My sermon prep...

Someone asked about my sermon routine... I give this with the caution- if you are in school or just starting out, do what your teachers told you, not what I do. I think it's important to work through the mechanics and science of sermon prep for a good long while... as you do that, it becomes second nature and the art starts to appear. Try to start with art before learning mechanics and you'll be very frustrated. I think it's that way with most skills, and homiletics aren't any different...

Here's what I do

1. I meditate on/read/reread the passage looking for the "preaching point", which is generally where the main point of the passage and what God/the author were trying to communicate and where the community I pastor is currently at intersect. 

2. When I feel I have that direction nailed I start writing out my intro and my conclusion- how I'm going to point us in that direction and how I see us landing. I spend more time writing the conclusion than the intro, and generally want to write it out first. When I don't do that, I find myself repeating things at the end. When I've already written the end and said what I want to say there, it makes for much less repetition in the body. If you find you're the kind of preacher who can't "land the plane" consistently, try writing the end first. 

3. I start working verse by verse through the passage, writing as I go, connecting that intro and conclusion. This is where I generally compare translations and check the Greek and commentaries, working out any hard interpretive issues.

That having been said, some weeks step 2 and 3 are reversed, particularly with tougher passages- I don't see that intersection point (and thus my destination) until halfway or more through the process. Those are harder sermons to write and (I'll bet) to hear.

4. When I have a completed draft, I ask myself the 5 questions:

 Where in this message do I clearly point to Jesus?
 Where in this message do I speak to non-Christians?
 Where in this message do I speak to Christians?
 Where in this message do I speak to the heart?

 Where in this message do I give people something to do right now- rather than later…

5. Then I do the final draft, making revisions where prayer and the five questions tell me I should...

6. Go over it on Sunday morning making corrections and changes, often adding any missing interactive elements which seem to come easier to me when I've sat with/slept with a completed sermon for awhile. 

All in all I'd say I spend an average of 10-12 hours a week on sermon- 8-10 hrs mon-thursday and 2 on Sunday morning before the gathering. Sometime less, sometimes more...

Comments

[Ben Sternke]

Thanks for posting this. A somewhat related question: how often do you preach? Are there others in your community that do this as well? How many (if any) Sundays are you present at the service but NOT preaching? And when you don't preach, is the preacher a staff person or "volunteer? Just curious to hear how you work out those kinds of issues.

[ryan]

What about illustrating. Do you use personal stories, analogies, news headlines, all of the above? And do you have any opinions about which might be best?

Usually as I am seeking to explain, apply, or illustrate a text, I trip up the most at the illustrating part. Partly because I think I seen some really bad examples of illustrations that were more oriented toward being funny or entertaining than illuminating.

Sorry for the barrage of questions, I have just spent a lot of time recently studying preaching and am wrestling with a bunch of these questions.