Let me share with you the sermon workflow I have developed over the last few years. It has been extremely helpful and gives me plenty of time to work on sermons throughout the week and ALWAYS be done on Thursday. I then get a day off (Friday) without stressing about my sermon and an almost free Saturday. I started developing this system with the help of Preaching Rocket.
I do most of my sermon work the week of, with some pre-work allowing me to maximize my week of time. Here is what happens in this “pre” phase.
My Sermon Workflow Before the week of:
I work on all of my sermons utilizing Evernote. I keep one note with a broad list of titles/scriptures/series ideas and anything else. Whenever a sermon makes it into the calendar, it get’s a note all to itself. If it is part of a series, the series gets a note as well. This way I can sketch out the big theme (and all the marketing, images and anything else) looking at all the texts/titles together.
The benefit of this system is huge. These notes serve as a dumping ground. Whenever I come across anything that might be useful, I can simply drop it into the note and forget about it.
When I am 2-3 weeks out from starting a series I start working through the big idea, getting the titles and texts organized in a good flow. I look through any potential resources. I also try to figure out the “big ideas” before I jump into weekly prep. All this allows the series to flow and interact well with the other messages. I didn’t always do this and it was pretty scattered.
Week of:
Sunday:
During my usual weekly review I finish with some light sermon prep. I read the passage a few times and pray through what I want to tell people and ask them to do. I start filling out my sermon worksheet (this is my secret weapon and you can get it for free here) at this time. It might just be a few details or it might be even farther out.
Monday:
During the morning I spend about 1.5 hours on my sermon. I do it pretty early in the morning when my creative juices are flowing. I read through the passage a few more times and ask questions of the text. I pray about what God is asking us to do at the end.
In the afternoon I take a final 30 minutes with the passage and my worksheet. At this time I want to have the first draft of my big idea done. All of the structural elements are completed (big idea, the ask and the intended response).
Tuesday:
This is exegesis day. I generally give around 3-4 hours to this task, usually in the afternoon. I read through the passage a few more times. If any words or concepts look really important I notate it down. I write down any questions I have as I read through the passage. If I feel the need to do any translation, I do it here.
After I feel I have spent a good bit of time in the text on my own I go to commentaries and dictionaries. I try to answer any questions I have, fill in some gaps for historical data and any relationships this passage has with others. I am just dumping any information that I think might help out. I use post-it notes for much of this and build a HUGE pile of them. Sometimes I have to chart out movements or other linguistic stuff.
I don’t organize any of this, just get it all in front of me. Once I am done with this process, I look back at my sermon sheet and get rid of any information that doesn’t help me support the big idea. I pray through this process as well. I have been known to trash my sheet and refill it out at this moment.
The last thing I do is make a narrative map of the sermon. If you are familiar with mind mapping-this is pretty similar.
Wednesday:
This is my main writing day. I usually give 6 hours to sermon work on Wednesday.
I start working through all of the information and organize it into a logical flow. I start broad and slowly start working my way down. The post-its come in handy because I can always rearrange things. I write down illustration ideas on their own post-it and put them into the workflow as well. I also start building my ideas for my images/slides. They get their own color of post-it and live above the larger timeline (I build this on the wall going horizontal).
Once I feel the shape is getting pretty good I write a draft. This draft is ROUGH. I usually immediately read it out loud to myself and fix the problem areas. If I need to get back into the text to make sure something isn’t just me saying it, I will go back and do it at this point.
After I have edited the first draft I will read it aloud to myself again this time. I notate any places change needs to happen. Usually, these are illustrations.
I draw out how my slides will support the sermon and aid the congregation in listening and processing.
Thursday:
Mid-morning on thursday I write my final draft. I look over any of the notes I made on the last draft on Wednesday. Sometimes I will preach it aloud again before starting on my final draft. After the final draft is complete I will read it aloud 2 more times. I will spend 30 minutes or so working on my slides. I will preach the final draft once more with the slides. I control them from my iPad (where my manuscript is also), so I can do this with just my laptop. No need to fire up the whole projection system.
I write the sermon preview at this point and put it up on my blog.
Usually this is done by 2 on Thursday afternoon so I can spend the rest of the day tying up loose ends before I take my day off.
Friday:
Nothing. I don’t touch my sermon.
Saturday:
My wife goes to bed early. After she hits the sack on Saturday I preach through my sermon 2 more times. By this point, I am familiar with it and this is simply a run through to make sure everything still makes sense. I do a very minimal amount of editing at this point.
Sunday:
I wake up at 5 on Sunday morning. I read through my sermon once, just a quick flow through to make sure it is on the top of my head.
I hope sharing my workflow has been helpful for you. It helps me preach better sermons as well as be mentally prepared to preach on Sunday. I am never worn out because of a late Saturday evening sermon session!
I remember the first church I was regularly in the preaching rotation. After a few sermons my pastor gave me a copy of the “Preacher’s Sourcebook of Creative Illustrations“. If you have ever wondered where country preachers get really corny stories…it is in books like these.
I think the method of preaching and preparing for sermons has changed drastically in the last 20 years. When I moved to St. Paul’s I had to shift from longer (30min) sermons to shorter messages. The content also had to shift. I was moving from a much more academic culture into one that had different needs. What I learned was the power of story telling and narrative preaching. I wanted to find great examples of people telling great stories. I want to share some of those findings with you. These are all great place any preacher could pick up a few new tips from.
My Favorite Resources for Modern Preaching
1.Pixar:
No one is better at telling a story people of all ages can focus in on than Pixar. I didn’t find out about this naturally. The wife and I don’t have kids. Our movie and television watching begins with the Walking Dead and ends with Quintin Tarantino (a GREAT storyteller) usually. I was aware of Pixar, but it was an article by Joe Berkowitz made me pay attention. Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling–Visualized gives so many creative hints preachers can learn from. A google search will turn up more analysis of Pixar around the internet.
2. Fasttocreate.com Fasttocreate.com is the creative arm of Fast Company. Full of intriguing content, much can be learned by spending 5 minutes a day on their site. The writing staff shares, picks apart and focuses on amazing story telling. This is the best place to be If you want to learn how peoples minds are listening, processing and ingesting information.
3. Nancy Duarte and Duarte Nancy Duarte and her team at Duarte are hands down the best people developing digital presentations today. Most people learned about them after they worked on Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” Nancy has written several great books on presentation development. Possibly the best, the one preachers really need to read, is being given away right now digitally. Resonate is a book we should all have in our toolbox. If you struggle with visual images in your sermons you really need slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. I think both of these books should be seminary and bible college curriculum for the craft of preaching.
Honorable Mention:
These are a few other great resources for modern preaching.
Ted Talks: I didn’t put Ted on the main list because I honestly think they are getting tired. The information is there, but the presentations have started to become lacking. There are still great ones…but I have personally found a hit or miss pattern lately.
SERMONSMITH: If you like digging into other peoples sermon preparation you need to listen to the SERMONSMITH podcast. I love it and don’t miss an episode.
When I was a child I loved traveling during the Christmas season. It meant experiencing the holiday even more special to do it with people I only saw a few times a year. I have plenty of stories I could share about those few days with family during the Christmas season (and on Sunday you will hear a great one!!!).
We associate Christmas with simpler times. We even make the journey home, to those places and relationships that signify simpler times. We go home to Grandma’s, see family, and talk about the last year. We relax in the company of those we love and care about.
Part of the spiritual season is celebrating the coming of Christ to our world. Since we celebrate a God who comes to our world both fully human and fully divine, God himself came home for Christmas. Another dimension to our reflection and worship during the Christmas season is at the center of Christian belief–that Jesus Christ is coming again and we are looking forward to it. Christ is coming home, to relationships and an environment with people he loves.
Coming Home for Christmas is our conversation theme this Advent at New Song. We are going to do some silly things, some serious things and some things for others. But the big thing is us thinking about what does it mean for Jesus to come home, here on our earth for Christmas.
Our Scripture for this first Sunday is a prophecy from Isaiah.
Isaiah 40:3-5,9-11
Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting,
“Clear the way through the wilderness
for the Lord!
Make a straight highway through the wasteland
for our God!
Fill in the valleys,
and level the mountains and hills.
Straighten the curves,
and smooth out the rough places.
Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
The Lord has spoken!”
O Zion, messenger of good news,
shout from the mountaintops!
Shout it louder, O Jerusalem.
Shout, and do not be afraid.
Tell the towns of Judah,
“Your God is coming!”
Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in power.
He will rule with a powerful arm.
See, he brings his reward with him as he comes.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd.
He will carry the lambs in his arms,
holding them close to his heart.
He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.
God wants to come a clear a path through all of the mess of our life straight to him. He wants us to be making this path as well.
Clear hearts create clear roads.
Scripture tells us of a God who is making a straight path for His people to follow. His people are also called to begin clearing that path themselves. The best way for us to encounter God is to begin preparing ourselves for when he comes.
It is easy to blindly celebrate Jesus during this season. I imagine Christmas is probably the easiest time of the year to be outwardly Christian. We have baby Jesus in mangers, wisemen, angels…the whole nine yards. But how often to we take a moment to actually pray and think over why each of us desperately need Jesus to come into our world. How often do we let God tell us the areas in our life where Jesus needs to come and live.
When we truly know exactly where we need Jesus to come, both for all of humanity and how he has in the past as well as how we need him to right now for us as well as for the full salvation and redemption of this world, we will understand what it means to hope. We will understand what we need to be doing to clear this path.
So we start off this advent thinking about the coming of Christ. The coming of God into our world. About that time in the past and the time in the future when God Himself will be coming home for Christmas.
See you in worship this Sunday!
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Have you ever felt like you bumble through prayer or are dissatisfied with your prayer life? One of the keys to the Christian life is understanding how prayer builds a big vision of who God is.
This week we look at the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6 and find out how it helps us build a great prayer life.
For Lent we are taking a journey into the disciplines. The disciplines are the garden in which we are planted and grown into mature followers of Christ.
*What is a sermon preview? Sermon previews are released on Friday’s. They are to give YOU a short glimpse of what the conversation is going to be like on Sunday morning. On Monday, the preview is updated with some discussion questions, scripture guide and an mp3 of the sermon. I do these for 2 reasons. The first is so God can continue working in your life throughout the week. The second is for you to share this with a friend. I invite and encourage you to share the preview on Facebook/Twitter and through email.
This past weekend I was blessed to circle back with a seminary buddy Scott and his great youth group. It was a whirlwind trip. In 2 days I gave SIX messages. For those of you who don’t preach, that is TONS. More than I give in a month.
For people not in a spiritual teaching/preaching role regularly, this might just seem like what a preacher normally does with less time in between. It isn’t. The retreat environment is a game changer. It requires a different type of preparation as well as delivery. If you approach a retreat setting just like a regular Sunday you miss out on the richness of the entire experience.
Prepping for these type events can be stressful or it can be really cool. Let me clue you in on a few tips and ideas. Many of these will also work for planning an entire season of preaching…although since folks are hearing them several days apart you won’t get the level of familiarity.
1. Be in Prayer!!!
This should be a given. Since I agree to come and teach I have been praying for these kids and the words God wants me to share. This is the first step in any sermon, lesson or teaching preparation. I just wanted to make it clear.
2. Be in Good Communication with someone in charge.
Scott had a great theme for his year, “The Never Ending Story” and he asked me to play off that and introduce it. He is focusing an entire year on the large story of scripture. Since this idea is pretty familiar to me it was easy to get started. I also asked him questions about the students, their environment and overall context. You never want to be stepping into a situation with an audience you know nothing about.
3. Know what you can speak on.
Since Scott gave me a topic I was really familiar with (I kinda have a thing about canonical theology) I didn’t have to really stretch myself out. There are things I won’t talk on…I don’t have anything against them, it’s just something I have never thought about or fleshed out with a familiar audience, so I wouldn’t feel right sharing with strangers.
It might be helpful for you to have a written list of what you know you can do easily. I do. This will help you discern what you know you can and can’t do. Preparing for these messages will probably take a couple of months and it should be done mainly on outside time. Knowing what you are good at can never hurt.
4. Plan on finishing.
You need to speak on something you can finish. Talk about the whole thing. All of the idea or concept. All of the book of the Bible. You don’t want to leave things hanging and in this format. A multi message teaching event lets you can go a deeper than a Sunday morning. There is no reason to not focus on preaching through something completely. You don’t want to leave anyone hanging.
For this retreat I was getting to go from Genesis to Revelation. I was able to start well, spend time in the middle and end with a strong focus on Revelation.
5. Write a Big Idea
Write out a super easy sentence or phrase you can continually repeat during the messages. This will also help you keep on track and give folks a centering concept. It can also keep you on track when you are preparing. You don’t want to divert from this idea to much.
6. Map out your continuity.
Most likely you are going to be talking to these people for several hours in a concentrated amount of time. It might mean 3 days or it might mean 1 day. I spent time getting my talks about 60% prepared before I mapped them out. I made sure each one had 3 points.
I went to my whiteboard and sequenced out my messages using these three points. I had my notes in front of me and went through each talk compared to the others. I ended up changing a couple of titles and focus scriptures to better fit the whole.
7. Name Drop.
Make sure you reference the previous material in your talks and even hint ahead. This helps folks realize you are telling one big story, instead of three or four random ones.
These are a few things that always help me when I am planning for retreat teachings. What helps you prepare for these type events?
During my seminary education I was able to learn the theology of preaching from great professors. I studied under wonderful scholars who could keep a congregation at attention when they preached. I worked with several excellent pastors and learned the craft preaching from them as well. I appreciate their example and education. I wanted to do better for myself and for the places God had placed me in. I wanted to preach better sermons.
2 years ago I moved back into the local church and begun preaching weekly for the first time. While I had always been a good “single shot” preacher, stepping in for a specific sermon or weekend, I had to learn what it meant to routinely preach to the same group of people.
In my search to get better I discovered The Rocket Company and one of their coaching products Preaching Rocket. I have been part of it for 3 months now and I love it.
If you want to learn, get better or begin preaching to modern crowds there is no better way than to invest in Preaching Rocket.
Here are 3 things I have benefited the most from:
1. Discerning 1 clear idea for my teachings:
Like many other folks growing up in church I was used to a 3 part sermon. The issue is the 3 part sermon gives to much information for people to process. As I was growing towards my understanding of the theology of preaching I begun to move away from an information based approach.
I think one of the major movements of the Church in the last 50 years or so has been giving people more information about God rather than talking about the character and works of God. The problem is our modern culture has shifted from a head based focus to a heart based focus. People want their emotions to be tugged and challenged. Information is just one tool you have in your toolbox.
Preaching Rocket and their idea of “the bottom line” promotes the idea of one very clear point. It is done with purpose and for clear communication. Everything is focused around supporting the bottom line.
2. Preaching towards response.
Jumping off from the first point, if we are presenting the message of Christ, we should always be calling people towards a distinct response. De-cluttering sermons helps best promote the intended response. What to do isn’t up in the air anymore. When you understand your response from the beginning you have yet another focus as you are preparing your messages.
3. It revolutionized preparation and study.
I have always been pretty disciplined when it came to preparation. I had my list of things I would always do. The issue was how to bring them all together at the middle of the week. Part of Preaching Rocket coaching is a daily method to help you always be organizing your messages towards the bottom line and intended response.
What was once threatening is now pretty simple. It isn’t me trying to collect tons of information and cram it all into 20 minutes. Now my week looks like intentional work, specific gathering and crafting. I can have multiple messages in the cooker at the same time. I simply put my most beneficial practices into the rhythm Preaching Rocket teaches and have a much more organized and efficient writing and preparing process.
If you speak in any sort of manner, not just preaching, this coaching will be super beneficial for you.
Chad Brooks is a United Methodist Pastor serving in Louisiana. Married to Meredith, he is currently starting a new church in northeast Louisiana. Host of the Productive Pastor Podcast and lover of motorcycles, Chad would love to find Bigfoot one day.
Chad Brooks is a United Methodist Pastor serving in Louisiana. Married to Meredith, he is currently starting a new church in northeast Louisiana. Host of the Productive Pastor Podcast and lover of motorcycles, Chad would love to find Bigfoot one day.