Plan Your Preaching

In our busy world no minister “finds” time to prepare sermons. He must plan his preparation! The pressing duties of any pastorate, large or small, can easily shove sermon preparation aside. Let’s face it—time is at a premium. What little there is of it is dotted with meetings, calls, counseling, errands, ringing phones, complaining members. But reading and sermon preparation—aren’t these usually the first to be neglected?

I am in only the second year of my pastoral ministry, but I have already come to realize the necessity of planning my pulpit schedule several months in advance. Some time ago I had to take myself aside and work out a pulpit schedule that would provide for disciplined study, long-range plans, and flexibility. Series preaching proved to be the answer, and I would like to commend it to others.

By series preaching I mean any program that includes preaching on either a book of the Bible or a biblical doctrine, theme, or character over a period of several Sundays, or even several months. Planning a Year’s Pulpit Work, by Andrew W. Blackwood (Abingdon Press, 1942), is one of the finest books of helpful suggestions.

Let it be understood at the outset that series preaching has not answered all my questions nor solved all my problems. Interruptions still come, and any program of preparation must be flexible enough to allow for them. But advance preparation cushions the frustration of interruptions.

Several things commend the kind of series preaching I have suggested. First of all, it makes for discipline. The minister more than any other professional man runs the risk of becoming lackadaisical. His time, to a large degree, is his own to budget. He has no time clock to punch and is free to establish his own habits. But if he is not careful he will find himself wasting time, day after day doing little or nothing.

We ministers can always find a good excuse for the things we do—or so we think. But place these “things” up against some of the shoddy preaching heard from our pulpits, and our use of many a minute will fall under judgment. Discipline is a sorely needed tool in a minister’s workshop.

Second, series preaching broadens the ministry of the pulpit. The minister who searches for a text on Tuesday morning or, as some do, on Saturday evening, will probably only find one he has been using off and on for months, even years! His thoughts have stagnated; consequently, his sermons revolve around two or three themes. The great gamut of Christian truths is left untouched by the very man responsible for the spiritual diet of his people.

Series preaching will force a man into various new areas of Christian truth and make him do serious spade work. The result will be new sermons on new themes. This is a rewarding experience both for himself and for his congregation.

A planned program will require a man to check his past schedule of themes, Bible books, and subjects on which he has preached; this will enable him to lay plans for exploring those new areas of truth on which he ought to preach. I have found myself including several subjects that I might have neglected had I not had a program to guide my sermon planning. To do this effectively, however, a minister must know his people. He must take the pulse of their spiritual needs, then plan his sermonizing to meet these needs.

Third, series preaching immerses a minister in his Bible. No planned program can long endure unless the minister becomes engaged by the Word of God. The Church’s need in this hour is not for great orators or masters of logical profundity. Rather, our need is for men who will search the Scriptures and preach what they find!

In planning a preaching program the minister should, I think, decide to preach a series of sermons on a number of Bible books, perhaps four or five a year. Some biblical books are more adaptable to morning preaching; and if you are fortunate enough to have an evening service, you will find a Bible book a wonderful source for sermonizing then, too.

I recently planned for a series in Philippians during the morning services for two months, allowing one Sunday for a special-day sermon. I set aside three weeks to read and study the Philippian letter, using books and commentaries and making notes. Then I allowed three weeks to prepare outlines and sermons.

For the same length of time I devoted the evening service to the Book of Amos. Again, I allowed three weeks for study and three weeks for putting the outlines and sermons together.

There is really no language to describe the joy and the satisfaction that come from such a study in depth. One experiences that the designation of the Bible as the Word of God is no mere cliché. As a divine rather than a human word, it does in fact have infinite resources. Drawing upon these the preacher learns that he can never really be “preached out.” Such blessings, however, do not come automatically; they arise with study in depth and planned sermonizing.

Fourth, series preaching brings the Bible to the congregation. It keeps the people with a given book long enough for it to speak to them—in depth! A text from one book in one service and a text from another in the next service makes for spasmodic Bible consciousness. This is not to say that this may never be done. If the preacher is to treat the many themes that the needs of his congregation require, he must allow for times of moving about freely, times when his study will be governed, not by programming, but by the varied and changing needs of the hour. I am only suggesting that an unbroken diet of this sort of hither-and-yon, butterfly technique is not the most profitable.

Fifth, series preaching keeps the preacher at his task of proclaiming the truth of God—and away from the temptation of merely drawing upon the wells of his own opinions. Series preaching takes the minister on a spiritual journey where he sees and hears what God has said, and what God wants said to his people. “Thus saith the Lord” supplants the human opinion. This depth-study of the Scriptures can change both a minister’s heart and his conception of his task. His pulpit thus becomes a sacred place where he is a “dispenser of the Word of God.”

Sixth, series preaching encourages expository preaching. Expository preaching requires diligent study. A minister who tells his congregation only what he himself thinks doesn’t have to spend much time in study. But the task of study and preparation takes on new dimensions when the occupant of the pulpit regards his task as that of telling his people what God thinks. What God thinks, what the mind of Christ is, cannot be discovered by running lightly through one’s own mind; probing deep into the biblical record is necessary. Even if the mind traversed is the Christian mind, its contents is not the proper burden of preaching. In expository preaching the Word of God speaks. In topical preaching there is always the risk that one will speak only of his own mind and its contents. Thus the sermon, for all its public character, becomes a mere soliloquy. The pulpit exists, however, to herald forth the mind of Christ, the word and deeds of God.

Seventh, series preaching requires (and provides!) a reservoir of material. To achieve such a rich background out of which he can preach, the minister must read and read. If he preaches on a subject only once, he will hit the high spots and leave a wealth of material untapped. If, however, he sets himself to preach a series of sermons on a given subject, he will read and study his subject extensively, for he will be under the demands of more than one sermon. In this probing and studying of the Bible, commentaries, and other books, there are thrills for the man who is willing to work for them.

I strongly recommend series preaching. The work is hard, but the dividends are high.

END

THE CALLING OF THE MINISTRY

IMAGE OF THE CLERGY?—To your man about the town or on the factory floor most clergy are either objectionably wet or drearily dry; some few may be neither, but such are regarded as freaks of nature who have, perhaps, been rather smart at finding a job with few cares or responsibilities at which one may work as flittingly as one pleases.—RICHARD ALLEN, “Through a Glass Darkly,” in the Church of England Newspaper.

MARK OF THE MINISTRY—The modern minister of religion has been described as “overworked but unemployed.” He is burdened with duties that consume time without using his special gifts. He is called to minister, but finds himself forced to administer; he is a cleric who no longer writes, a parson who is no longer a representative person, a prophet who is hailed as the best type of organization man, a called man who is valued when he is like everybody else.—“Peter Parson’s Log,” The British Weekly.

GO TO THE TOP—I was given the other day one of the latest innovations from America, a card to carry in your wallet which has printed on it: “I am an important Catholic. In case of an accident, send for a Bishop.” I thought it is no wonder there have to be nine auxiliary bishops in the New York archdiocese, and I wonder if that will be enough, as motor cars and accidents go on mounting, and what other activities of a less truly pastoral character these bishops may have to drop.—Father DOUGLAS WOODRUFF in The Tablet, London.

MINISTERIAL OUTPUT—8000 revs a Minute is a book on racing cars, not on the output of theological colleges.—Columnist in the Church of England Newspaper.

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