Mastering the Tools: Putting it all Together 3.31.2022

    Virtually any intelligent, pious, literate, and industrious Christian can prepare and preach a sermon. The parameters are well known. The context and concept are not mysterious.  A full-time preacher does it at least one time, every single week. The reason I have written so much this month regarding the tools for studying, taking notes, writing, and planning is that a preaching ministry requires enduring creativity. A lifetime of ministry requires stamina. Weekly preaching requires determination and foresight. 

    This Sunday’s sermon will be the most important that you and I preach. It will be the result of a lifetime of preparation. Everything you have ever learned will walk up into the pulpit with you on Sunday, April 3, 2022. When you are finished with that sermon you will file the materials, have a nap, and then continue with the mission. The sermon for 4.10.2022 then assumes its place as the most important sermon you will ever preach.

    I have written so much about this process because, while accidents may happen, planning for them seems pretentious. You could just get up, turn randomly in your Bible, read a text, and say something relevant. Following the same course, Sunday after Sunday will impoverish the understanding of your congregation, demean the ministry, and leave you unsatisfied. My beginning premise is that you and I should want to be good at this. As good as you can be, and as good as I can be. You and I will have different styles flowing from our different personalities, background, training, and interests. But when we sit down to open the sacred text there are some practices, some procedures, some tools which will help us to maximize the talents we have been given by God’s Holy Spirit. 

    How then do we put it all together? What makes a difference. I am by nature a process guy. Let me quickly summarize what this means and then draw this month’s series to a close. 

My process-driven model of preaching implements the following:

• Policy=the definition of successful completion. "It is my policy to prepare and preach a fresh, Biblical, creative, and challenging sermon every week."

• Process=a bird’s eye view of the entire project broken down into abstract statements. (What but not how) "A fresh, biblical, creative, and challenging sermon requires the choice of a text, exegesis of that text, and writing of the sermon."

• Procedure=a step, by step written map and/or checklist for executing the process. (I use a detailed checklist for weekly preaching)

• (best) Practices=tested and tried means for following the procedure in the most effective, efficient means possible. It is a best practice to do exegesis before preparing the sermon. The best practice for sermon composition order. Proposition->Body->Conclusion->Introduction.

    This is merely a more abstract way of describing what I have written this month. The tools of study, note-taking and curation, writing, and planning are tools that help you best use the available time for getting the work done so that when you come to the sacred desk on Sunday morning you are prepared for the Lord of all creation to proclaim thru you the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

    “But why? I’m smart. I’ve studied the Bible for years!” “I know what I’m doing!” Yes, you are. Yes, you have. Yes, you do. That is actually the point. Standing around waiting for lightning to strike does not make you an electrician. Do your best work. Put in the time. Allow for the impact of your preaching to be cumulative and long-term. Every message must be complete within itself but think of how your ministry is magnified as sermon upon sermon, week after week generates a compounding force for growing and educating disciples. 

    A task manager helps you to see each message in the context of a greater whole. That is the essence of all planning. Using your study tools well whether analog or digital means less time groping for information and more time assimilating information. Keeping, curating, reviewing, and contextualizing your notes provides illustrative, definitional, and contextual content for your preaching. Good notetaking is about reading deeply and widely so that you have a broad range of information to use in bridging the Biblical and contemporary contexts. And at some point, you are going to need to write this all down. Now, you could use an etch-a-sketch or crayons. I kid you not that when I was bi-vocational and working second shift I would come home at midnight and outline sermons in side-walk chalk on my front porch. Not exactly a formula for storage and retrieval. 

    It’s not the tool that writes the sermon, but the preacher. We go through various forests every week examining the trees and deciding exactly which one to fell for the construction of the project before us. We need good blueprints for the project. A good chain saw, perhaps an ax to trim branches. It will require tools to haul, trim shape, and construct the project. If we care about the end project, if we have ownership of the blessed work God has called us to do, we will need to master the tools so that, building upon the foundation—which is Christ—our work will survive the test. Preach the Word, my friends.