Today I thought I would give you a little sneak-peak into one aspect of my work as a Pastor. I wanted to share with you a little about the sermon series documents that I write for a sermon series. I decided to do this today because I’ve just finished writing one on Hebrews, one on a topic prayer series and I just started one on Acts 1-12. Welcome to a little bit of my ministry, here goes…
I currently serve in a church with a background in a tradition where historically there weren’t any employed staff, no ‘clergy’ and the ministry of individual churches was done by the Christians who attended that church. I don’t come from this tradition (a kind of open brethren) and so there were a number of things that I had to learn as I began to serve in churches like where eI’m serving as Pastor. One of the areas of my job that this has implications for is preaching. In some traditions the Minister of the church will preach all the sermons from the pulpit, in others it’s a mixture of church staff and elders. Each church has its own practice, for better or worse.
In my particular situation this means that I preach twice a month in the Sunday morning service and once a month in the evening service. The remaining sermons are done by our own elders or external speakers who are known to the church family. I plan, together with a group of people from the church, the sermon series and I write a sermon series documents for each morning series to help the team of preachers to be on the same page.
It’s a lot of work, so why do I do it?
Well 1) it helps me study the book in advance and get a feel for the whole series, 2) it helps me to put my thoughts down on paper specifically about key points relevant to our own context and 3) it means that every preacher has at least a rough idea what the series is about, how each sermon builds not he previous one and how it all fits together.
So, what do these documents look like?
The size of the documents varies depending on the book of the Bible and how in-depth I’ve decided to make the document. Here are examples of book I’ve done and the word count of the series documents;
- Job (11 sermons) = around 2,500 words (this was my first so it would be much longer if I did it now, I think)
- This is our God (doctrine series – 7 sermons) = around 2,000 words
- Genesis 1-11 (11 sermons) = around 2,700 words
- John 13-17 (14 sermons) = around 4,600 words
- Colossians (10 sermons) = around 4,000 words
The general structure of these documents is normally the same.
Introduction to the series
(Why preach it?)
Setting the scene
(What do we know about the book?)
Recommended resources
(Where can I learn more about the book?)
Sermon breakdowns – normally including a summary of the text, key verse, main message, application and questions to consider
(How can I preach this text?)
Most preachers are appreciative of the documents because they might not have time to listen to the sermon before the one they’re down to preach and having a rough idea of what has gone before is helpful. Personally, I find writing the documents help me because they help me to really wrestle with a whole book of the Bible, rather than just the bit I’m down to preach. In addition to that it also helps me, when I come back to prepare my sermon, to remember what I had studied (I have a terrible memory!).
I don’t say that every preacher needs to write these documents for your own context, what works where I am won’t necessarily work for your context and visa versa, but if you’re at a church with multiple speakers why not give it a shot? You may find that it helps you get your thinking straight on a series and help you communicate what you’re thinking more effectively with the team. You may also realise you don’t like them, and that’s also fine for your context.
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