Anatomy of A Sermon

I'm asked from time to time "how do you write a sermon every week?" The answer is a bit complicated. No sermon is ever what was originally planned and no route toward planning is direct. That said, I do have a process of preparation which you'll find below!

Note: Additional worship planning is done with the other staff and leadership throughout every week in relation to order of worship, music, etc. This is just about the sermon itself!

Every year, I take a few days away from town to spend time in prayer, retreat, and planning. I take the Lectionary passages for the upcoming year with me and pray the Spirit's direction over my planning as I look at them. In that retreat I spend time in prayerful discernment as I walk a prayer labyrinth, move through outdoor Stations of the Cross, and spend intentional time with each passage. I take an excel sheet with me that lists every Sunday of the year and I fill it in with scripture passages, supplemental readings, possible themes, and even connecting points between passages that could lead to sermon series formation.

Note: Theologian Karl Barth once said "Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible." Sometimes things happen in the world and the Spirit leads me to change what I've planned. Sometimes this is a deviation from the Lectionary, sometimes a sermon change–– even after I've written it! Prayerfully listening to the guidance of the Spirit is important in sermon planning week-to-week!

Whenever you eat something, your body takes intentional time to digest it to ensure that it gets what it needs to keep growing and living. Just like that, I take intentional time to read the passage over and over to let its themes and messages sink in. My practice is to read the full chapter the passage is in (the Bible was not always in chapters and verses) and to read the passages around it. Once I've done that, I print the focal passage for the week from biblegateway.com and take a pen and work my way through it marking characters, themes, verbs, and more.

One of my favorite tools in sermon preparation is the whiteboard in my office. Every week I start by writing the sermon passage reference on the board and then map it out, first adding where my scripture readings have taken me, then adding supplemental thoughts, quotes, musings, etc.

After these other two things, I generally dive into supplemental readings via Bible Commentaries, related books, etc. Commentaries are reference books that break down Bible passages verse by verse and show context, thoughts, reference points, and more. I add some of the thoughts that bubble up to the whiteboard, along with an occasional quote I might utelize for the sermon.

Once my research is done and on the whiteboard, I jot down some points of application that have bubbled up and then I put it down for a day (generally mid-week). On Wednesday afternoons I share the sermon plan and thoughts with our Senior Adult group on our Senior Adult Conference call and get their input, but that's about the extent of sermon planning that day.

Using Rocketbook Beacons attached to my office whiteboard, I am able to scan my notes and print them out on Tabloid-sized paper. This size gives me big margins on either side of my page where I can add additional notes and thoughts as I pray and plan. I take this print-out with me when I do my sermon writing.

On Thursday mornings I leave the office and go to local coffee shops to pull everything together and write the sermon. I start by mapping out an outline of the sermon using my whiteboard printout, other notes, and thoughts.

After crafting the outline, I use the Sermonary app to begin crafting my sermon. I do not preach from a manuscript (every word is written out in advance to be read), so Sermonary allows me to write my sermon in blocks that I then use to keep on track on Sunday mornings when I preach.

For visual people in my congregation I utelize a powerpoint that has images, points, scripture verses, and more related to the sermon. These slides are advanced (by me) as I preach as a way of adding a little more to the sermon delivery on Sundays!

I am under no impression that I am the most gifted preacher or that those listening will follow along with every word or point just because I say it out loud. I craft sermon notes with fill-in-the-blank spots that correlate with my sermon. They are added to the BBC app for those who are technology leaning, but are also printed in the bulletin for those who prefer paper and pen.

I am under no impression that it makes perfect in the case of my sermons, but Thursday afternoons I run through the sermon as I will preach it on Sunday. Using my iPad with Sermonary, I move through the sermon just like I will on Sunday to test the flow and check to make sure that the timing is right.

For those wondering, Sermonary has a countdown clock that stays at the top of my notes in its Podium Mode feature so I know how much time I have left. Additionally, I write the word '(SLIDE)' in big red letters so I know when to advance the slides and I mark anything that is in the sermon notes in blue so that I make sure to say it (the rest of the font is in black).

No pastor can truly sit a sermon aside, but I do my best to leave it on Thursday afternoon when I walk out of the office. My day offs are Friday and Saturday and I like to keep those days as work-free as I can (Friday as a personal day to catch up on things and Saturday is when my family is home and I spent time with them).

If something comes to mind for the sermon, I pull out my phone and go to the Sermonary website to add it (all changes are saved in the drive on all devices), but I do not do much more than that on the weekend.

On Sunday mornings I spend a few minutes in prayer over the sermon, the coming worship services, and read through the sermon one more time to see if there is anything else I'd like to add.

Following this, I preach the sermon twice on Sundays at BBC (we have two services) and then post it in our app and on our website for easy access later.

Then, the process starts all over again for the next Sunday!