In Review 12.29.2022

     To really get a handle on what you have done you need to review. To set the course for where you need to go you need to plan. Without a plan the review doesn’t have any benchmarks, making it difficult to grade your performance. This year’s review helps to streamline and focus on next year’s plan. The plan should already be written but planning never really ends. Each week we have a hard deadline (10.00 a.m. Sunday, when worship begins…at least for me). Each Sunday afternoon or Monday morning we can recalibrate our preaching as we prepare for the coming Sunday. If we are to continually improve our preaching, we must always be planning and reviewing our work. The week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day is a great time to work through last year’s preaching. Every Sermon for 2022 is in the books. I haven’t reviewed them all but a representative sample from each series. 

    This kind of review shouldn’t be done in a vacuum. Over the years I find myself repeatedly asking a few, basic questions about how my sermons tracked with the plan. As I looked at my own work, I found that some sermons were better than I remembered and some worse. My intent is not to go over exegesis and I don’t want to get caught up in the details. I just want to ask a few simple questions about how well I stuck to the plan. Here are some basic questions I like to consider.

Did I do what I said I would do (intent)?

    Actually, this goes beyond intent and speaks to my intelligence as well. In the past, when I have been unable to follow through with my preaching plan there have been two issues 1. External issues…say like a global pandemic. 2. I did not plan intelligently (which is to say, stupidly) There are several forms of this error. The most common is hubris. There are a lot of times over the course of my ministry that I tried to do something which seemed great when looking at the whole year panoramically in October which was trite, silly, or undoable when it came time to execute. Under ideal circumstances, my plan should deviate by no more than 1 or 2 messages. Any more than that and there was either a disaster or a disaster occurred between my ears. 

Was my underlying theme for last year robust enough for a year’s preaching?

    There are some themes that are great for part of a year but can’t really be sustained through the variety of Biblical preaching a full year requires. I need to look at the texts, titles, and themes and determine whether I was forcing things. Did I really think the theme through thoroughly or did I quit before the hard work was done? 

    In 2022 my stated theme was believing. The glue that bonded everything together was the Johannine corpus. The thematic trajectory of “belief” or “faith” in John’s writings guided me as I chose texts and how they would be interrelated. In execution, it seemed to work well. Other than a series on the 10 commandments, everyone already had a strait forward understanding of how John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and the Apocalypse are related to one another. So, the theme as planned was executable. 

Another yearly theme I used recently was in 2020: When ______ Comes to Town. The root idea came from the song used in the Christmas fantasy The Polar Express, When Christmas Comes to Town. My Gospel for 2020 was Luke and the year fell out as illustrated in the following list.

• When Christmas comes to town. (Luke 1-2)

• When Jesus comes to town. (Luke)

• When the Spirit Comes to town. (Acts)

• When a Hero Comes to town. (1, 2 Samuel)

• When Grace Comes to town. (Romans)

It hung together well and all I really needed to do was keep my eye on the ball when it came to relating exegesis to application to theme. 

Were the deliverables delivered in a “professional” fashion? 

    This is harder than it used to be! When I started preaching and for the first 20 years or so, the only deliverables were my sermon outline/manuscript and a title and text for the bulletin. That’s it.  Rarely did I include inserts, outlines, questions, or hand-outs. I preached and expected people to engage through listening. Today virtually every sermon requires at least three specific deliverables. A sermon manuscript, a fill-in-the-blank handout, and a Slide Deck. Each of these is distributed online via Facebook and of course, the slides roll during the Sermon. 

    These deliverables need to be consistent, clear, and complimentary. They should supplement rather than replace the traditional oral presentation of the message. The purpose of these deliverables is to help people actively engage in the preaching moment and to accurately recall the message of the text.  It is possible for a sermon to be very consistent and to still be unclear, vapid, or inaccurate. This comes from trying to rush the work process, taking shortcuts, or overreliance on topical or felt needs preaching. When preaching is anchored firmly to the text there is less risk of wandering because of the structured Biblical focus. That means that the parallel deliverables can illustrate the message and help in its retention but don’t function as the core of the message. Exegesis and explanation lead to an engagement with God through His word. PowerPoint and handouts are tools. When we allow the tools to eclipse rather than enhance the message, we have missed the point and need to recalibrate and refocus. 

    Friends, each of us is the theologian and poet in residence for our congregation. We labor in our study to fulfill our ministry of the Word.  Every week we lead God’s people in public worship through the preaching of the Word. We do many other things to enhance worship (music and an inviting environment), but Biblical worship is founded upon Biblical preaching and that needs to be done to the best of our ability every week of every year. And Preacher, Biblical is just the start of the work. It needs to be done well. It needs to be done with passion and polish. It needs to be designed and executed to facilitate an intersection of God’s voice in the text and human needs in the pew. In the 21c we have good, professional tools (Bless you Logos and Accordance), but someone’s got to do the work. Here in Grayville that is my responsibility.  You are called to be where you are, proclaiming the Word, and leading God’s people. Let’s make 2023 a year for writing beautiful, Biblical, well-designed, engaging, life-changing sermons. It starts with closing the door to the study, sequestering with God and Scripture, and listening for His voice in the sacred text.