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Sermon Prep

Mar 28, 2007 Print This Post

.:mood:. Whelmed
.:itunes:. Nightswimming by R.E.M.

So I’m sitting in a coffee shop, working on my message for this weekend and my brain was fried. So, I decided to troll blogs for awhile. I came across this quote by Carnivorous Caribou:

While working on the next post in the series I was digging through a text. As I sunk my teeth into it, I realized it was not at all making the point I was trying to make. That caused me to pull back, reassess and jump right back in.

However, when I reexamined things, I realized the text was making a whole greater point than I was ever going to make. Therefore, it may take a day or two, but the rest of the series is going to go in a bit different route.

He was talking about his blog, but it made me think of my message prep. I have read a couple books on preaching over the last year and I have been thinking about my style / preparation methods / etc a lot. Just recently, I finished “The Big Idea: Focus the Message-multiply the Impact” by Dave Ferguson and his team. This is a church that really lives out what they believe. They have a singular approach to ministry and they do it well. (BTW, you can catch a podcast interview of Dave by clicking here). I wouldn’t always do it the way they do, but that doesn’t matter. They are inspiring in what they do.

One thing keeps ringing in my head, though: they start preparing each message 9 weeks or so in advance.

Wow.

Steve gets his done a few weeks in advance.

I’m working on mine for this weekend right now.

I have tried and tried to get on my messages sooner, but I can’t seem to do it.

I have gotten better at knowing the general flow in advance. In fact, I generally know what I am doing for every series this year. But when it gets to preparing the individual messages, it is always the week I am preaching them.

Not sure if it’s a lack of disciple, but I get really bored if I write them too far in advance and I don’t get rocking without the pressure of the deadline looming.

And then there is the above quote. That happens nearly every single week. I get moving on the prep and at some point, there is an AHA moment, when I throw out everything I have been working on or I significantly rework it. Sometimes at the last minute this happens and it stresses me out.

Again, I should try to get to these faster.

Or at least, I should get to this week’s message now instead of blogging.