Dear Pastor: Preaching and Spiritual Formation
Dear Pastor,
Let me tell you about a week I had a couple of years ago. Our church was holding our Vacation Bible School on this particular week. I was asked to prepare lessons to lead with adults who stayed while their kids participated in our VBS. This meant preparing three more short lessons, but this was on top of my regular three lessons that I taught on Sunday. All in all, I had six lessons to prepare for this week. Then, a tragedy happened--one of our church members passed away early in the weekend, which meant spending time with the family and preparing for a weekend of funeral visitations and meetings. On top of it all, my seasonal allergies turned into a sinus infection which made working through everything even more difficult!
This is why I’ve been writing to you about building healthy self-care habits. Weeks like the one I wrote about above are not unusual in the life of ministry. Bad things seem to happen at the worst of times. Work piles upon work. The healthy foundation of self-care will enable you to persevere through these challenges without damage to your soul.
Today, I want to write to you about a regular practice you engage in, but one that may seem outside the realm of “self-care.” I want to write to you about preaching, specifically your routine of sermon preparation and how your habits around preparation are either nourishing or draining.
Of course, what I’m going to write about doesn’t apply to every one of your sermons. There will always be an “off” week where you’re sick, or rushing to get everything done, or overwhelmed with the work. But these weeks should be few and far between. If every week seems to be a blur, and you are starting your sermon prep in the second half of the week (or later), please reach out to me and let’s talk about how to find a better work balance in your week.
I want to caution you against thinking of your preparation as a technical matter and to think about it, instead, as part of your spiritual self-care. I know that many preaching teachers and their books advise you to separate your sermon or lesson texts from your devotional time, and I think that is genuinely wise. However, I think that advice presupposes that preachers are falling into a dangerous game--where the Bible becomes a text to be mastered and figured out, rather than as “words of life” that nourish your soul.
When the Bible becomes merely a source for lessons rather than a living word that feeds your soul, you are treading on dangerous ground.
One difference in thinking about this is to consider your sermon preparation as “living with the text” instead of “studying for a sermon” and to build your sermon prep practices around that. Practices such as reading the text aloud, journaling it, praying through it, reading from multiple (and unusual) translations, and beginning with the text weeks before you preach it are helpful starting points.
Let me confess to you that for a large part of my ministry I was the “biblical expert,” mastering the Bible in my study and sharing insights with the congregation, but falling woefully short when it came to shaping the congregation as I was being shaped by the Bible--because, if I’m totally honest, I wasn’t being shaped at all. It’s when I began living with the text and letting it shape and form me that I became a better preacher.
Allow me to share with you a process I have used. I’m not recommending this to you, though if you find it helpful, I’m more than happy for you to follow it. It was helpful to me in helping me reshape how I thought about preaching.
Two weeks out -- I added my sermon text for two Sundays out to my devotional time. I did not use this text exclusively, but it became part of my daily routine. After I went through my prayer ritual, I read a psalm and then my sermon passage and then prayed through the passage, journaling anything that came to mind about what God was saying to me, personally, in the passage. I did this Monday through Friday.
One week out -- on the Monday before I preached, I added the following week’s text to my devotional routine. I reviewed my journal and then spent two or three hours simply living with the text in my office--reading it over and over, reading it aloud, reading in multiple translations, translating it myself. My goal on Monday when I went home was to have a rough outline of the text itself.
On Tuesday, I began to spend time with keywords or images that had surfaced during my work of outlining the text on Monday. I used a concordance, cross-reference tool, or theological dictionary to help me trace the meaning of words or their cross-testamental allusions.
On Wednesday, I blocked out more time to pray over the text. Monday’s outline and Tuesday’s deep dive usually led to some initial direction for the sermon. I devoted Wednesday to thinking about what the particular writer was doing, both within the passage and within the larger book, and what that might mean for my congregation. My goal on Wednesday when I left for the day was to have a theme sentence, purpose statement, and rough preaching outline detailing the broad movements of my sermon.
I devoted Thursday afternoons to writing. I would not schedule anything during this time. On Thursdays, I wrote. I’d write a manuscript and then boil it down to a preaching outline, creating any accompanying PowerPoint slides that were needed.
On Friday, I rested. I did not work at all on my lesson. I took the day to be with my family and run some family errands.
Sometime on Saturday, usually in the morning, I would spend about one hour reviewing my preaching outline. If it seemed good to make changes, I made changes. If it seemed good to leave it alone, I left it alone. On Sunday, of course, I preached.
This process worked well for me. But I want to stress the importance of what I did first--before I ever began working on the text for my sermon, I let the text work on me for my own nourishment. The week spent reading, praying, and journaling through the text before I began working on it was key to my preparation. I learned that God needed to prepare me before I ever prepared a lesson.
I encourage you to think about your own sermon preparation practices. What are you already doing that is forming and shaping you? What can you do that will enhance your ability to listen to God and let God shape you through God’s word? What, if anything, needs to change in your sermon preparation?
I’d love to talk with you further about this. Let me know how I can serve you.
Love First,
Jeremy