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How does a team prepare a sermon, one to be preached by nine different speakers, in English and Spanish, at New Life Community Church's nine sites around Chicago? Brian Lowery was invited to sit in during their group sermon preparation to see how it's done.

After spending time in prayer, the pastors at New Life Community Church huddle around a table on this Monday to pull together next Sunday's message. The table is covered with Bibles, pens, notepads, laptops, and—no less important—mugs of coffee (the less caffeine-dependent clutch bottled water).

Here I watch 16 individuals with 16 different personalities and backgrounds do their best to shape one sermon that will be preached in nine locations to nine different congregations.

I can't help but wonder if this task is impossible for a group. I rarely agree with myself when putting together a sermon—let alone with 15 others! I struggle to keep just one audience in mind; I don't know how I could handle eight more. Adding to the difficulty is the text for this morning's session, Acts 4:32–5:14, the daunting story of Ananias and Sapphira.

For each sermon, I learn, one individual—chosen from among New Life's five main teaching pastors—is given the responsibility of "driving" the sermon outline. Okay, so this isn't all that different from what I've practiced in sermon preparation: one person behind the homiletical wheel. The difference here is that the one driver is responsible for pointing the sermon in a direction the whole group can go together.

If one person points out something along the way that's been missed, the driver stops the bus and takes a second look to see if the new discovery can fit into the itinerary. Doing sermon prep this way, you not only have to tolerate the backseat driver, you must learn to love him.

This morning's driver is Francisco "Paco" Amador. From the series of handouts we received as we entered the room, it's clear that Paco has already been on quite the road trip with our text. At the end of the previous week's prep time, he pitched the general boundaries of the text to get everyone on the same exegetical and creative road.

Now, a week later, Paco has identified specific landmarks and key intersections in the passage, highlighting key words and pointing out pivotal issues of context.

After the passage is read aloud, Paco takes an in-depth look at his map with contagious passion. He's done his homework. He notes a few key words that populate the passage (the consistent use of the word great and the first use of ekklesia in all of Acts).

He makes sure everyone sees the benefits of this disturbing story being included in Luke's work—and what would be missing if it hadn't been—by pointing out some of the big ideas of the text. "Notice how the major themes of the story serve as scaffolding for the narrative," he tells the group. "We see themes of purity, grace, fear, accountability, greed, and community."

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