Never let the New Wear Off 10.26.2023

    Because our job is to proclaim Scripture, we don’t actually begin with a blank sheet of paper. Except, we do. You and your people will only experience next Sunday morning one time. The Sermon you preach will be a unique event in the Salvation-History of God’s people in the town where you live and serve. Yes, we build our sermons beginning with Scripture, yet we are called to form a specific, incarnational moment from that raw material. 

    So, in those terms, yes, we begin with a blank “sheet of paper.” (It just sounds better, than “white screen of electrons.”) In fact, there are likely several blank sheets and a bunch of file-folders and other organizational detritus necessary to keep a year’s worth of preaching organized. New? Yes, in fact, a whole lot of new.

    One of the organizational strengths of the ministry is that we can keep things organized by year. So, like many of you, I began with a folder that reads 2024. Inside that folder is one folder for each separate area of ministry responsibility—Preaching, Pastoral, Planning & Leading, Professional, and Programming. Obviously, a sermon calendar is concerned with the first subfolder. In that folder, there are several subfolders, which contain sub-sub-folders—all necessary to keep a year’s worth of preaching, teaching, and writing straight. 

    When I started the process 3 weeks ago it was not only new, but it was also fresh, inviting, and yes empty. In the last several weeks I have sifted, reviewed, considered, projected, and planned the theme and central ideas to be preached in 2024 at the Grayville First Christian Church. The best way to keep fresh, the secret to never letting the new wear off, is to make sure that you have lots of new starts, lots of fresh beginnings. A new year, a new sermon calendar is that kind of opportunity. 

    Some of the work is every bit that. Work. After the exciting part of creating a theme for the year and projecting that theme textually, through scripture, and chronologically on the calendar comes the more mundane—even boring parts. Preparing to-dos in Things, my task manager. Entering the data into the Logos Sermon Editor so that an empty sermon document is created for each sermon. I cross-checked dates, sermon numbers, week numbers, and series contents to make sure that I didn’t inadvertently miss a week. That’s just for Sunday morning worship. In the next couple of days, I will consider the content for this blog in 2024. I will think about what I might/will preach in the event that I am asked to preach away from home sometime during the coming year. I will go over some basic ideas for Sunday School lessons. Finally, I will try and gauge progress on any ongoing writing projects and try and produce projected completion dates for any manuscripts in the pipeline. 

    All this work done now, in October, streamlines the process of weekly preparation. While I will have a clear idea of where I am going each week, I can begin each week by looking at the plan and prayerfully study, outline, review, write, and edit with a view to preparing a fresh, vibrant, new message for God’s people. The new never wears off when the risen Christ renews the preacher so that he can renew the people.