Closure, Holy Spirit, 10.31.2024

     We are ever dependent on the Holy Spirit.  Though preaching still requires work, planning, reflection and perspective to prepare for this yearly task of creating calendar to guide our preaching, it should also be an act of devotion. At the end of a full month of intense preparation the work product should be a complete sermon calendar. Our attitude should be peace because we have achieved closure on one of our central, yearly tasks. 

    For me, most of the tasks are finished, there are just a few loose ends.  I have full sermon series planned. For each I have texts, titles, and themes. There is a little air in the schedule where I will allow developing circumstances to provide ongoing structure as to how a series or two plays out. I have already made a significant change reducing the overall number of distinct series to spend additional time focusing on the Gospel of Matthew. 

    I am dotting the “I’s”, crossing the “T’s”, and lining up my ducks. Big picture details become to-do items with checklists to channel the work-load day after day through 52 weeks of the year.  Bibliographies are prepared and resources sequenced for the most profitable process of reading, reflecting, taking notes and expanding my understanding of these portions of Scripture I will be preaching in 2025.

    Yes, it is work but it is a pleasant, joyful task. I am neck deep in scripture, praying and reflecting on God’s work among His people, and expectantly waiting the Spirit who both indwells the preacher and inspires the Biblical text. The preacher depends on this divine interaction to make the connections that provide for clear, articulate, understandable preaching. The difference between a sermon and a speech is the capacity to faithfully declare “Thus says the Lord.” If you preach, I would guess you agree with me when I say we have the best job in the whole world. 

    There are only a couple of days left in this month, and I am Five Sundays away from the first message listed on my 2025 Sermon Calendar. Over the next few days, I will shift from the planning phase to the study phase. I have books ready to be read and I have assigned time in my schedule. I know from experience that the growth of the preacher provides parameters for the growth of a congregation. A stale preacher makes for bored listeners. A well-prepared Sermon Calendar is not an end in itself. When it is finished, when you and I arrive at closure on this part of the work the next phase can begin. May God bless our work through the presence and perspective of His Holy Spirit working in our hearts and minds to speak to His people.