Renewed Focus 10.19.2023

    There is always something more to learn from scripture. The well is never capped. The supply is never exhausted. Preachers, however, need periods of renewal. This is one of the most valuable dimensions of long-term sermon planning.  Looking out over 52 weeks of the next year gives us the opportunity to approach the task of preaching with renewed focus and enthusiasm for the task of preaching. There are several reasons this is the case which I will highlight for you in this essay.

    The first reason is that beginnings are all about renewal and new opportunities. As we approach the end of the year each of us is likely completing plans that were months in the making. If we have preached through several books or sections of scripture, we have spent a great deal of time in study and we are, to be honest, getting a little tired of what we have been doing. In finishing a course of preaching many of the significant issues have already been resolved in our study. While we will continue to do the weekly heavy lifting of preparing to preach and teach each week many of us feel the need to move on to something different and to embrace a new challenge. 

    A second reason is balance. At the end of a year of preaching we not only look forward with expectation, but we also look backward to grade ourselves. This is the time to recalibrate. This is the time to think through last year’s preaching, looking with a critical eye, and determining whether things were in balance from beginning to end. To get that perspective you really need to be close to the year’s end. And since we are there, that retrospective needs to contribute to our plans for the coming year. I have mentioned this before and will again. A lifetime of preaching requires consideration of more than the previous year and the coming year. Decades of preaching will yield much fruit, but you must assess it. One of the best criteria is balance. Will people attending this Church, listening to my preaching, have a balanced diet from scripture. Will the Old Testament be preached in the light of the New, and is my hermeneutical process founded on the risen Christ. 

    The next consideration is resourcing. Roughly the first half of 2024 I will be preaching from the Gospel of Luke. I’ve preached from Luke many times. In my Bibliographical App I have dated Bibliographies for Luke, from 2013, 2016, 2020, and now, 2024. I am quite familiar with the resources I have used in the past and need to give some thought to what I will need this time around. Some resources are so foundational that they will at least need to be skimmed, for example: 

Alexander, Loveday. The Preface to Luke’s Gospel: Literary Convention and Social Context in Luke 1.1-4 and Acts 1.1. 1st pbk. version. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 78. Cambridge: New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 

By their very nature commentaries are used unevenly depending on the arc plotted through the book, yet this is the time to determine whether additional commentaries need to be added. Preaching, like any profession, can become expensive if one proceeds without some kind of control placed on acquiring tools.  This is the time for that kind of assessment. 

    A final consideration is temperament. As we grow older and more mature in the faith, we become attached to certain sections of scripture. We all have our favorites and that is fine. But preaching is not just about the wants and whims of the preacher. Our job is to read and interpret scripture at the congregational level. That requires planning and preparing. The spiritual development of God’s people must be at the forefront of our attention. The perspective we gain when we renew our focus is not for the sake of curiosity, personal indulgence, or self-satisfaction. Our renewed perspective informs each message, each series, and the entire year. Don’t be afraid of reminding your people that we have undertaken a long, sacred journey. Through years of attention to Scripture, we find strength, perspective, wisdom, and spiritual maturity. The preacher offers himself or herself as a guide. To guide our people well means that we take the task seriously and work as if lives depend on it. Because they do. In the end, only Jesus “has the words of life.”