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Sermon

Preaching Schedules and Planning

I’m taking a bit of a detour from my previous articles on preaching by asking a series of questions that I hope will be helpful for others and myself. I have been preaching now for a little over four years, and my planning for preaching has changed every year. I currently schedule all of my preaching and teaching in September for the entire following year. I typically have three or four missionaries in per year and maybe a guest speaker or two over the course of a calendar year. I’m not the most organized person in the world, so planning for an entire calendar year has been a big step forward for me in my preaching schedule.

With that introduction, I would like to hear your input:

1.  How far in advance do you plan your preaching schedule (week, month, year in advance)?

2.  When do you prepare for the sermon you are preaching on a given week (that week, weeks in advance, night before)?

3.  How many guest speakers (missionaries, special speakers, etc.) do you have in per year?

4.  Do you try to balance your preaching so you are not always in the Old Testament or New Testament?

5.  What percent of your preaching is topical and how much is textual?

6.  Do you often change your preaching schedule to address specific issues that have developed in the church?

7.  Do you have any advice for the rest of us on how to make our preaching planning and scheduling more effective?

4 Comments

  • Nat Kealen says:

    In working with youth (as well as being CE), my approach is a little different.

    My “preaching” is done on Wednesdays and my teaching is done on Sundays.

    Here goes:

    With the teenagers I have a four year overview of what we would like to accomplish. At the beginning of every school year I’ll drill down a schedule that will cover the goals we would like to accomplish. In turn, if a teenager goes through our program, they’ll go through the cycle of classes twice. However, if I teach Romans in the first year, it doesn’t mean that I teach the exact same thing the fourth.
    I usually prepare a week in advance–two weeks if we are starting a new topic.
    I don’t have guest speakers but some of our youth sponsors will fill in for me if I’m gone or if I’m starting something new. They do the “filler” week. This happens maybe 3-4 times a year.
    this really depends on the scope we are following. If we’re studying Exodus or Leviticus, we’ll be in Hebrews a lot.
    I believe in letting God’s Word work as much as possible. How does the topic relate to the Bible?
    No. I never do with the teens. We follow the scope. Issues are addressed outside the teaching or lesson time.
    Find what works for you. Every person is different. Pray. There have been times I changed because I realized I didn’t pray at all before preparing.

  • Nat Kealen says:

    It looks like ordered list don’t work on the comments. Go figure. I tried to answer each of the seven points. Hope you can make it out.

  • 1. I have a rough 2-year plan (104 weeks) in place, and a solid plan for the next 6 months or so. Sometimes I bump a tentatively planned series (for example, I’ve bumped my 10-part series on the 10 commandments for 3 years in a row). But having a 2-year plan in place allows me to collect resources, stories, illustrations, quotes, etc.

    2. I’ve used to try to do the exegetical work 2 weeks in advance, but I’ve given that up. I now do my exegetical work on Monday & Tuesday. Wednesday I take a break to let this soak in my brain for a while. On Thursday I prepare the actual sermon.

    3. Not nearly enough. Our church historical has followed to catastrophic 1950’s model of Baptist churches which mandated the pastor preach 50 weeks out of the year. I view this as absolute foolishness for a number of reason. Right now we are at about 3 Sundays, and I am talking with my deacons to increase this slowly to 10. Much of this will be in house guys (men I am developing into elders, etc).

    4. Yes, though with most guys I probably favor the NT. Since we still have an evening service (don’t judge me) it allows me much flexibility.

    5. 100% textual, though I do sometimes preach a topic textually.

    6.Yes. My “6 Month Schedule” is still flexible. However, I generally don’t preach holiday-themed messages (obviously yes for Christmas/Easter, but I generally don’t do Mother’s day sermons or Valentine’s sermons).

    7. Honestly, the 2 year/6th month method has been the best thing I have done.

  • Gary Collins says:

    1. How far in advance do you plan your preaching schedule (week, month, year in advance)? I’ve been a pastor for 5 years, so am still learning what works best. I usually have a big picture in my mind a year in advance.

    2. When do you prepare for the sermon you are preaching on a given week (that week, weeks in advance, night before)? I do most of my sermon writing on Monday and Tuesday before it is preached, although some study would have already been completed.

    3. How many guest speakers (missionaries, special speakers, etc.) do you have in per year? This number has actually decreased. When I first became pastor, I scheduled a missionary almost once a month. This year, I only had 5 speakers including the 3 weeks that I was away.
    We compensate speakers at a higher amount than in the past, so probably my target is now 6 per year.

    4. Do you try to balance your preaching so you are not always in the Old Testament or New Testament? Not on purpose. In six years of preaching, I have exposited 8 OT books (Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Amos, Jonah, Habakkuk, and Haggai) and 3 NT books (Acts, Hebrews, Revelation) during AM worship. I do avoid extending any sermon series beyond six months.

    5. What percent of your preaching is topical and how much is textual? Always textual, but not always verse-by-verse expository.

    6. Do you often change your preaching schedule to address specific issues that have developed in the church? No, but I have abandoned a sermon series if it wasn’t motivating to myself.

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