So, I am spending a few days “away” to plan a preaching calendar for the rest of the year. Each year at about this time, I try to get away and spend a few days doing exactly this. It is a great exercise for me, and a lot of fruit often comes from it.
Why a preaching calendar?
I believe that preaching the Gospel is the first and foremost objective of the church, and I take my responsibility in that very, very seriously. In fact, I believe that I will be held accountable one day for how I stewarded the responsibility of preaching. So, I make sure that I get away a couple of times each year to pray, read, write, and plan for the coming months. In addition to this, I go to conferences periodically, and I read and study everything I can about preaching. During any given week, I spend between 10 to 15 hours preparing an individual message. Somebody once said that each sermon comes with a price. Either the pastor pays the price with advance preparation, or the congregation pays the price in having to sit through it!
For me, I find that having a preaching calendar laid out in advance gives me a “track to run on.” It removes a lot of the stress of “what will I preach on next week” when I know where we are headed next. So, a preaching calendar charts the course that we will take. This is especially helpful when we are doing a series through a book of the Bible… It gives me some real quality time to meditate on the passages we will be looking at, and plan out how we will address each one.
Having the course charted, I am then able to work with Casey and the worship team on what types of songs we will do, and how they will fit in to each message or each series. We have sort of slacked off on this part recently, but Casey and I will be talking through the message calendar in detail when I get back. I can also take the calendar of upcoming message series and start producing artwork and graphics to lend a freshness to each individual set.
How Far In Advance?
To be honest, I would really love to be able to have an idea of where we are going a year in advance. I’m just not that good, though. Typically, I try to get 6-8 months ahead. That way, we can make plans to preach around upcoming holidays and events. I typically like to plan different types of series for different times of the year. Summer is coming up, and lots of people will be in and out on their vacations and other summer trips. So, for June, I usually like to plan for a series that doesn’t build on itself. Each week can really be a stand-alone. So, we usually won’t be going through a book of the Bible during that time. Fall, (school starting back) January, (starting a new year) and Easter are usually GREAT times to invite people to church. I try to program in a series that scratches an itch for people… A series about marriage, current events, doubt, or raising your kids. Some people call this “putting the cookies on the bottom shelf.” Usually we do a little more to promote these messages with invite cards, Facebook ads, and banners. We plan this way because these types of series at these strategic times make YOUR job of inviting people to church that much easier.
Is the calendar flexible?
You better believe it. I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks into my life through these times of planning, but I also believe that there are times when He changes the plan on me. In fact, MANY times our schedule changes. When I get together with our worship team, our prayer is always along the lines of “God, here is the plan we feel led to follow. BUT, we desire to follow Your leading more than our plan… So, Lord, if you say so, we will throw out our plan and get out of your way. We want YOU to lead.”
So what is coming up?
Well, I’m not sure yet. I didn’t get a study break in the fall, so the calendar is wide open at this point. Right now, I am thinking we will do a series in June themed off of summer movie blockbusters. (we did this once before… we played the trailer of an upcoming summer movie, and the sermon was based on a Biblical look at a concept from the movie) We’ll probably do a series in the fall about family and children. I’m really wanting to return to Ephesians… We left off at the end of chapter 3, so we still have half the book left. Chapters 4-6 are all about “walking worthy.” Ephesians 6 has a lot to do with the Armor of God and spiritual warfare.
So what do you think? Are there any particular issues that you think we should address? Any themes you’d like to spend time on? Any verses you’d like us to look at? I’d love to hear your suggestions. Hit me up by commenting here.