lives of people different from your immediate circle or similar stage of life.
We’re not co-writing the sermon together.
Some of what’s shared may be used.
Most of what’s shared won’t be used, but may still be helpful.
Not only does this process serve the preacher, but it also serves the attendees because they begin to realize just how difficult preaching is. As the discussion evolves, it will become clear that one passage might land seven different ways for seven different people, and the pastor has to try and speak to all of them.
Even if you’re not in an environment like mine, where I have a larger church staff, figure out a way to form this. Identify people in your church who would be strong contributors to this type of meeting whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or even sporadic.
The people you invite will feel deeply honored that they get to study the Bible with you as a part of the sermon process. Inevitably there will be something they say that will make its way into a sermon, and they’ll beam because they actually got to contribute.
*THURSDAY
On Thursday morning, I am either finishing up gathering the ingredients, or I have already gathered them, and I am revisiting. At this point, it moves from gathering ingredients to discerning what to make.
There are incredible truths. The meaning of the text is clear. But what is the framework? How am I going to approach this particular text? What’s the hook? What’s the angle? What is the thing that holds this particular message together?
This is the art of sermon preparation.
This part is what makes the difference between getting up and saying true things versus preaching Good news.
Sometimes this comes really quickly. Other times, the cursor just taunts me. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Throughout the entire process, I’m praying, but during this portion, I’m praying, “Okay, Lord, what is this? Where does this want to go? Is this one point? Is it seven points? Is it three points?”
This, to me, is the hardest part of the preparation. I like the entire process, but this one part is the most challenging part of the process.
My guess is if you’ve been preaching for any number of years, you understand what this part of the process feels like and the frustration when it doesn’t come and the almost unexplainable sensation when it does come.
Framing the Outline of the Sermon
By the time you’ve gathered ingredients, you could say, “Here are four important things from Isaiah 40.”
- God wants to give you comfort.
- The Word of God lasts forever.
- God is really big.
- If you need help in times of trouble, turn to God.
All of this is in Isaiah 40, gloriously true, and very uninteresting. If this is the final sermon, it could feel like the preacher didn’t think very hard about how to hold the message together.
The framing and outlining of the sermon could lead you to somewhere like:
- Comfort comes from seeing God.
- See the God who is transcendent.
- See the God who is tender.
All of the same things I would have said with the first collection of points, but there is now a pathway to follow, and the connection between the points feels cohesive.
Rather than just saying true things, I am looking to hold the message together both logically and emotionally in an artistic way rather than strictly commentary on the text. This is an added layer of cohesiveness that will keep people interested throughout the entirety of the message.
Cooking the Message Beyond the Outline
As you can see, I don’t generally start my preparation on Thursday with an introduction. It isn’t until I’ve gathered the ingredients and decided what I will make that I am actually drafting my introduction, or cooking the message.
Introduction
When I think about an introduction,, I ask myself, “How can I get someone to care about this?” This is the biggest difference between teaching and preaching.
Teaching assumes you have listeners who want to hear what you learn. They bought the ticket. They have signed up for the course. They’ve enrolled in your class. They’re ready to listen and learn. There is already a level of buy in. There is very little convincing needed, they already care about the content.
Preaching assumes that nobody cares.
Of course, there are people in your congregation who do care, but functionally I’m approaching the message carrying the burden of care. It’s my job to make them care and give them a reason to pay attention to the entire 30, 35, 40 minutes.
Message Points
Many will build out their individual points structurally.
- Truth
- Explanation
- Illustration
- Application
This is completely acceptable.
I go through my points more intuitively. I am producing a more detailed outline than a point-by-point structure. My sermon notes end up being 2-3 pages of bullet points.
I do not manuscript my messages. When I began preaching, I was forced to manuscript my messages, and I think that’s a good way to learn to preach because you have to think through how you are going to say each thing. But once I started preaching every week, manuscripting buried me. I did not have time to write everything out word for word. I was still a good shepherd in all the other areas of ministry that needed my attention.
Seasoning the Message
Once it’s clear what I’m making and I’ve started cooking, then I begin seasoning.
If you’ve ever eaten at a restaurant where they brought you a dish that looked incredible, but when you started eating, you found yourself thinking, “There just isn’t any flavor here,” you’ve experienced an underseasoned meal.
The same is true with under seasoning a message. The truth you’re communicating is incredible but there is just no flavor to engage with. There’s nothing to capture you and make you want more of it. It’s fine. You ate. But there wasn’t anything transformative about the experience.
Seasoning is adding illustrations, stories, and inspiration.
As hard as I work to add effective pictures to my message to ensure it isn’t underseasoned, I am also aware that just as you can overseason a dish, you can overseason a message with illustration. It’s very easy for an illustration to wind up overtaking a message and becoming the main thing, rather than the truth you’re trying to convey.
People remember the incredible story you tell, but can’t remember why it mattered or what it pointed to.
Good seasoning hooks people, it reminds you of what you’re trying to see in the text, and it serves as a nice commercial break within the message. You start telling a story, and everyone looks up. You say, “I want to share with you a picture,” and everyone is immediately re-engaged.
Practice & Rehearse
There was a season on Thursdays after I finished cooking & seasoning the message, I would go into the auditorium and preach the message to an empty room.
Why do this?
It is better to practice to an empty room than to practice on people.
If you are newer to preaching or are still actively trying to develop your rhythm (especially in a one-service environment), I strongly encourage you to adopt a practice & rehearsal discipline to help you improve your message before you preach it on Sunday.
Full disclosure, as of this writing, I don’t regularly do this due to the experience I’ve gained over the years I’ve been preaching. I have enough repetitions and enough understanding of the process that only if something feels clunky to me will I go through this practice.
*FRIDAY AND SATURDAY
I don’t touch my message unless something pops into my head on Friday or Saturday.
If something does pop into my head, I have my messages written on Google Docs so I can easily open my message and make an addition or adjustment wherever I am, but for the most part, I don’t open the file all week.
*SUNDAY MORNING
Unless I had a reason to look at my message on Friday or Saturday, I won’t look at my message again after Thursday until Sunday morning. I will open the sermon document and go back through the message. I usually spot some minor adjustments, either something that won’t flow right or won’t sound the way I want.
Mostly, I’m trying to internalize the content and imagine myself delivering the message.
At this point, I am thinking about serving the dish.
I will print off my notes, usually make notes on paper, and at the top of the document I’ll write, “Preaching to sinners and sufferers” as a way to remind myself that this is not about me getting through my material, it is about preaching to these people.
And this is an important note. Preaching is not about you getting through your material.
I’ve been in some sermons where, if everyone got raptured, I think this guy would just keep talking. It feels like he is not paying attention to the people, he is just thinking about his message. I don’t want to do that. I want to have a connection with the people.
I will mark up my Bible a little bit and circle keywords or key ideas so I know where I am throughout the message.
And then I get up and serve it. I preach three times if I preach on a Sunday and I really don’t want the first message to be a practice. I want it to really minister to the people in the first service. There will most likely be some things I will tweak and adjust from service to service, but it’s mostly minor at this point.
Getting Feedback After the First Service
After the first service I will touch base with one or two of our pastors and ask them for feedback.
I want feedback. I want to know where I can get better and improve and fortunately I have people on our team who give great feedback, especially feedback that is appropriate for the morning of.
Their feedback will include areas where I may want to include a bit more time on a point that landed. It could include suggestions on tweaking language that landed awkwardly. It could include identifying areas that came across unclear, and either recommend clearing it up or just cutting it.
We’re not saying, “I think you’re outline is wrong,” because it’s too late. But if there are little things we can adjust, we will.
*SUNDAY AFTER SERVICE
After the last service I will return to my office, say a prayer, thank the Lord for the fun opportunity to preach his word, and throw my notes in the trash.
This is my way of saying, “Here is my offering, and I’m leaving it on the altar.”
There is a lot of value for preachers who want to improve to go back and watch their sermons. Watching game film forces you to see what the congregation sees and will reveal things to you about yourself that you would otherwise be unaware of.
Currently, I am not in a season where I will go back and watch every message. If something went particularly well or particularly poorly, I will watch the video. If it went well, I am looking for signs as to why it went well and if there are things I can duplicate in the future. If it went poorly, then I want to know the same things.
The Thursday Midnight Rule
Nelson Searcy is the first person from whom I heard about the “Thursday Midnight Rule.” This is the ideal that you’re done with your sermon on Thursday at midnight. It doesn’t always happen; there are some weeks where it can’t happen that way, but generally speaking, your sermon is done and ready to be preached on Thursday by midnight.
Sometimes, for me, the preparation will bleed into Friday morning, but almost always, I get home on Thursday, and it’s done. It’s written and I could preach it in that condition if I needed to.
The freedom of being done on Thursday when I leave to go home is incredible. I get to go into my weekend Friday and Saturday and not be catching up on my sermon, or obsessing over my sermon, or trying to find the ‘one more thing’ for my sermon. My family gets my best, the church gets my best, and I can rest.
As much as this article is descriptive, and I am just sharing with you my process, this is the one point where I would be more prescriptive and say that if you’re constantly polishing your message to the last minute, I would encourage you to settle for good enough. In fact, Craig Groeschel has a very helpful acronym called G.E.T.M.O.:
Good
Enough
To
Move
On
Sometimes, people ask me on Sunday morning, “Are you ready?” and I say, “As ready as I’m going to be.”
I once heard it said, “Sermons are never truly finished. They are only launched.” I think that’s right.
Insights On Illustrations
Illustrations are a huge part of the sermon because they help connect the point to the people. Dan Keaton, a friend and alumni of The Preaching Lab, believes that the biggest mistake pastors make regarding illustrations is using too few of them.
As important as they are, illustrations continue to be one of the biggest areas of need for preachers.
While this article is not about illustrations, there are a few insights I want to share regarding illustrations.
Relating Illustrations to My Life
One practice I’ve adopted is connecting parts of my life to things I read or watch. If I see a great story or picture that could work well as an illustration, I often try to think of a moment in my life that captures that idea. Some stories are more enjoyable when they’re connected to a specific person versus being from someone no one has any affiliation with.
Don’t Be the Hero
Along those same lines, I would caution to avoid telling stories where you are the hero. While we may not intentionally try and place ourselves on a pedestal, our people naturally will. So any chance we have to remove ourselves from that position, we should take it.
If you have a story that would work perfectly as an illustration but places you in the hero position, you can tell that story from a third-person perspective or omit certain parts that elevate your role in the story.
Avoid Using References Older Than 20 Years
Illustrations in my messages can’t be more than 20 years old. Movies, books, songs, bands. If you find yourself referencing something over 20 years old, just say, “It was once said…” because the reference will split the room, leaving some on the outside looking in. No one likes feeling like they don’t get a joke.
This includes significant cultural moments.
Currently, there are people in our church who look at 9/11 the way millennials viewed Pearl Harbor. It happened. It’s history. But for young people in our church, talking about 9/11 feels like me listening to my grandfather talk about Pearl Harbor.
Little Irrelevant Details Are Interesting
Including irrelevant details in a story feels like it would be less engaging, but I have found the opposite to be true. As an example, I could share:
The other day, I was at the park with my kids.
Or you could say:
The other day, I was at the park with my kids, and we were walking around with our shoes off in the sand…
You don’t want to overdo the irrelevant details, but just enough keeps people listening and engaged in the moment.
Don’t Illustrate Your Illustrations
It’s not uncommon to find yourself with multiple illustrations for one point, even as you struggle to come up with a single illustration for a different point. When this is the case, it’s important to choose one illustration and go with it.
This is called killing your darlings. This is an editing phrase and applies not only to illustrations, but your entire collection of content over the entirety of the message.
You could include everything — and if you do, it will be lengthy, it will lack cohesion, and it will feel to people like you asked them to get in the car and go on a trip, and they have zero idea if they’re anywhere near the destination. It all feels random.
Film is something that I love, and I watch a lot of Oscar-nominated films. Something interesting about the Oscars is there are two different categories that almost always have the exact same nominees: Best Picture and Best Editing. The lesson from that is the most cohesive, best-told stories are the best-edited stories.
If people are having a hard time tracking with your preaching, it might mean that there is room for improvement in your editing and more darlings to kill in the final version sermon.
No matter how much you may love an illustration, when your illustrations begin illustrating your illustrations, you’ve missed the point, and the same goes for your message as a whole.
Illustrations Involving Your Family
Some of the best illustrations will involve your family. One of the best practices I’ve learned is always to get permission before I use my wife in a message. When it comes to my kids, I didn’t think much of it when they were younger, but as they got older, I realized that whatever I shared from the pulpit could impact how people in our church would see them. So, I began getting their permission, too.
Occasionally, as I’m preaching, something will pop into my head in the moment and I have to decide if I’m going to use it. Unless it makes them look good, I won’t use it.
In addition to getting permission from family, it is also important to be mindful of how often your illustrations involve your family. It is possible to tell too many stories about your family. I have challenged pastors to preach an entire message without referencing their son or daughter, and it’s hard because they have so many great stories. But preachers need the discipline of looking elsewhere for illustrations.
My Thoughts On Using Commentaries During Preparation
How I have chosen to use commentaries differs from how many other preachers use commentaries.
Plenty of wise voices will say you shouldn’t use commentaries until the very end to check your work. The idea is that you should come to the conclusions on your own — do the work — and verify you were correct at the very end when the sermon is nearly finished.
I have done it this way before, finished my sermon, opened the commentaries, and gone, “Oops.”
Reviewing the commentaries, I would discover that I missed something significant, and at that point I had to go back and either start over or redo a large portion of the work I’ve already done.
Finding out what the commentaries have to say earlier in the process gives me a greater level of confidence that what I’m building is correct.
Generally, I will purchase 3 to 5 commentaries related to the book or topic for each series I preach.
BestCommentaries.com is an excellent resource for discovering commentaries and reviews of commentaries to help identify which ones might be most helpful for a particular need.
I also use Logos software and have built a nice library of commentaries which I will regularly use. A lot of times, the books I want are already in there, but I may need to add one or two more for a specific series.
What Gets In the Way of Sermon Preparation
One of the ongoing challenges you’ll face is the reality that much of your advanced sermon preparation is very important; it’s not urgent… until it is.
By the time it is Saturday night, and you’re still working on your sermon, you can’t read enough to overcome any deficiencies or gaps that may still exist.
This type of sermon preparation is what Steven Covey calls a big rock. A big rock is a significant responsibility. Something of top importance. If you don’t create a plan for the big rocks in your life, your time will be consumed by all the small, minute details that are often unimportant but can appear urgent.
Put the big rocks in first.
Do the most important things first.
Only do what you can do.
A lot of the leadership maxims are really true of the sermon prep process and someone is going to pay the price sermon preparation demands.
Either you’re going to pay the price by doing the work and preparing well.
Or your congregation is going to pay the price by having to sit through a terrible sermon.
It Is Your Job to Read & Study
As important as it is to prepare the sermon, it is more important to prepare the preacher, too. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a great Welsh preacher, says, “The sermon needs careful preparation, but altogether more important is the preparation of the preacher himself.” You have to have a heart that is growing and a well of knowledge that is deepening.
Reading needs to be a regular part of your weekly discipline. You have to dig a well of content, and I encourage you to make it deeper than Twitter.
It is our job to read and study. There may be a temptation to feel guilty using work hours to read for extended periods of time. There are plenty of readers in your congregation who are looking forward to the two or three hours they get to read at the end of the week — and yet you’re taking multiple hours a week to read as a part of your job.
But it is your job to read. It is your job to study. It is your job to dig a well of content that deepens your heart for God and understanding of his Word. Don’t feel bad about it.
Finding A Sermon Prep Process that Works for You Is Vital
I was talking to a colleague who had been a lead pastor for about two years. Before becoming the lead pastor, he was the college pastor. I asked him, “How’s it going with the preaching,” and he replied, “I hate it. It’s so hard.”
That surprised me because he enjoyed preaching in the college ministry.
I asked him what happened.
“When I was preaching in college, I felt like I needed to find one thing to say. The guy who was preaching here before me said, ‘You can’t miss anything.’”
That is so stupid.
You’re going to miss things. I don’t mean you’re going to get things wrong. I mean, on the one hand, you’re not going to see everything, and even if you did, there are things you need to leave out or always more you could do.
He hated the pressure and the process.
If you hate any aspect of the sermon preparation process, you’ve got to find a different way. You won’t be able to do this for the long haul if every week of sermon prep is a grind.
The good news is you don’t have to keep doing things the same way. You can try something new. Experiment with elements you’ve heard me share in this article. Ask colleagues about their processes and what aspects are the most enjoyable for them.
There is zero reason not to change a routine that is sucking the life out of you. There is more than one way to do it. Figure out some way to make this life-giving. One of the great parts of being a pastor is that, most often, you’re in charge of your own schedule, and if you hate the way you’re doing sermon prep, that’s on you.
And that means you can change it and hopefully fix it.
I hope you find the freedom to experiment and license to try other options after reading through my process, and of course, you’re invited to explore The Preaching Lab and be part of our next group to go through and get intentional, not just with sermon preparation but the art of preaching as a whole.
No matter what it is, if you dedicate time and attention to improving an area of your life, you’re going to see results, and I encourage you to seek results in sermon preparation.
