The Productive Pastor
If you are writing sermons or other creative content for your church, then this article may be what you need.
Have you ever felt this way? It is Monday morning, and you know you have to create another outstanding, life-changing, community transforming sermon for Sunday, and you wonder how it is going to happen.
This is how I used to feel as a younger Pastor first starting in ministry. I am glad that it does not need to be that way with some careful planning. In this article, I want to save you from feeling this way even if you have been on the journey for a while now by using the following five ideas.
Plan sermon series, not a single hitter
After been involved in preaching and communication, I know that on the whole, it is much better to create a series of talks instead of one single hitter. Why? Well, it often can take a similar amount of time to come up with a sermon idea that can last for fours weeks as it does for one week. In other words, it is better to have 12 strong ideas that 52 weak ideas.
Another three reasons why you should take a series approach to your communication and not a single hitter are:
It will stick better
It will allow for more significant team collaboration.
It is much simpler to plan
Now a single hitter sermon does work and can be useful to deliver a critical message that is time-sensitive, but on the whole, a series helps people more than one single sermon.
Follow a preaching system
So, you may ask, how do I know what to preach about this year?
Use a sound SYSTEM as it can
Save
You
Stress
Time
Energy
Money
In my experience, it is better to plan at least 12 months in advance what you aspire to communicate. Think headlines and not detail as this will assist you, and your team to see the big picture of where you are going.
We all need a healthy diet packed with nutrients that will cause us to grow and develop, and your church is no different. Your congregation needs a healthy diet of preaching and not the same food all the time as that would eventually lead to an unhealthy church. Here is an excellent way to think about your preaching or creative content over a year.
Each year should contain the following types of talks and series:
Textual - This helps you to focus on specific Biblical passages and books
Thematic - This allows you to cover big themes in the Bible for systematic theology
Topical - This helps you to focus on current hot topics
Visional - This allows you to strengthen your vision, mission and values
Attractional - This allows you to focus on the natural rhythm of the year, for example, Easter / Summer / Christmas
Think high points and big Sundays
Every church will have high points throughout the year, like Christmas, Easter, a church conference. It is good to use these high points to work towards even making them into a church or community-wide campaigns. When it comes to preaching, you must deliver the right mix of both tension topics and relax topics. Think of an elastic band that is being stretched and then released. This is a good illustration when it comes to preaching. You need a mix of talks for guidance, encouragement, correction and inspiration.
Think like a LARGE church even if your’e not
The challenge that smaller churches face is often around finance and staffing. Smaller or midsize churches often don’t have full-time media staff or teaching Pastors to do all the leg work. However, even as a small or mid-size church you can think bigger than what you are. This also sends out a single to your congregation that they deserve the best.
There are so many amazing tools out there that will help you in your content creation.
For example:
Lifechurch has lots of free resources that you use to help with sermon ideas
Canva is a free graphic design website which packed with free templates like posters, presentations, social media and anything else you can think you will ever need.
Get Creative
One of my mentors once told me. “There are not many people who are source original”. Most people will either outright borrow (steal) or build on the ideas of others. There is no reason you can’t do the same!
As a communicator, you must make it your own, but it does not need to start with you.
I once recall hearing Bishop TD Jakes say, “Pastors can be the worst audience to preach to. Either they will steal your ideas and claim them to be their own or tell you that what you have said is rubbish and then, still steal your idea.”
It may have been worded a little differently, but you get the point.
As author Autin Kleon aptly wrote -
“Steal like an artist”
It is now time for you to get planning for the next 12 months. Trust me it will take the stress out of sermon prep fatigue as you will know exactly where you are going instead of having to sit down every Monday morning begging God for a new idea.
If you would like a free sermon series planning document that I have used with teams, then follow this link.
Thanks for reading
Look out for future articles on how to prepare a sermon that will change lives.
