Planning Your Preaching: PART 4 – Nuts and Bolts of Sermon Planning

This post is part of a series where I discuss the benefits and processes of planning your preaching.
PART 1 – Why Planning is Important
PART 2 – Getting Ready For Your Planning Session
PART 3 – Five Considerations When Sermon Planning

So how does sermon planning actually WORK? How does one go from a blank calendar template to something that can be handed out to church leaders for the purpose of planning, coordination, and saving one’s own sanity?

STEP 1: Identify series topics

Based on the PART 3 post in this series, I hope you have already begun to identify areas of need and potential topics that may be well-suited for your church in its current season. If not, take a look at these questions to help identify some of the topics that may be most pertinent.

For the purpose of this post, I am going to pretend that the focus of your church in this current season is an emphasis on loving God and loving people. So what topics might be most needed based on this theme? Here are some ideas:

Series Idea 1: Loving others, especially those who may not look/sound/behave/vote/believe like you.Series Idea 2: It’s easy to say we love God, but practically what does that mean? What does that look like? In this series, we’ll look at different Bible characters to get a better idea.

These two series are very aligned with the theme of loving God and loving people, yet as I begin to envision the end result, I believe the series themselves will be quite different. Notice I have done NOTHING involving series branding, creative elements, involvement of other ministries, etc. All I have done is identify potential sermon series ideas based on the needs of the church.

Step 2: Brainstorm the individual messages in each series

Once we have a few sermon series ideas we like, we can begin developing each idea into a series of messages. Of course, as we move forward the option always exists to circle back and add another potential sermon series to the list if something else comes to mind. Yet for now, we want to take the sermon series ideas and begin to give them shape and definition. I’m going to continue with the two series ideas mentioned above. REMEMBER, prior to leaving this session, EVERYTHING can be tweaked and edited. Do not hesitate to write something down and improve on it later. (See my post “Critiquing is Easier than Creating“)

NOTE: If you want to download this content, or just have it in a nicer-to-read format,
I’ve dropped it into my sermon calendar template and made it all available here.

Series Idea 1:Potential titles: “The Others”, “Who Is My Neighbor?”, “When Loving Others Is Hard”Potential sermons:Potential Title: “The Second Most Important Thing”
Passage: Matthew 22:36-40
Main Idea: When asked about what is most important, Jesus gave was is first and what is second. But why should this matter to us?Potential Title: “Won’t You Be A Neighbor?”
Passage: Luke 10:25-37
Main Idea: What does this idea of loving others really look like when we live it out? Jesus provides us with one of the most incredible examples…Potential Title: “Loving the Outcast”
Passage: Matthew 8:1-4
Main Idea: In the first century, contracting leprosy would result in not only dealing with the sickness but also being forced from the community. How did Jesus interact with this outcast of society?Potential Title: “Loving the Opposition”
Passage: Matthew 8:5-13
Main Idea: A centurion would have had significant authority, and would also have been seen as the enemy by those closest to Jesus. Yet how did Jesus respond when this centurion approached Him with a need?Potential Title: “Loving the Sinful”
Passage: Matthew 9:9-13
Main Idea: While the Bible speaks of how all are sinful, those surrounding Jesus had a very different perspective. Yet Jesus demonstrates an incredible truth about His purpose and ministry.Potential Title: “The Call to Love”
Passage: Matthew 9:35-38
Main Idea: In this passage, Jesus makes a simple observation. We often apply this specifically to located ministry, but the implications of the large crowd contrasted with the small group of followers paints a broader picture. We all have the opportunity to demonstrate love to those who are in need of compassion.Series Idea 2Potential titles: “Obedient Heroes”, “When Loving God is Hard”Potential sermons:Potential Title: “Abram”
Passage: Genesis 12
Main Idea: Before he was the father of many nations, Abram was a follower of God. God called him with nothing more than a promise that He would show Abram an abundant land and He would make Abram great. Yet despite the uncertainties, Abram follows.Potential Title: “Noah”
Passage: Genesis 6 & 7
Main Idea: Noah set out on a job and persisted, even though it would be 120 years until the promised reason came to pass.Potential Title: “Job”
Passage: Book of Job
Main Idea: Faithfulness to God does not always mean prosperity. Sometimes it means trusting God even when you do not understand.Potential Title: “Rahab”
Passage: Joshua 2
Main Idea: A woman, a foreigner, a prostitute, Rahab had EVERYTHING going against her, yet she stands as a great example of faithfulness to God.

Notice there are still a lot of unknowns, there are a lot of details to be determined. Yet, we now have something to work with as we move to step 3.

Step 3: Solidify your sermon series’ and put them on the calendar

It is at this point that we begin slotting sermon series into the calendar. It’s ok if what you have developed does not fit perfectly yet. For instance, imagine you have developed eight ideas in a series on the parables of Jesus. It is ok to remove one message to make the series fit in a space where you need seven weeks of messages.

Tweak. Massage. And also, realize it is ok to have a stand-alone message in between two that thus far just fit *perfectly* in regard to what you hope to accomplish.

Again, titles, branding, and creative elements can be developed later. However, this will be a great start when you leave this planning session.

Step 4: Distribute the calendar to appropriate church leaders

Let your leaders know that things can change. However veering from this plan should be the exception, not the rule. With this in hand, different groups will now be able to plan in a variety of ways. Here are some potential leaders to send it to:

Your elders/board – In my experience, leaders in the church are always grateful to know you are thinking about the future. Furthermore, people in these roles tend to not like surprises. Thus if you plan to have a guest speaker or are speaking about a potentially sensitive topic (divorce, sex, how the church should respond to those in the LGBTQ+ community, etc.) they will appreciate a heads up. In those instances, this allows them to prepare for criticisms that may arise.Your worship leader(s) – I have honestly been amazed how many worship leaders have zero idea what the sermon topic will be from week to week. Imagine if your worship leader can lean into the topic with special music or song selections that emphasize the theme of your message. All of this can dramatically increase the impact of your sermon.Whoever does your graphics/bulletin/social media – Advanced notice allows individuals serving in these areas to prepare and further emphasize your theme rather than just going with something generic.Small group leaders / Sunday school teachers – If you are preaching through Galatians, this allows these groups to dive deeper into the very content you’re covering on a Sunday. This helps lessons carry over beyond Sunday morning.Your sermon development team – Remember how we have intentionally NOT been concerned with graphics, branding, etc? This will be a team that helps solidify these elements of your upcoming messages. But how does a team like that get developed? How does it work? We’ll discuss that in the final post of this series next week.