As pastors, this puts us in a crucial position. Good shepherding requires speaking about sexual issues on multiple levels—addressing both victimization and sexual abuse, which is far more common than many assume and leads to deep shame, while also presenting the positive vision of God’s design. If you’re wondering how to approach these subjects from the pulpit, you’re not alone. While the gospel must always remain front and center, sexuality needs to be “towards the front of the bus” as we speak to people about their real-life issues. We can’t be silent where God has spoken.

Why Preaching on Gender & Sexuality Topics Matter

Part of the reason Christians care about sex is because it’s fundamental to the creation story. The modern world often thinks about men and women as interchangeable, like Meat-Legos pieces with swapped-out genitals, but that’s not how God creates. He doesn’t make generic humanity—He specifically makes males and females. 

Sex is also a significant ingredient in human flourishing. It touches some of people’s darkest areas of shame—both because of what’s been done to them and what they’ve done. If we don’t address these intimate matters, we miss ministering to people in both their highest highs and lowest lows.

This isn’t merely about culture wars or political debates; it’s about honoring the wisdom and creativity of God. God could have designed humans to reproduce a million different ways, like cells through mitosis or like sea horses that reproduce asexually. Instead, He chose to create reproduction through the act of love—the sex act—and He designed it on purpose and with purpose. If we believe in the goodness of creation and the goodness of the Creator, then sexuality has to be addressed from our pulpits.

Two Essential Ministry Opportunities Through Gender & Sexuality

Addressing gender and sexuality in our preaching serves two crucial purposes: discipleship of believers and engagement with those seeking answers in a confused culture. Being clear on these issues is a matter of both faithful discipleship and faithful evangelism.

Discipleship 

People need to know fundamental truths about their bodies and sexuality. Should they feel good about their bodies? Is sex only for procreation, or is it meant to be enjoyed? How do they navigate pleasure within God’s boundaries? These aren’t peripheral questions—they’re central to how people live out their faith.

When people show up at church, they want to know what the Bible says about every area of their life. There’s extensive biblical teaching on sexuality, and avoiding these topics due to our own squeamishness or anxiety isn’t making us faithful shepherds. 

Our task includes helping people:

• Understand sexuality as a gift, not just an obstacle
• Navigate the relationship between pleasure and purpose
• Process their own sexual wounds and shame
• Parent their children through cultural confusion

The goal isn’t just to provide rules but to help people see and embrace God’s good design.

Gospel Witness

The brokenness of our culture’s sexual ethics creates natural openings for gospel conversations. People are discovering that achieving what culture promised would bring fulfillment—sexual autonomy, identity exploration, and relationship experimentation—still leaves them feeling empty, isolated, and confused. This disillusionment often leads them to search for better answers. There has been a major overpromise and underdeliver dynamic at work in our culture. The church can stand in that gap with God’s guidance.

Dechurched and unchurched parents find themselves in situations they never anticipated. A father who lived comfortably with a “live and let live” philosophy suddenly faces hard questions when his 14-year-old daughter’s friend comes out as transgender. He didn’t really care about these issues before – no harm, no foul, but now he’s trying to actively love and lead his kids and is looking for wisdom.  His previous moral framework provides no answers. Where does he turn when cultural wisdom falls short? In this case, like many others, he finds himself at church, seeking clarity he can’t find elsewhere.

Young people, too, are searching for solid ground. 

We recently had a teenage boy come to faith. Surrounded by his school’s confusing and confused messages about gender identity, he encountered the simple biblical truth that “your body tells you the truth of who you are,” it resonated deeply and created an interest in church for the first time in a long time. This isn’t to say every bodily desire is good and should be listened to. But when your body is anxious, its telling you the truth that you’re anxious; when your body is horny because of a spike in hormones, that’s true about you. When your mind interprets that desire is, “I’m horny therefore I should have unsafe sex” that isn’t your body lying, that’s your mind misinterpreting and mistreating your bodily sensations. Minds lie, bodies don’t. When the schizophrenic thinks he hears voices, his ear drums aren’t lying, his mind is.  Like the great prophetess Shakira said, “hips don’t lie.”

Our role isn’t to stand in judgment over the culture’s folly, but to offer something truly better. When we teach biblically about gender and sexuality, we provide clarity in place of confusion. We offer hope where disillusionment has taken root. We present truth that makes sense of personal experience, and we point to freedom where addiction and shame have held people captive.

This cultural moment demands more than just rules or restrictions. Families navigating public school gender ideology need a comprehensive vision of human identity and purpose. Young adults discovering the emptiness of a hookup culture need to understand God’s perfect design for sexuality. People carrying sexual wounds need to know there’s healing in God’s truth.

By addressing these topics directly, but with grace, we create space for the gospel to speak into people’s deepest struggles and doubts. We’re not only arguing that God’s way is better—we’re presenting hope to people who are often hurting, confused, or disillusioned by the culture’s broken promises about identity and fulfillment. When someone realizes that following the culture’s path has left them lost, they become remarkably open to hearing about God’s design.

Building a Bible-Shaped Methodology on Sexuality 

Matthew 19 provides our model for addressing gender and sexuality. When the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus with questions about divorce—essentially about sexuality and marriage—Jesus immediately pointed back to Genesis 1 and 2. 

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female… Matthew 19:4

For Jesus, Genesis wasn’t just a historical account of what happened, it was a normative moral authority for how we should live now. We, as followers of Jesus, follow Jesus back to the beginning at The Beginning (Genesis means beginning) about sex.

Starting with Creation 

The biblical narrative introduces gender and sexuality not as cultural constructs or social innovations but as divine gifts woven into the fabric of creation. God doesn’t create humans—He creates males and females. This isn’t incidental to the creation story; it’s central to it.

Understanding Neo-Docetism 

Our current cultural moment mirrors an ancient heresy. Just as docetism taught that Jesus only appeared to have a body but wasn’t really embodied, we face a “neo-docetism” that separates mind from body. This modern heresy manifests when:

• People believe their “real self” exists separate from their body
• Feelings and thoughts are elevated above physical reality
• Technology promotes the idea of consciousness separate from bodies
• Culture insists on adjusting bodies to match minds rather than the reverse

Body-Soul Unity 

Genesis directly challenges this mind-body separation by presenting humans as unified beings. When God creates humans:

• He makes them sexed beings from the start
• Their bodies tell the truth about who they are
• Physical design carries purpose and meaning
• Identity isn’t separate from embodiment

Understanding Gender Distinction

While both men and women are equally made in God’s image, Scripture presents meaningful distinctions that reveal God’s purposeful design. We see this first in Adam’s creation and role in the garden. Before Eve’s creation, Adam was given a specific calling to serve and protect, to work and keep the garden. This wasn’t just about maintaining vegetation—it was a priestly role that included watching over, protecting, and preserving God’s commands.

When God creates Eve, we see another layer of divine intention. She wasn’t created as an afterthought or a subordinate, but as an essential companion whose presence completes the human picture of God’s image. The differences between Adam and Eve weren’t arbitrary but purposeful, showing us that distinction in design doesn’t diminish equality of worth.

Consider how this plays out even in physical design. 

Men’s generally greater physical strength isn’t about superiority—it’s about service and protection. Just as a male cheerleader uses his strength to lift and support, men are designed to use their distinctive traits not for dominance but for the flourishing of others. These physical predispositions serve dual functions, creating natural patterns for how men and women often work and relate differently.

Understanding these distinctions helps us resist two common errors. 

On one side, we avoid the historical tendency to treat women as incomplete or lesser versions of men—a view that tragically dominated much of Western thought. On the other side, we resist the modern impulse to treat men and women as interchangeable, as though our physical and biological differences are meaningless accidents rather than purposeful design.

This biblical vision of gender distinction offers something better than both patriarchal dominance and gender erasure. It shows us how to celebrate our differences while affirming our equal worth, how to embrace our distinctive designs while honoring our shared humanity, and how to help people flourish as the men and women God created them to be.

The Digital Dimension 

The rapid rise in gender confusion, especially among young people, correlates with increased screen use and digital life. When people spend most of their time in virtual spaces:

• They become disconnected from physical reality
• Their sense of embodied identity weakens
• They’re more susceptible to seeing their bodies as customizable avatars
• They lose touch with the truth their bodies tell them

The impact of technology goes beyond mere screen time. Popular culture increasingly promotes a future where consciousness can be separated from bodies entirely. Shows like “Altered Carbon” imagine a world where human consciousness can be transferred between bodies like switching containers. This isn’t just science fiction—it reflects a growing belief that:

• Our “true selves” exist independently of our bodies
• Physical bodies are merely temporary vessels
• Identity is completely fluid and transferable
• Bodies are customizable accessories rather than essential to who we are

A Positive Vision 

Rather than just responding to cultural distortions, we can present God’s original design as the better way. This includes:

• Understanding our bodies as purposeful gifts from God
• Recognizing physical design as meaningful, not arbitrary
• Embracing the unity of body and soul
• Celebrating the goodness of God’s created order

Too often, Christians are known only for what we’re against regarding sexuality. But Scripture offers a remarkably positive vision for gender and sexuality. God’s design includes:

• The joy of embodied existence
• The beauty of complementary relationships
• The privilege of reflecting God’s image
• The delight of sexual intimacy within marriage

This positive vision gives us something better to offer than just a critique of culture’s broken promises. We’re not merely saying “no” to cultural distortions; we’re saying “yes” to God’s good design.

Practical Preaching Considerations

Speaking biblical truth about gender and sexuality requires both courage and wisdom. These topics touch people’s deepest identities, greatest wounds, and most intimate relationships. As pastors, we need a thoughtful approach that combines biblical fidelity with pastoral sensitivity.

Understanding Your Own Journey 

What frustrates you about how Christians typically address these topics? What aspects of the cultural conversation concern you? These reactions often point to where the Spirit may be leading you to speak truth with particular clarity or compassion.

Moving Beyond Purity Culture 

The legacy of purity culture continues to impact how many approach these topics. This movement often:

• Treated bodies as liabilities rather than gifts
• Created unhealthy shame around natural development
• Focused more on rules than relationship with God
• Over-promised and under-delivered on sexual fulfillment

Rather than letting these experiences silence us, we can learn from them to present a more holistic, biblical vision.

The danger of purity culture wasn’t just its rules—it became a kind of “sexual prosperity gospel.” Just as the financial prosperity gospel promises wealth if you follow certain steps, sexual prosperity culture promises perfect marriages and fulfilling sex lives if you “did everything right.” This led to:

• Deep disappointment when marriage didn’t automatically result in sexual fulfillment
• Confusion when following the “rules” didn’t prevent relationship struggles
• Disillusionment when spouses proved to still be sexually sinful and selfish
• Shame when following the rules didn’t set you free from your own sexual sin

Speaking with Clarity and Compassion

In our desire to be winsome or avoid offense, pastors sometimes dance around these topics, using vague language, clever wordplay, or euphemisms that further obscure the topic. This approach ultimately serves no one. Our people need clear, direct teaching about God’s design. Being clear doesn’t mean being harsh—it means being honest about what Scripture teaches while acknowledging the complexity of people’s lives and struggles.

When we speak with clarity:

• We help people understand exactly what God’s Word teaches
• We eliminate confusion about where we stand
• We give people clear principles for decision-making
• We demonstrate that truth and love aren’t opponents

Addressing Different Audiences

Every time we step into the pulpit to address gender and sexuality, we’re speaking to a room full of complex stories and situations. The teenager quietly wrestling with identity questions sits just a few rows from parents searching for wisdom to guide their children. The person carrying deep sexual trauma may be hearing the same message as the engaged couple preparing for marriage. Someone faithfully fighting same-sex attraction might be listening alongside a family member whose loved one has rejected biblical teaching entirely.

This diversity of experiences demands thoughtful, nuanced preaching. We must simultaneously speak hope to the hurting and truth to the confused. Our words need to offer practical help for today’s struggles while pointing to God’s larger purposes. 

When we address sexual brokenness, we’re speaking both to victims and victimizers. Our preaching must somehow bridge the gap between those firmly convicted of biblical truth and those just beginning to question cultural assumptions.

Understanding these various perspectives shapes how we communicate. It should lead us to choose our words with greater care, anticipating how different listeners might hear them. It should help us recognize potential misconceptions before they take root. Most importantly, it should guide us in creating an environment where people feel safe bringing their questions and struggles into the light.

Effective preaching on gender and sexuality isn’t about winning arguments or merely stating biblical facts. Our goal is to help people receive their bodies as gifts from God, understand sexuality as part of His good design, and find healing from both victimization and shame.

When we speak directly but non-anxiously, acknowledge both the highs and lows of human sexuality, and keep the gospel front and center, we create space for God to work. While these topics shouldn’t overshadow the gospel, they need to be “towards the front of the bus” as we drive people toward understanding God’s design for human flourishing.

Navigating Common Challenges

Even with careful preparation and a strong biblical foundation, preaching on gender and sexuality presents unique challenges. Understanding these challenges—and having strategies to address them—will help you preach with both confidence and compassion.

The Personal Stories Challenge

Perhaps the most difficult pushback comes through personal stories. 

“My sister came out as transgender and she’s happier than ever.” 

“My friends in a same-sex relationship are more committed than most Christian couples I know.” 

These narratives can be powerful and emotionally charged.

Here’s how to approach these situations.

Acknowledge the Reality 

Don’t dismiss or minimize people’s experiences. Their stories are real, and their feelings are genuine. But remember: while experiences are valid, they aren’t authoritative, and they’re never the whole story. Our role is to lovingly point people to a higher authority—God’s Word.

Look Deeper 

Often, personal stories reveal underlying questions about:

• Identity and belonging
• Love and acceptance
• Happiness versus holiness
• God’s goodness and design

There is a theme of hypocrisy that must be acknowledged; the compare-and-contrast approach to how God’s people are doing sexually and how those who disregard God’s word are doing sexually is tempting because God’s people, who are trying to follow God’s word, remain sexually broken and sinful. 

If we try to spin Christian failure while pouncing on non-Christian dysfunction, we won’t be lovers of the truth. 

There are couples that cohabitate and are enjoying their life separate from God; meanwhile, there are God-honoring married couples who simply aren’t. Sometimes the proof is in the pudding, and sometimes it isn’t. This is why teaching on creation is good, but Christians must ultimately teach the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

Offer Better Stories 

The gospel itself is a story—one that makes sense of our experiences while pointing to something greater. Help your congregation see how their personal stories fit within God’s larger narrative. Not just creation, but new creation is needed if we want hopeful and resilient followers of Jesus.

The Cultural Pressure Challenge

Our culture presents two significant challenges when addressing gender and sexuality. First, there’s the rapid normalization of what was previously understood as sexual deviancy. Second, there’s the increasing separation between mind and body, particularly among young people immersed in digital technology.

Understanding Cultural Confusion 

The issue isn’t merely moral disagreement—it’s a fundamental shift in how people understand themselves:

• Bodies are seen as containers rather than essential to identity
• Personal feelings are prioritized over physical reality
• Technology encourages disconnection from embodied existence
• “Affirmative care” has replaced traditional therapeutic approaches

When Mind and Body Conflict – Gender-Affirming Care

Our culture has reversed its traditional approach:

• Previously, if mind and body didn’t align, the goal was to help the mind accept the body
• Now, this is labeled “conversion therapy”
• Instead, “affirmative care” adjusts the body to match the mind
• This shift reveals a deeper philosophical change about human nature

Speaking Truth in This Context 

Our role isn’t primarily to fight culture wars but to:

• Present the biblical vision of body-soul unity
• Help people understand their bodies tell the truth about who they are
• Address both victimization and shame
• Offer hope through the gospel

Remember: we’re not defending traditional values—we’re presenting God’s design as the path to genuine human flourishing. When people discover the emptiness of cultural promises about identity and fulfillment, they become more receptive to biblical truth.

Preaching Through Gender & Sexuality with Confidence

The question isn’t whether Christians talk about sexuality too much—it’s whether we’re talking about it biblically. These topics show up “on page one of the Bible” because they’re fundamental to God’s design for humanity.

A Final Encouragement

Preaching biblical truth about gender and sexuality may feel daunting, but remember: these aren’t just cultural issues—they’re gospel issues. 

When we teach God’s design for gender and sexuality, we’re doing something far more significant than addressing current controversies. We’re pointing people to the God who intentionally created them, helping them understand the design that gives their lives definition and purpose. We’re offering truth that sets people free from cultural confusion and shame while presenting the transforming grace that meets them in their brokenness.

Your congregation needs this teaching, even if they don’t know it. The world is speaking loudly about gender and sexuality; your people need to hear God’s voice speaking louder still. They need a shepherd who will courageously and compassionately guide them toward understanding God’s good design for human flourishing.

So preach with confidence, knowing you’re standing on the authority of God’s Word. Speak with grace, remembering your own need for the gospel. And trust God to work through His Word for His glory and their good.

Check out some of my sermons on the topic:

• The Goodness of Sex
• Christianity and Gender
• Is Sex Just Physical?

The post A Pastor’s Guide to Preaching on Gender & Sexuality: Biblical Framework & Practical Approach appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.

Attending the church staff meeting meant I was no longer a wannabe on the sidelines. I was actually on the team.

I had grown up playing sports and always enjoyed being part of a team. Now, I was on the team again. Going to the staff meeting was a chance to be close to the heart of our “coach” (the senior pastor) and an opportunity to build camaraderie with my “teammates” (the fellow staff).

It was exhilarating. 

Over time, I realized that not everybody looked forward to staff meetings as much as I did. And, as I interacted with leaders from other churches, I figured out that some folks actually dreaded church staff meetings. 

In some environments, these meetings were just one more thing on an already overcrowded schedule. In these situations, staff meetings were happening only because they had always happened. And, of course, whenever we’re doing something void of clear purpose and intentionality, it’s going to stink.

But it doesn’t have to.

Eventually, I was sent out to plant a church and had the privilege of seeing the church grow — in both people and staff. All along the way, the staff had to grow and change. And, of course, that meant our staff meetings had to adjust accordingly. 

I’ve experienced leading a staff of many different sizes, whether as the solo pastor whose “staff” is a group of volunteers or as a large church pastor with layers of leadership and 30+ people in a staff meeting. At each stage, staff meetings have been essential and — more often than not — a lot of fun.

So, let’s consider church staff meetings from various angles so that your team can be as effective as possible in what God has called you to do.

What Great Church Staff Meetings Accomplish

When church staff meetings are effective, they cultivate a number of extremely valuable dynamics in the life of the church.

Model a Healthy Culture

One of the most important roles of a senior pastor is to cultivate a healthy culture. However, this is easily overlooked and underappreciated in light of all the other responsibilities a pastor has to preach, shepherd, counsel, train leaders, and provide oversight for the church.

Every group of people has a culture—sports teams, companies, families, high school drama departments… and churches. 

The culture is the shared set of attitudes, behaviors, values, flinches, and relational patterns that exist within the group. Culture is the way it feels to be around a group of people. It’s a vibe. It’s a sense. It’s a dynamic — and it’s one of the most powerful dynamics in play in any church.

Organizational guru Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In other words, regardless of your stated strategy, the culture will make it work (or not work).

A church can write anything it wants in terms of its core values, but the culture reflects what is actually valued. That’s why culture matters so much.

Culture is more caught than taught (though it can be taught), which is why it requires many shared experiences to cultivate. A church staff meeting, therefore, is a perfect environment to intentionally cultivate a healthy culture.

Keep Everyone on the Same Page

When everyone on the team is clear about where you’re going and what you’re doing, it’s powerful. They can pull together in the same direction and have confidence that their efforts are worthwhile.

On the other hand, it’s demoralizing to a team to not really know what’s going on or what the vision is. Everyone works hard, but it’s unclear what all that work is accomplishing.

Great staff meetings help the staff stay clear on the mission and vision. They create alignment, commonality, and cohesion. The chance of success increases, as does the enjoyment of the process.

Enriches the Spiritual Health of the Team

Many people join a church staff expecting it to be a constant source of spiritual encouragement and end up surprised that working on a church staff often feels a lot like working in any kind of job — relational challenges, grunt work, necessary but unsexy processes, and always doing more than anyone fully notices.

Despite the fact that most church staff jobs are pretty ordinary, there is an extraordinary opportunity that church staff enjoy compared to most other workplaces: intentional moments of spiritual reflection and direction.

Part of why people want to work on a church staff is to be developed spiritually. When staff meetings are going well, spiritual development is part of the equation. People are being encouraged by God’s word, invited to pray, and welcomed into mid-day experiences of worship.

The Heartbeat of Your Church Staff

You could sum all this up by saying: Great church staff meetings knit the team’s hearts together.

So much of what makes ministry effective and fun is the relational, emotional, and spiritual part. It’s not getting stuff done that makes ministry a blast, but getting stuff done with people you love in ways that connect with your truest self and make an eternal difference for God.

The best ministry teams don’t just share a payroll company; they share a heartbeat. 

Great church staff meetings are an environment for the leader(s) to demonstrate and articulate a particular heart and for the rest of the team to join in. 

And when the hearts are knit together, it brings together the above three elements: a healthy culture of people pulling in the same direction and doing it from a place of connection with God.

Types of Church Staff Meetings: You Have More Options Than You Think

Having considered what great church staff meetings accomplish, we turn to the possible types of meetings to pursue those goals.

For some leaders, it never occurred to them that there could be different types of meetings. They tend to just do what they saw somebody else doing or what they’ve always done. 

Consider these options for types of meetings:

• Standing Meetings. These are short meetings (5-15 minutes) where people literally are standing up. They keep the team aligned and provide a quick opportunity for updates, running through a schedule, and answering quick questions. They don’t go long because nobody wants to stand that long.

• Devotional & Discipleship Meetings feel more like going to chapel than a business meeting. The purpose is to connect with the Lord and his purposes. In these meetings, it’s common to pray together, have your Bible open, and maybe even sing together.

• Training Meetings are devoted particularly to some area of training or teaching, whether it be an area of theology, philosophy of ministry, or practical ministry skills. They often involve handouts or slide decks.

• Big News Meetings are when there’s something important to share, whether about personnel changes or key new initiatives. 

• Tactical Team Meetings usually last around 60 minutes and focus on discussing and resolving key issues with near-term consequences. Often, a simple agenda can be prepared in advance or even determined at the front of the meeting.

• Strategic Meetings usually last a few hours and cover one main topic that is further into the future or will have a longer-term impact. These meetings often involve brainstorming, debating, healthy arguing, and working towards a decision. Unless it is specifically a meeting to brainstorm options, these meetings are usually helped by somebody writing a proposal in advance for the group to interact with.

• Debrief Meetings can happen as often as there are big events or experiences that are worth learning from (in some churches, there is a weekly debrief of the Sunday service as well). These meetings try to ask what worked well, what didn’t, what was confusing, and what was missing.

• Offsite Meetings are good to have annually or quarterly to zoom out, assess the organization’s landscape, and do long-range planning. Often, these offsite meetings can be a series of interconnected strategic meetings that work toward big-picture alignment. Doing them offsite often helps the group think differently — since getting away from the normal rhythm and environment often sparks fresh thinking.

One key to creating great staff meetings is to arrange your meetings according to the needs of that particular moment and group. Each of these meetings requires different kinds of attention, energy, creativity, and thinking. 

Too often, leaders try to jam multiple of these meetings into one longer meeting, which often leads to one long, difficult meeting where everyone’s brains feel like they are inside a pinball machine. It is better to have separate, shorter, laser-focused meetings on a particular outcome.

Additionally, the types of meetings that are needed vary depending on the type of team or staff you’re leading.

What Game Are You Playing? An Illustration for Understanding Your Staff

Because there is no one-size-fits-all approach to great staff meetings, we must consider the dynamic of the team — especially based on size and focus.

In his book Sticky Teams, Larry Osborne describes how different-sized staffs really function like playing different sports. His point is that larger churches aren’t just bigger versions of smaller churches but that they’re playing a totally different game regarding how the leaders relate, communicate, and make decisions.

There are many implications for this observation and analogy, but let’s reflect on the “games” that different-sized staffs play and how it influences your approach to staff meetings.

1. Decathlete
2. Golfing Buddies
3. Basketball Team
4. Football team

Decathlete: The church planter or solo pastor often performs alone and has to do many different events, often without much help. There’s tons of freedom, but it’s also lonely.

In this situation, the “staff” is almost all volunteer leaders. These folks are busy with work and family, and time is precious. A lousy meeting is costly and demoralizing to people with already packed schedules. 

Rather than being highly tactical, these meetings are usually vision and heart-oriented to keep these hard-working leaders connected to the bigger purpose. Most tactical work, updates, and decisions must be communicated through email, phone calls, or individual conversations.

In this stage, a pastor may benefit from having occasional special meetings that are more like the “Strategic” or “Offsite,” where leaders spend extended time trying to solve a specific set of problems.

Golfing Buddies: A small staff team is like a group of friends playing golf. Some are great, some are lousy, but it doesn’t matter — it’s just fun to do it together. Everyone watches everyone else’s shots, and it’s highly relational. It feels like colleagues and close friends.

There’s not much distinction between the “senior leadership” and the “staff” in this staff size — it’s basically the same group of people.

Small staff teams need to do the most work to distinguish between the types of meetings they’re having. Otherwise, every meeting starts to feel the same or ends up mushed into one. 

These teams would benefit from having 1-2 separate and specifically focused meetings per week rather than just one all-in-one meandering meeting.

Basketball Team: As it grows, it’s still a team — but now there’s more specialization. Now, there are starters, bench players, and a star who takes clutch shots. Everyone still watches every play. Camaraderie is high, but nobody expects to be best friends. 

The shift from Golfing Buddies to Basketball is one of the more challenging moves because it involves loss for some people. What once was everyone in the same room for everything is now some people in the room for everything and other people in the room if needed. 

In other words, there’s now a difference between “senior leadership” and the “staff.” 

At this stage, there are usually multiple smaller teams working on particular areas of ministry, each of which might do a number of the kinds of meetings outlined above. 

Because most of the creative work, decision-making, and troubleshooting is taking place in these smaller environments, the “all-staff” meeting becomes more about spiritual and relational connection, sharing vision and heartbeat, and creating bonding experiences.

In Basketball, the overall staff is still relatively small and often sees and relates to each other informally. Therefore, all-staff meetings can happen less frequently (maybe monthly or bimonthly).

Football Team: Large teams are highly specialized, with sub-teams that don’t even know what others are always doing. There’s a close-knit relationship within sub-teams, but any person may hardly even know everyone else on the larger team. Trust is required, even though relationships are thin.

At this stage, another staff layer typically emerges: “middle management.” Rather than everyone on staff reporting to one of the senior leaders, some will start reporting to other staff who then report to senior leadership.

When a staff is playing football, there are often multiple paid people in each department or ministry area, and each of these teams feel like they are doing their own version of Golfing Buddies.

At this point, the key role of “all-staff” meetings is to create connection around vision and heartbeat and fight against the natural silos that develop between teams. Staff meetings become a strategic moment to cultivate appreciation for other teams and leaders and create relational experiences for people to get to know those outside their close working relationships. 

In Football, the staff is so large and otherwise disconnected that meeting more frequently (even for shorter periods) becomes valuable.

This is where my church’s staff currently is. We now have a weekly “standing” meeting (where everyone literally stands for up to 15 minutes to find out about what’s happening over the next week on campus) followed by a 45-minute staff meeting that is focused largely on camaraderie, spiritual development, training, and culture-building.

Decide What Game Your Staff Is Playing

One of the most challenging dynamics in a growing church has to do with “what game we’re playing.” For many staff, the sweet spot is probably golf or basketball — large enough to be part of a team but small enough for it to feel close. 

But, inevitably, change is required as it grows. So wise pastors and leaders take a “for now” approach to their team and all-staff meetings, knowing that the needs will change and adapt over time.

Simple Suggestions for Better Church Staff Meetings

It’s not as hard as some people think to make meetings better. Here are ten suggestions:

1. Get the right people in the room — too many people or the wrong people wastes time.

2. Prepare (it doesn’t take much) — Just 10-15 minutes of jotting down bullet points to prep will make the meeting 80% better.

3. Make them shorter — cutting 15 minutes would improve almost every meeting.

4. Make them longer — big vision conversations, strategic overhauls, and deep relational investments should get more time.

5. Draw out thinkers — Be sure to invite input from those least likely to pipe up. You need them.

6. If it can be sent in an email, leave it out of the meeting — email updates allow follow-up if needed.

7. If somebody has to be on Zoom, everyone is on Zoom — it’s much easier to do a virtual meeting with everyone rather than one person trying to listen in to the larger room.

8. When possible, end early — there’s something psychologically satisfying about a meeting that ends a few minutes early.

9. Give margin on the front and back of meetings — that way, if it goes long or something happens that needs attention, you’re not forced to rush out abruptly.

10. Value the “wasted time” before and after — the time before & after are where camaraderie is built, jokes emerge, and one-off stuff can get dealt with.

Staff Meeting Devotions & Prayer

Once there’s a staff of about five people or more, it’s often helpful to have devotional moments as a staff. Ten ideas on how to do this well:

1. Make it short. One helpful, thoughtful idea is often better than delivering another full sermon.

2. Share from the heart. It helps staff to feel and experience the heartbeat of a leader. Don’t only share what sounds good, but what moves you personally.

3. Pray for each other. You’re doing spiritual work. So pray for each other. 

4. Use think-pair-share to facilitate discussion. This approach asks a question and then gives people a few minutes to think by themselves, then another handful of minutes to pair up with another person to talk about it, before finally widening the circle and sharing as a whole group. This helps people have more articulated thoughts and tends to help those less likely to speak up feel comfortable doing so.

1. Leverage video teaching. Sometimes people need to hear the same ideas from somebody else (every parent knows this). Don’t be afraid to watch a talk or sermon from a preacher you respect — if it’s good, it can have a very positive impact.

2. Share the moment. Devotional moments in staff are great moments to allow other staff who don’t normally teach or preach to get a “rep” having a leadership moment. 

3. Share personal testimonies. It’s amazing how people who work together on a church staff may not even know how each other came to faith. Take some time to share personal stories of conversion.

4. Share “God stories.” Talk about how God is working among you in big or small ways. A great question to unearth these stories is, “If you had to prove God is alive based on something you’ve experienced or heard recently, what would you point to?”

5. Practice gratitude. Bring a stack of blank greeting cards to the meeting with a pile of pens. Take some time to write thank you notes to people in the church who especially model the kind of ministry you hope to do more. 

6. Incorporate music. It’s wild how even somebody simply playing a guitar and singing can enhance the environment for prayer. Imagine you’re in a living room with friends, singing some simple songs of worship and seeking the Lord together.

The Church Staff Meeting “Silver Bullet”

Everyone is always on the hunt for some “silver bullet” for handling staff structures and meetings. 

Spoiler alert: There isn’t one.

There’s not one right way to do this, and as soon as you find it, something will probably change and you’ll have to adjust again. So, take the tools and ideas from this article and adapt them. Play around. Try stuff. Take an approach for a while and then tweak and adjust.

The key is that you intentionally and thoughtfully build into your staff team. Ministry is fun. But it’s way more fun when you can do it together with a group of motivated, aligned leaders who are all heading in the same direction.

If you have specific questions that aren’t covered in this guide, send me an email. I’d be happy to interact with you about them.

I also offer coaching for pastors who need help. If you’d like a free introductory call to discuss your situation, you can schedule one here.

I’m rooting for you!

P.S. While there are similarities between a church staff and an elder board, there are often some meaningful differences as well. Check out this guide to having more effective elder meetings.

The post How to Have Great Church Staff Meetings appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.

The answers were honest, sometimes painfully so. One pastor admitted to spending 20-30 hours per sermon and finishing the night before. Another described a cycle of “writing and editing all the way up until Sunday morning.” Several mentioned that application, illustrations, and conclusions always get squeezed. And the obstacles? “Daily crises.” “Admin fires.” “Meetings that could have been emails.” “Distractions, distractions, distractions.”

If any of that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And you’re not broken.

Most pastors we talk to don’t need a lesson on how to study the Bible or craft a sermon. They know what to do. The problem is they can’t do it efficiently enough. The week fills up, the margins disappear, and sermon prep gets pushed into whatever nooks and crannies are left. The result is a process that feels like a grind instead of a rhythm.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t need a complete overhaul of your sermon preparation process. What you need is a series of pre-decisions about your schedule, your process, your deadlines, and your tools that compound into a rhythm you can actually sustain. One that protects your time, serves your people, and maybe even becomes something you enjoy again.

Here’s one approach: build that rhythm from a series of small, strategic decisions.

What Inefficient Sermon Prep Actually Costs You

Before we talk about solutions, it’s worth naming what’s really at stake. Because the cost of an inefficient sermon prep process goes far beyond wasted hours.

When Your Sermons Pay the Price

If your prep time is constantly being squeezed, your sermons will feel it. They’ll be more general than specific, more scrambled than focused. You’ll lean on what’s familiar rather than what the text actually demands. Your people might not be able to name what’s missing, but they’ll sense it. The depth just won’t be there.

But here’s what pastors often miss: if you let sermon prep consume the entire week to compensate, the cost shifts somewhere else. Your staff and leaders start to feel uncared for. You lose touch with your people because you’re always at your desk. Your sermons might actually get polished, but they start to sound like they could be preached anywhere. They lose the contextual, pastoral texture that comes from knowing your congregation’s actual lives.

The Cost No One Talks About

And then there’s the cost nobody wants to talk about. When prep bleeds into the weekend, your family pays. Your Sabbath disappears. Your health erodes. In our survey, multiple pastors described finishing on Saturday night or Sunday morning. One pastor put it this way: “My biggest need is to free up Saturday. I want it to be a Sabbath and also a time for family.”

There’s also a law of diminishing returns at work. An eight-hour sermon prep getting doubled to sixteen hours doesn’t produce a sermon that’s twice as good. At some point, you’ve read the commentaries you’re going to read, thought the things you’re going to think, and it’s time to ship it. As the saying goes, a sermon is never finished, it’s only launched. The question is whether you can get it good enough to launch without everything else in your life paying the price.

This matters for your longevity. The pastor who grinds through sermon prep year after year without finding a sustainable rhythm is the pastor most at risk for burnout. And we’ve seen too many good pastors leave ministry not because they lost their calling but because they lost their margin.

Build a Sermon Prep System (You Already Have One)

Here’s the thing most pastors don’t realize: you already have a sermon prep system. It’s whatever you normally do. That’s the system.

Pastor and author Nelson Searcy has offered a helpful way to think about this. He says a system is something that Saves You Stress, Time, Energy, and Money. That’s a useful filter. If your current process isn’t doing those things, it’s not that you need to try harder. It’s that the approach needs to change.

There’s a classic line that goes, “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you’re currently getting.” If you’re constantly feeling behind, if prep is always bleeding into the weekend, if your last point always gets squeezed, that’s not a discipline problem. That’s a process problem.

Map Your Actual Process

So here’s a practical starting point. Pretend you’re an archaeologist studying your own life. Sit down and try to write out what you actually do each week to prepare a sermon. What’s your real routine? Not the ideal one. The actual one.

If that’s hard to articulate, that itself is a sign. The pastors who get this done efficiently can tell you exactly how they do it. They know where they start, what questions they ask of the text, what resources they consult, what tools they use, and when they know they’re done with each phase. That clarity is the efficiency.

One survey respondent described a process so clear it practically ran itself: study on Monday, outline on Tuesday, writing on Wednesday and Thursday, done by Thursday at 3pm, rehearse on Saturday. Another described a routine with no real structure, spending 20-30 hours across a week, “carefully crafting each sentence” with no clear milestones. The difference in hours and stress was striking.

Pre-Decide Your Environment

Part of building a reliable process is eliminating small decisions that drain your energy before you even open a commentary. Pre-decide where you do your study work, what music you play (or don’t), and what tools you have open when you sit down. These feel like trivial choices, but when you make them fresh every day, they create friction. When they’re already decided, you sit down and go.

You don’t have to copy anyone else’s approach. But you do need to have one. And here’s the good news: you have permission to build it, try it, and modify it. It’ll be a little clunky at first. You’ll mirror things you’ve heard from other preachers and then adjust. That’s the process. Start somewhere, name what you’re doing, and refine it over time.

A great time to zoom out on your sermon prep schedule is during a personal retreat day. Every few months, get away to work on your ministry, not just in it. Spend a couple of hours evaluating your current approach. What’s working? What’s not? What’s one thing you could change for the next season?

Once you can name your process, the next challenge is protecting the time to actually follow it.

Protect Your Sermon Prep Time Like an Appointment

In our conversations with pastors, the number one issue behind inefficient sermon preparation isn’t a lack of skill or knowledge. It’s schedule. Specifically, it’s a schedule that’s gotten too flexible, too reactive, and too focused on whatever feels urgent in the moment.

Your Sermon Prep Is Important Before It Feels Urgent

There’s a concept called the Eisenhower Matrix that’s worth considering here. It sorts tasks into four categories based on urgency and importance. The category most easily neglected is the one that’s important but not urgent, and that’s exactly where sermon prep lives at the beginning of your week. By Thursday or Friday, it’s become both urgent and important. But on Monday? It’s easy to push aside for the meeting that just got requested or the phone call that seems like it can’t wait.

The solution is deceptively simple: make an appointment on your calendar that says sermon prep. Block the time. When someone asks to meet during that window, you say, “I’m sorry, I already have an appointment.” Nobody is going to ask you what the appointment is. But you know what it is. It’s you, your Bible, and the work God has called you to do this week.

This kind of creative, deep study work needs real blocks of time. Ninety minutes to two hours, at minimum. When you’re trying to do sermon prep in the nooks and crannies between back-to-back meetings, it never gets the depth of focus it requires. You might get some reading done, but the real creative and exegetical work needs sustained attention.

What Real Pastors Say Gets in the Way

And here’s a pastoral reality worth naming: just because something feels urgent to someone else doesn’t mean it’s actually urgent. Or that right now is the only time it can be handled. One practice that’s been helpful for many pastors is simply saying, “I’m not available right now, but I could meet tomorrow at 2pm.” More often than not, the “emergency” either resolves itself or waits just fine.

Our survey confirmed this pattern. The top obstacles pastors listed weren’t theological complexity or lack of training. They were “daily crises,” “admin fires,” “accessibility by staff,” and “lack of discipline in time management.” One lead pastor put it bluntly: “I’m the only person on staff, so I get bombarded with all sorts of different things.” For that pastor, protecting two or three solid blocks of sermon prep time each week would change everything.

As Paul wrote to the early church leaders, the apostles recognized they needed to devote themselves “to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). That wasn’t a luxury. It was a priority they had to protect, even in the midst of legitimate needs pulling at them from every direction.

Set Deadlines That Actually Move You Forward

Here’s something worth naming: Parkinson’s Law. The idea is simple. Work expands or contracts to fill the amount of time you give it. It’s why you get an extraordinary amount done the day before vacation. And it’s why a sermon prep process with no internal deadlines will always feel like it takes the entire week.

If your only deadline is “Sunday morning,” everything before that is elastic. Study can stretch, outlining can stall, and writing gets pushed to the margins. The solution is to create multiple deadlines within your process.

Think about breaking your prep into three milestones. First, a deadline for when study and exegesis should be complete. You’ve read the passage, consulted your commentaries, done your word studies, and wrestled with the interpretive questions. Second, a deadline for when the sermon structure is set. You have a big idea, your main points, and the basic framework. Third, a deadline for when the sermon is finished. You could go preach it right now.

Those three milestones don’t need to be elaborate. They just need to be on your calendar with a time attached to them. Having them keeps you from getting stuck in one phase and rushing through another.

Watch for the First-Point Bloat

There’s a pattern that shows up in preaching that also shows up in prep. In a sermon, it’s easy to spend twelve minutes on your first point and then rush through the last point in three and a half minutes, even though the last point is usually the most impactful. In the same way, pastors often get so deep into the study phase that they run out of time for the creative, applicational, and delivery work. Deadlines at each phase prevent this.

Our survey confirmed it. Multiple pastors described their last point or conclusion as the part that “always gets squeezed.” One wrote, “I usually spend too much time writing and working on the first half, and then blitz through the last part.” That’s not a writing problem. That’s a deadline problem.

The Thursday Rule

What makes these deadlines even more effective is when someone else is counting on you. One approach that’s worked well: by the end of Thursday, have everything you need for Sunday sent to whoever handles your slides, graphics, or service planning. Now you have a deadline with teeth. It’s not just your own discipline holding you accountable. Someone else needs your work by a specific time.

We call this the Thursday rule. Practically, it means trying to have your sermon finished when you leave the office on Thursday. Not perfect, but done. There are always tweaks you could make, but you don’t have to make them. The sermon is launched.

Make Part of Your Process Communal

This might sound counterintuitive, but one of the most efficient things you can do in your sermon prep is involve other people.

For many pastors, an hour of communal input saves multiple hours of solo work. Not for everyone. But for a lot of preachers, having someone else in the room while you’re thinking out loud is the thing that unlocks a direction you wouldn’t have found on your own.

Sometimes it’s not even a formal meeting. Sometimes it’s calling a fellow pastor and saying, “Hey, I’m stuck on this. Let me tell you where I’m headed.” The act of explaining your idea out loud, taking it off the screen and putting it into words, often triggers a new thought. You hear yourself say something and realize, “Oh, that’s actually the point I’m trying to make.”

If you’re a solo pastor, this might look like a monthly call with another pastor in town, or a small group of pastors who share their prep direction early in the week. The format matters less than the principle: don’t do all of this alone when involving others can actually make you more efficient and your sermons better.

If you have a staff, the communal approach can scale into something more structured. Consider a mid-week meeting where you share the direction of your sermon. Not the finished product. Just the direction. “Here’s the big idea I’m working with. Here are the points I’m thinking about.” And then you talk it through.

What happens in that hour is something solo study often can’t produce. Other people bring application ideas you’d never think of because they live different lives than you do. They surface illustrations from their own experience. They ask the question your congregation is actually asking, which might be different from the question you’ve been answering in your study. It wraps skin around the skeleton of your ideas. If your church already has a rhythm for staff meetings, this can fit naturally into that existing structure.

Proverbs 27:17 captures this well: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” That sharpening isn’t limited to personal discipleship. It applies to the work of preparing to open God’s word for his people. The communal process isn’t a shortcut. It’s a different kind of depth.

Build a Retention System That Compounds Over Time

Every sermon you’ve ever preached represents hours of study, thought, prayer, and preparation. But here’s the question: can you find any of it?

If you were asked to preach on a passage you covered two years ago, would you be able to pull up your notes, your study, and your sermon? Or would you essentially start from scratch?

A retention system is what turns your past work into an investment that keeps growing. Consider this scenario: you’re invited to preach at another church, and they give you a passage from Matthew 6. If you’ve preached Matthew 6 before and you have a way to find those resources, you can pull up the notes you took when you studied it the first time. You can find the sermon outline you used. You’re not going to just reheat that sermon, but you’re certainly not starting from zero, either. That savings in time and energy is significant.

Capture Your Illustrations

The same principle applies to illustrations. Every time you see a good illustration, a compelling story, or a useful analogy, you need one place to capture it. It might be Notion, Evernote, a Google Doc, or a physical notebook. The tool doesn’t matter nearly as much as the consistency. When you have an illustration file, finding the right story is as simple as searching for a keyword. Without one, you’re constantly thinking, “I know I had something for this,” and spending twenty minutes trying to remember where you saw it.

One thing that makes a retention approach actually work is a consistent naming convention. This is one of those small decisions that pays massive dividends over time. When everything is named the same way, retrieval becomes intuitive. When your naming is inconsistent, even a great digital tool becomes a junk drawer.

Let Your Tools Do the Setup

If your Bible software allows it, saving different screen layouts for different parts of your process can eliminate real friction. For example, in Logos you can set up one layout for the study phase with your commentaries and interlinear tools open, another for the outlining phase, and another for writing. Instead of spending ten minutes setting up your workspace each time you sit down, you just click and go. It’s a pre-made decision that saves you time every single week.

Another tool that helps with efficiency is planning your preaching calendar further out. When you know what passages or topics are coming in two or three months, you naturally start collecting resources and ideas. That head start compounds over time, turning your everyday reading and conversations into sermon prep without any additional effort.

The principle underneath all of this is stewardship. The work you’ve already done is a resource worth investing in. As Paul wrote, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). That includes building the habits and tools that let your past preparation keep serving your congregation for years to come.

From Grind to Rhythm: Sermon Prep for the Long Haul

Efficient sermon prep isn’t about finding one magic hack. It’s about building an ecosystem of decisions that work together. Protect your time. Build a process you can name. Set deadlines that keep you moving. Involve others in the work. Retain what you’ve learned so it compounds.

Each of these on its own makes a difference. Together, they change the entire experience of weekly sermon preparation.

And here’s what we want you to hear: if you’re going to do this for the long haul, sermon prep need not be a grind. It can be a rhythm. A sustainable, life-giving rhythm where you sit down to study God’s word, prepare to open it for his people, and actually enjoy the process. There isn’t one right way to get there, but there is a way that works for you. Finding it is worth the effort.

You don’t need to change everything at once. Pick one thing from this article. Maybe it’s blocking your calendar for two uninterrupted blocks this week. Maybe it’s writing down your current process so you can actually see it. Maybe it’s setting a Thursday deadline and telling your worship leader to expect your sermon notes by end of day.

Start there. A few small tweaks in the right places can go a long way toward making you the preacher God made you to be for years to come.

If you’re looking for more structured help with your sermon prep process, the Preaching Lab is where we coach pastors through exactly these kinds of improvements. And if you want a comprehensive guide to the foundations of sermon preparation, check out our article on how to prepare a sermon.

The post How to Make Your Sermon Prep More Efficient (Without Cutting Corners) appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.

No matter what your favorite part of the sermon prep process is, if there is a portion that feels like a grind, it’s going to be really tough to preach regularly. You don’t have to love every part, but it sure does help if you have a sermon prep process that you enjoy — even if there is a part of the process that isn’t your favorite.

If you’re anything like me, any time a preacher talks about his process, I am hooked. I’m in the 27% of preachers who love everything about the preaching process, from reading, to research, to outlining, preparation, and then preaching. Getting to learn what other guys are doing is especially exciting because I find the whole process enjoyable. 

It’s intriguing to hear what others are doing because, on one hand, there is a lot that makes sense, and I want to give what they’re doing a try, and then, on the other hand, there are things I hear and think, “Holy smokes, I’d never do it that way in a million years,” yet, it works for them. 

How do you prepare a sermon? What’s the art of preparing a sermon? What’s the science of preparing a sermon? 

The truth is, there isn’t a right way to prepare a sermon, but in this article, I am going to share with you “my way” to prepare a sermon. And it’s just “one way” you can do it. 

Whether you are preparing a sermon for the first time or you have preached hundreds of times. You are just looking for ways to improve or evolve your process; I am going to share with you what has worked for me. I encourage you to steal anything that sounds intriguing and consider anything that sounds less intriguing and how you might adapt it to your own process. 

The process of how to prepare a sermon will vary from person to person but the core elements in every process will largely be the same.

• Sermon series planning
• Reading
• Researching
• Study
• Prayer
• Outlining
• Illustration
• Argumentation
• Application
• Delivery
• Follow-up

My work week in and week out is very “head” intensive, and in my off hours, I enjoy doing things with my hands. That being the case, I’ve taken an interest in cooking, and over time, I’ve seen my sermon prep process overlap much of the cooking process. I will often relate much of the sermon prep process to cooking because I find the metaphor to be incredibly helpful. 

That said, before you get to cooking, you need to decide what to cook and consider all of the different options. This is where I begin my sermon prep process, months out from actually preaching the sermon.

Assumptions, Beliefs, and Convictions About Preaching

Every preacher needs to develop, articulate, and write down their assumptions, beliefs, and convictions about preaching.  

I have my preaching ABCs, and I do not believe every preacher needs to adopt my preaching ABCs. But they should go through the practice of identifying their own and then preach out of those ABCs.

Learn more about the ABCs of Preaching here.

Part of identifying your voice as a preacher, your rhythms as a preacher, and your unique wiring is through the development of your personal ABCs. 

I have developed my ABCs, and while I won’t go too in-depth here in this article, I do want you to be aware of where I am coming from as I share my sermon preparation process with you.

1. Preaching is an essential tool for making disciples.
2. Preaching is the most significant tool for leading a local congregation.
3. Preaching is one of the main ways God disciples the preacher.
4. Most life change happens in the moment.
5. But a lot of change happens over the long haul, too.
6. People remember what the preacher emphasizes and gets excited about.
7. People want to be challenged, which is both good and bad.
8. Gospel preaching is more like news than advice.
9. Preaching improves with reps and feedback.
10. Most preaching is underwhelming.

Study. Practice. Teach.

One passage that has really shaped and formed my approach to preaching and teaching comes from Ezra.

“10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” — Ezra 7:10

The order is significant.

Study. Practice. Teach.

The temptation is to study and then teach. Study, then teach. Study, then teach. It becomes easy to skip the practice.

One of the things I always want to have as a part of my preparation process is not just, “Why do people resist this truth,” but to examine, “Why do I resist this truth? What is God trying to do in me?” Because many preachers preach weekly, we don’t always get to become the ‘after photo’ weekly because Sunday comes quickly. 

But to continually realize that I am to be coming up under this word, be convicted by it, and to be preaching from a place of sharing what I’ve seen and experienced as the word has been soaking into my heart and coming out of my life.

Creating A Preaching Calendar 6-18 Months in Advance

Your ability to effectively preach a sermon will be significantly influenced by the amount of time you have to prepare for that sermon. The preaching calendar is really the first step in the sermon prep process. You have to figure out what you’re going to preach on. 

It is possible to decide what you’re going to preach 18 months in advance or 18 hours in advance — I believe there are a lot of benefits and good reasons why it’s worth planning closer to the 18-month mark. 

And it’s not just figuring out what you’re going to preach, but it’s also deciding when you’re going to preach it. Establishing a preaching calendar sets in motion the sermon preparation process and opens the door to a lot of great opportunities for study, comprehension, research, and delivery that just wouldn’t exist in a shorter time frame.

This article is about the sermon preparation process, so I am not going to go super in-depth on what goes into my preaching calendar, but I will share a few details that will help you understand my context and provide some insight into why I do things the way I do them.

Insights for a Preaching Calendar

First and foremost, our sermon calendar is organized by sermon series. Our series will vary in length. Some as short as 3 weeks and some as long as 40 weeks. The general framework I follow in regards to scheduling out sermon series is similar to this:

Old Testament Series

Gospels Series

New Testament Letters Series

Topical Series

It doesn’t necessarily have to go in that order, but I like to be in a flow that resembles the above. When looking at the Old Testament, New Testament Letters, and the Gospel, I don’t think of this as having to preach through an entire book, but rather, it could be an entire book or just a portion of the book.

Here are a few series I’ve done in recent years and how I have broken them down:

Isaiah — 3 Weeks Old Testament, “Big Problems Bigger God”

• Week 1, Isaiah 40:1-8 — The Glory of God
• Week 2, Isaiah 40:9-26 — Behold Your God
• Week 3, Isaiah 40:27-31 — He Does Not Grow Weary

Colossians — 10 Weeks New Testament Letter

• Week 1, Colossians 1:1-14 — How to Pursue a Life That Pleases God
• Week 2, Colossians 1:15-23 — Why Jesus is Worth Everything
• Week 3, Colossians 1:24-2:5 — Do The Work
• Week 4, Colossians 2:6-23 — Vegan Clothes & Forgiven Loans
• Week 5, Colossians 3:1-4 — How to Be True to Your True Self
• Week 6, Colossians 3:5-17 — Spiritual Autoimmune Disorder
• Week 7, Colossians 3:18-19 — The Music of Marriage
• Week 8, Colossians 3:20-21 — The Power of Parenting
• Week 9, Colossians 3:22-4:1 — Reworking Work
• Week 10, Colossians 4:2-18 — How The World Gets Changed

Luke — 3 Weeks Gospel Series, “Rich Towards God”

• Week 1, Luke 12:13-21 — Don’t Be a Financial Fool
• Week 2, Luke 12:22-34 — How to Stop Stressing About Money
• Week 3, Luke 12:35-48 — Managers Not Masters

Love — 7 Weeks Topical Series, “Lies About Love”

• Week 1, Proverbs 3:5-8 — Should You Follow Your Heart?
• Week 2, Ephesians 5:21-33 — Is Marriage a Fifty/Fifty Relationship?
• Week 3, 1 Corinthians 6 — Is Sex Just Physical?
• Week 4, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 — I’m Better Off Alone
• Week 5, 1 Corinthians 6 — The Truth About Singleness
• Week 6, Colossians 3:12-14 — 5 Exercises to Heal Relationships
• Week 7, James 3:2-12 — Words Will Never Hurt Me

You can see all of our sermon series, the order in which we’ve done them, and how I’ve broken down each one here.

Having this regular rhythm is a nice way to provide a complete diet of God’s Word. Not leaning too heavily on one collection of works and also not neglecting another collection.

If I spend the majority of my year in the Gospel of John, the following year, I probably won’t do another Gospel series. Likewise, if we spent much of the year in an Old Testament Book, I will look at doing a New Testament letter and maybe a topical or Gospel series the following year.

Once I’ve evaluated what we’ve done, I will start having conversations with our other pastors and key leaders in the church, not about what we should preach on, but rather for them to get me a temperature check on what’s happening in their lives and their ministries. Their answers will probably have some impact on what the sermon calendar looks like, but I’m not relying on their answers to help dictate direction.

It’s just another input to consider. 

There are also some things we are preparing for as a church, such as a capital campaign or moving into a new building. In the fall of 2023, I announced that the multi-congregational network of churches we had been a part of was separating into distinct congregations, and as a result, we were changing our church name. I organized the sermon calendar in such a way as to support this change. 

These kinds of major shake-ups, which impact everyone or almost everyone, are another consideration for my preaching calendar, and as a result, how I prepare for those sermons in advance.

Other inputs I’ll consider are other series I’ve learned about from other churches, non-fiction books that do a good job of capturing key ideas that are relevant or timeless, and even looking at our past sermon series that are more than 7 years old and considering whether or not to redo them. 

A good example of this is a series I have done twice called The 4Gs, based on Tim Chester’s book, You Can Change. I did an entire episode of Preaching Through Podcast sharing this sermon series, and my co-host, Dave Shrein, was not a part of our church either of the times when we did this series, so it was new to him. In the days and weeks following that episode, he sent me several text messages explaining how the 4Gs were shaping his life. I thought, “You know, this would be a great series to preach again. We’ve had so many new people at our church who have never heard this,” and so in 2024, we preached through the series again.

Have A Plan, Rely on the Spirit

One argument against a preaching calendar is that it doesn’t provide room for the Holy Spirit to work. I think that’s a ridiculous phrase. Think about it…

“Allow the Holy Spirit to work.”

As if God is saying, “Well, gosh, I sure would love to do something but there just doesn’t seem to be any room to move.” 

I appreciate the sentiment that we want to be open to the prompting and movement of the Holy Spirit, and I agree with that, but God can move in the moment, and the Spirit can also move and prompt 18 months in advance. 

If you’ve never seen this image from Chris Harrison, it’s an incredible depiction of cross-references in the Bible.

Credit: Chris Harrison, Bible Cross References

Scripture is littered with cross-references where God, generations in advance, prepared the way for his work that wouldn’t take place until thousands of years later. If you want to challenge God’s ability to move and prompt, using scripture as a reference, God doesn’t even break a sweat at 18-months… or ever.

Have a plan for where you want to take your preaching in the coming months and years. Rely on the Spirit to lead and guide you every step of the way.

When You Plan In Advance You Have Options

Having our preaching calendar established so far in the future gives me options in my study, research, reading, and discussions. With so much time available, I can go incredibly deep in my preparation for sermons or series that will be more challenging, or I may not be as familiar with. If I’m deciding the week of, or three or four weeks in advance what I’ll be preaching on, those options become much more limited.

In the fall of 2023, I taught 6 out of 11 weeks of our Revelation series. That’s a series that you can do several different ways. The advanced planning allowed me time to get strategic about how we would approach the series in terms of attitude and structure and also plenty of time to study portions I had never taught. 

Every moment between adding Revelation to the preaching calendar and actually preaching allows me the chance to catalog anything I encounter that might be relevant to the series. Book titles, podcasts, other pastor series, discussions, illustrations: I can begin digging the well in advance of needing to access that well. 

Without that lead time, your hands become tied, and your options become few. 

Examining How Others Have Taught A Series

Because there are so many different ways you can approach a series in terms of focus and number of weeks, if I am having a tough time narrowing in on what I want for our church, I will take time to examine how other churches may have done a series or how they might have organized it. 

I’m not trying to copy what someone else has done, I am more or less trying to see what options others have gone with and how might those options influence what I decide. If a church did Revelation in 20 weeks, I could look at how that was structured and use that to help determine how in-depth I want to go for our series. 

If we’re doing a series based on a non-fiction book (for instance, Truth We Can Touch by Tim Chester), how did Chester break down the chapters in his book, and how might we be able to hand-pick certain sections and either expand or condense them.

There are no rules for how you may decide to structure a series, and because I’m planning so far in advance, there is time to weigh the different options and choose the best option for our context.

Sources for Advanced Sermon Preparation 

Have you noticed when you’re in the market to purchase a new car, you begin noticing with greater frequency that make and model of car on the street? Everyone seems to be driving that car. 

Or when your family is expecting a child and you now notice more pregnancy or newborn related messaging?

This phenomenon is known as frequency illusion, or the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, and explains our natural cognitive bias. Just as it’s true for the above examples, it can also be true for the series we plan to preach. 

Knowing the upcoming preaching content puts the topics and themes on my radar and I am now more keen to spot sources that can help me in my advanced sermon preparation. 

I am always gathering materials, however, a couple months before a series, I am going to try and do intensive work in a relatively short period of time. Depending on the content, my familiarity with the content, or what my schedule will allow, I will dedicate an entire day or maybe a couple of days over a couple of weeks to do one or more of the following related to the book or theme I’ll be preaching on: 

• Take a seminary class. 
• Read several related books.
• Enroll in an online course. 
• Listen to lectures or other sermons.

This is not the week of preparation, but rather, preparation that helps you to develop a lens through which you can look at the entire sermon series. There are so many great resources that I want to access, and I will get to as many of them as I can during this window for advanced sermon preparation. 

I will use the months before preaching a particular series or sermon to take in training to help get my mind and headspace in a good place to begin preaching the particular book or topic.

What I Am Not Reading In Advance

The time is going to come for me to read commentaries and dig down deep into the weeks of a particular text, but at this point in the process I want the big picture, the larger themes, the main ideas. I want to zoom out and develop a lens to read this book. 

Materials that help me get the lay of the land are what I find most helpful at this point in the process.

Recommended Study Resources

You most likely have your favorite go-to study resources. If you’re looking for additional sermon preparation and study resources, here are a few that I have used and would recommend.

IV Press New Studies in Biblical Theology

These are a little more on the academic side of materials but what I love is many of them have a thematic big picture approach to understanding a topic or a book. Sometimes when you get lost in the trees of the passage, framing it up a few months in advance with the big picture, insights into the most important themes, and here are the things that continue to surface, I find it very helpful.

Learn More

The Bible Project Classroom

You may be familiar with YouTube videos produced by The Bible Project. In recent years, the same organization released Classroom, which offers free, seminary-level courses on various topics and books.

Learn More

The Gospel Coalition Courses

TCG has a large collection of free materials on books of the Bible, practical theology, doctrine, and many other topics made up from different resources and sources. In many cases, they have curated free materials from around the web and ordered them in such a way to create a cohesive, systematic learning curriculum.

Learn More

N.T. Wright Online

It’s not free, but for $50-60 you can get any of his online courses and go through it at your own pace. I really appreciate both his Old Testament and New Testament materials, though he is mostly known for his New Testament resources.

Learn More

Ministry Pass

The team at Ministry Pass has created large collections of example sermon series that offer suggested sermon series titles, series angles, breakdowns, and week-by-week research materials. This can be helpful, not only in the process of deciding how to break down a series (Ministry Pass may have 5 different ways of preaching through the book of Colossians) but also insights you could consider for each message within that series.

Learn More

Sermon Prep Two Weeks Before Preaching

A lot of what I do two weeks before preaching the sermon is based upon the systems we’ve developed as a church and teaching team. Much of my process has created habits that I believe I would continue to do even if I were the lone preacher. 

About two weeks out I am beginning to touch the specific text. Whatever I am going to be preaching on I want to review the text. I want to read it a couple times. I want to read it in a couple of different translations. I want to get familiar with this.

This is not, “Oh wow, this is the first time I’ve ever read this,” but rather, this is a more intentional reading. I’ve been thinking about this text, to some extent, over the last several months, but now it’s looking at the specific passage with the specific intent of preaching it.

During this part of the process I would begin jotting down observations, asking questions, make some notes based upon those observations. I will mark up my digital Bible on the iPad and mark up where I see repeating words or themes.

I will try to do all of this on the Monday or Tuesday, two weeks before I preach the text. This is approximately 12 days before preaching the text. 

During this two-week out period I begin to have a strong sense of where the sermon is headed based upon the specific text I’m preaching. 

How Long Do You Spend on Sermon Prep

I do not have a bible verse that commands how long you should spend on sermon preparation. When I consider how long to spend on prep, I am specifically talking about my ‘week-of’ preparation which I will begin sharing below.

If I am very familiar with the verse or passage I’m speaking on, it might be less. If I am not as familiar with the text or if it’s a particularly tough text, it might be more. 

Rarely, though, will my prep move beyond 12-14 hours or be fewer than 5-6. I just don’t think you can regularly do a good job, no matter your familiarity with the text, with less than six hours, and likewise, I don’t think your sermon will get much better beyond the ten hour mark. 

In addition, preaching is only one aspect of my responsibilities as the Lead Pastor. I am also called to be a shepherd, and it’s not possible for me to be a good steward of that calling if I spend 20 or 30 hours a week on sermon preparation. I don’t believe that spending 16 instead of 8 hours on my sermon will make it twice as good.

Years ago, I was a part of a panel with several other preachers, and this question was brought up. 

The first panelist said 22 hours. The second said 30 hours. The next said 25 hours. 

I said, “About eight.”

Pastors have people to care for, a church to lead, and leaders to develop. 

Just because you spend twice as much time on a sermon doesn’t make it twice as good.

Week-of Sermon Preparation

The bulk of the work on my sermon is done the week-of.

Going back to the original illustration of cooking a meal, this is where things get real practical in that process.

*MONDAY

No matter if I preached on Sunday or not, rarely am I ever doing anything with the sermon on the Monday, week-of. 

*TUESDAY

Tuesday morning is a big chunk of study time. In the cooking process, I look at this as gathering the ingredients. I’ve already touched the text, and made some observations. I have probably had some conversations with others, and I’ll revisit my notes. I will study a bit more in-depth, such as inductive bible study. 

After the above, I will start going through the commentaries, and as I read it, I will highlight, cut, and paste into an Evernote folder anything that I find interesting. 

I am gathering ingredients. 

Depending on the passage and commentary, there may be 20 bullet points of things I’ve copied. I’ll move on to the next commentary and do the same thing… and then go to the next commentary and do the same thing.

Usually at the end of this process I look at all the ingredients I have and begin to identify “the best” ingredients. I will identify the things that I think just have to be included from my own personal study and from the commentators I’ve read.

Going back through all my notes, I will highlight the best ingredients in yellow as a way of saying, “Whatever you do, this has to make it into the message.”

By end of late morning Tuesday, I have all the “stuff” that could make it into the message. 

I have the flower.

I have the eggs.

I’ve got the salt.

I’ve got the protein.

It’s still not clear exactly what I’m making, but I have all the ingredients I’ll need to make something.

*WEDNESDAY

Generally speaking, I will not do individual sermon preparation on Wednesday. 

Instead, our church does what we have labeled a Sermon Insights Meeting. This gathering is me, our teaching pastor, a few additional people who speak regularly at our church, and some of our additional staff, including our care pastor, counseling director, and student & kids ministry staff. There may be 8 to 10 people in each meeting. 

During this meeting, whoever is preaching the upcoming week will share where the message is going and then open up the floor to hear what others have to say about the topic. This type of meeting gives whoever is speaking an opportunity to listen to how God’s Word might land on one person differently than another, simply based on their own experiences. 

This is a great way to ensure that the message is not just relevant to you, the preacher, and not just relevant to the people closest in your life, but a chance to hear how God has moved in the lives of people different from your immediate circle or similar stage of life. 

We’re not co-writing the sermon together.

Some of what’s shared may be used. 

Most of what’s shared won’t be used, but may still be helpful.

Not only does this process serve the preacher, but it also serves the attendees because they begin to realize just how difficult preaching is. As the discussion evolves, it will become clear that one passage might land seven different ways for seven different people, and the pastor has to try and speak to all of them.

Even if you’re not in an environment like mine, where I have a larger church staff, figure out a way to form this. Identify people in your church who would be strong contributors to this type of meeting whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or even sporadic. 

The people you invite will feel deeply honored that they get to study the Bible with you as a part of the sermon process. Inevitably there will be something they say that will make its way into a sermon, and they’ll beam because they actually got to contribute. 

*THURSDAY

On Thursday morning, I am either finishing up gathering the ingredients, or I have already gathered them, and I am revisiting. At this point, it moves from gathering ingredients to discerning what to make. 

There are incredible truths. The meaning of the text is clear. But what is the framework? How am I going to approach this particular text? What’s the hook? What’s the angle? What is the thing that holds this particular message together?

This is the art of sermon preparation.

This part is what makes the difference between getting up and saying true things versus preaching Good news. 

Sometimes this comes really quickly. Other times, the cursor just taunts me. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Throughout the entire process, I’m praying, but during this portion, I’m praying, “Okay, Lord, what is this? Where does this want to go? Is this one point? Is it seven points? Is it three points?”

This, to me, is the hardest part of the preparation. I like the entire process, but this one part is the most challenging part of the process. 

My guess is if you’ve been preaching for any number of years, you understand what this part of the process feels like and the frustration when it doesn’t come and the almost unexplainable sensation when it does come.

Framing the Outline of the Sermon

By the time you’ve gathered ingredients, you could say, “Here are four important things from Isaiah 40.”

1. God wants to give you comfort.
2. The Word of God lasts forever.
3. God is really big.
4. If you need help in times of trouble, turn to God.

All of this is in Isaiah 40, gloriously true, and very uninteresting. If this is the final sermon, it could feel like the preacher didn’t think very hard about how to hold the message together. 

The framing and outlining of the sermon could lead you to somewhere like:

• Comfort comes from seeing God.
• See the God who is transcendent.
• See the God who is tender.

All of the same things I would have said with the first collection of points, but there is now a pathway to follow, and the connection between the points feels cohesive. 

Rather than just saying true things, I am looking to hold the message together both logically and emotionally in an artistic way rather than strictly commentary on the text. This is an added layer of cohesiveness that will keep people interested throughout the entirety of the message.

Cooking the Message Beyond the Outline

As you can see, I don’t generally start my preparation on Thursday with an introduction. It isn’t until I’ve gathered the ingredients and decided what I will make that I am actually drafting my introduction, or cooking the message.

Introduction

When I think about an introduction,, I ask myself, “How can I get someone to care about this?” This is the biggest difference between teaching and preaching.

Teaching assumes you have listeners who want to hear what you learn. They bought the ticket. They have signed up for the course. They’ve enrolled in your class. They’re ready to listen and learn. There is already a level of buy in. There is very little convincing needed, they already care about the content.

Preaching assumes that nobody cares. 

Of course, there are people in your congregation who do care, but functionally I’m approaching the message carrying the burden of care. It’s my job to make them care and give them a reason to pay attention to the entire 30, 35, 40 minutes.

Message Points

Many will build out their individual points structurally.

• Truth
• Explanation
• Illustration
• Application

This is completely acceptable. 

I go through my points more intuitively. I am producing a more detailed outline than a point-by-point structure. My sermon notes end up being 2-3 pages of bullet points. 

I do not manuscript my messages. When I began preaching, I was forced to manuscript my messages, and I think that’s a good way to learn to preach because you have to think through how you are going to say each thing. But once I started preaching every week, manuscripting buried me. I did not have time to write everything out word for word. I was still a good shepherd in all the other areas of ministry that needed my attention. 

Seasoning the Message

Once it’s clear what I’m making and I’ve started cooking, then I begin seasoning. 

If you’ve ever eaten at a restaurant where they brought you a dish that looked incredible, but when you started eating, you found yourself thinking, “There just isn’t any flavor here,” you’ve experienced an underseasoned meal. 

The same is true with under seasoning a message. The truth you’re communicating is incredible but there is just no flavor to engage with. There’s nothing to capture you and make you want more of it. It’s fine. You ate. But there wasn’t anything transformative about the experience.

Seasoning is adding illustrations, stories, and inspiration.

As hard as I work to add effective pictures to my message to ensure it isn’t underseasoned, I am also aware that just as you can overseason a dish, you can overseason a message with illustration. It’s very easy for an illustration to wind up overtaking a message and becoming the main thing, rather than the truth you’re trying to convey.

People remember the incredible story you tell, but can’t remember why it mattered or what it pointed to.

Good seasoning hooks people, it reminds you of what you’re trying to see in the text, and it serves as a nice commercial break within the message. You start telling a story, and everyone looks up. You say, “I want to share with you a picture,” and everyone is immediately re-engaged.

Practice & Rehearse

There was a season on Thursdays after I finished cooking & seasoning the message, I would go into the auditorium and preach the message to an empty room.

Why do this?

It is better to practice to an empty room than to practice on people. 

If you are newer to preaching or are still actively trying to develop your rhythm (especially in a one-service environment), I strongly encourage you to adopt a practice & rehearsal discipline to help you improve your message before you preach it on Sunday.

Full disclosure, as of this writing, I don’t regularly do this due to the experience I’ve gained over the years I’ve been preaching. I have enough repetitions and enough understanding of the process that only if something feels clunky to me will I go through this practice.

*FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

I don’t touch my message unless something pops into my head on Friday or Saturday.

If something does pop into my head, I have my messages written on Google Docs so I can easily open my message and make an addition or adjustment wherever I am, but for the most part, I don’t open the file all week.

*SUNDAY MORNING

Unless I had a reason to look at my message on Friday or Saturday, I won’t look at my message again after Thursday until Sunday morning. I will open the sermon document and go back through the message. I usually spot some minor adjustments, either something that won’t flow right or won’t sound the way I want. 

Mostly, I’m trying to internalize the content and imagine myself delivering the message. 

At this point, I am thinking about serving the dish.

I will print off my notes, usually make notes on paper, and at the top of the document I’ll write, “Preaching to sinners and sufferers” as a way to remind myself that this is not about me getting through my material, it is about preaching to these people.

And this is an important note. Preaching is not about you getting through your material. 

I’ve been in some sermons where, if everyone got raptured, I think this guy would just keep talking. It feels like he is not paying attention to the people, he is just thinking about his message. I don’t want to do that. I want to have a connection with the people.

I will mark up my Bible a little bit and circle keywords or key ideas so I know where I am throughout the message.

And then I get up and serve it. I preach three times if I preach on a Sunday and I really don’t want the first message to be a practice. I want it to really minister to the people in the first service. There will most likely be some things I will tweak and adjust from service to service, but it’s mostly minor at this point. 

Getting Feedback After the First Service

After the first service I will touch base with one or two of our pastors and ask them for feedback. 

I want feedback. I want to know where I can get better and improve and fortunately I have people on our team who give great feedback, especially feedback that is appropriate for the morning of. 

Their feedback will include areas where I may want to include a bit more time on a point that landed. It could include suggestions on tweaking language that landed awkwardly. It could include identifying areas that came across unclear, and either recommend clearing it up or just cutting it. 

We’re not saying, “I think you’re outline is wrong,” because it’s too late. But if there are little things we can adjust, we will.

*SUNDAY AFTER SERVICE

After the last service I will return to my office, say a prayer, thank the Lord for the fun opportunity to preach his word, and throw my notes in the trash.

This is my way of saying, “Here is my offering, and I’m leaving it on the altar.” 

There is a lot of value for preachers who want to improve to go back and watch their sermons. Watching game film forces you to see what the congregation sees and will reveal things to you about yourself that you would otherwise be unaware of. 

Currently, I am not in a season where I will go back and watch every message. If something went particularly well or particularly poorly, I will watch the video. If it went well, I am looking for signs as to why it went well and if there are things I can duplicate in the future. If it went poorly, then I want to know the same things.

The Thursday Midnight Rule

Nelson Searcy is the first person from whom I heard about the “Thursday Midnight Rule.” This is the ideal that you’re done with your sermon on Thursday at midnight. It doesn’t always happen; there are some weeks where it can’t happen that way, but generally speaking, your sermon is done and ready to be preached on Thursday by midnight.

Sometimes, for me, the preparation will bleed into Friday morning, but almost always, I get home on Thursday, and it’s done. It’s written and I could preach it in that condition if I needed to.

The freedom of being done on Thursday when I leave to go home is incredible. I get to go into my weekend Friday and Saturday and not be catching up on my sermon, or obsessing over my sermon, or trying to find the ‘one more thing’ for my sermon. My family gets my best, the church gets my best, and I can rest. 

As much as this article is descriptive, and I am just sharing with you my process, this is the one point where I would be more prescriptive and say that if you’re constantly polishing your message to the last minute, I would encourage you to settle for good enough. In fact, Craig Groeschel has a very helpful acronym called G.E.T.M.O.:

Good
Enough
To 
Move
On

Sometimes, people ask me on Sunday morning, “Are you ready?” and I say, “As ready as I’m going to be.”

I once heard it said, “Sermons are never truly finished. They are only launched.” I think that’s right.

Insights On Illustrations

Illustrations are a huge part of the sermon because they help connect the point to the people. Dan Keaton, a friend and alumni of The Preaching Lab, believes that the biggest mistake pastors make regarding illustrations is using too few of them. 

Listen to an episode of Preaching Through Podcast with Dan Keaton sharing more insights on sermon illustrations.

As important as they are, illustrations continue to be one of the biggest areas of need for preachers. 

While this article is not about illustrations, there are a few insights I want to share regarding illustrations.

Relating Illustrations to My Life

One practice I’ve adopted is connecting parts of my life to things I read or watch. If I see a great story or picture that could work well as an illustration, I often try to think of a moment in my life that captures that idea. Some stories are more enjoyable when they’re connected to a specific person versus being from someone no one has any affiliation with.

Don’t Be the Hero

Along those same lines, I would caution to avoid telling stories where you are the hero. While we may not intentionally try and place ourselves on a pedestal, our people naturally will. So any chance we have to remove ourselves from that position, we should take it. 

If you have a story that would work perfectly as an illustration but places you in the hero position, you can tell that story from a third-person perspective or omit certain parts that elevate your role in the story.

Avoid Using References Older Than 20 Years

Illustrations in my messages can’t be more than 20 years old. Movies, books, songs, bands. If you find yourself referencing something over 20 years old, just say, “It was once said…” because the reference will split the room, leaving some on the outside looking in. No one likes feeling like they don’t get a joke.

This includes significant cultural moments. 

Currently, there are people in our church who look at 9/11 the way millennials viewed Pearl Harbor. It happened. It’s history. But for young people in our church, talking about 9/11 feels like me listening to my grandfather talk about Pearl Harbor.

Little Irrelevant Details Are Interesting

Including irrelevant details in a story feels like it would be less engaging, but I have found the opposite to be true. As an example, I could share:

The other day, I was at the park with my kids. 

Or you could say:

The other day, I was at the park with my kids, and we were walking around with our shoes off in the sand…

You don’t want to overdo the irrelevant details, but just enough keeps people listening and engaged in the moment.

Don’t Illustrate Your Illustrations

It’s not uncommon to find yourself with multiple illustrations for one point, even as you struggle to come up with a single illustration for a different point. When this is the case, it’s important to choose one illustration and go with it. 

This is called killing your darlings. This is an editing phrase and applies not only to illustrations, but your entire collection of content over the entirety of the message. 

You could include everything — and if you do, it will be lengthy, it will lack cohesion, and it will feel to people like you asked them to get in the car and go on a trip, and they have zero idea if they’re anywhere near the destination. It all feels random. 

Film is something that I love, and I watch a lot of Oscar-nominated films. Something interesting about the Oscars is there are two different categories that almost always have the exact same nominees: Best Picture and Best Editing. The lesson from that is the most cohesive, best-told stories are the best-edited stories. 

If people are having a hard time tracking with your preaching, it might mean that there is room for improvement in your editing and more darlings to kill in the final version sermon.

No matter how much you may love an illustration, when your illustrations begin illustrating your illustrations, you’ve missed the point, and the same goes for your message as a whole.

Illustrations Involving Your Family

Some of the best illustrations will involve your family. One of the best practices I’ve learned is always to get permission before I use my wife in a message. When it comes to my kids, I didn’t think much of it when they were younger, but as they got older, I realized that whatever I shared from the pulpit could impact how people in our church would see them. So, I began getting their permission, too. 

Occasionally, as I’m preaching, something will pop into my head in the moment and I have to decide if I’m going to use it. Unless it makes them look good, I won’t use it. 

In addition to getting permission from family, it is also important to be mindful of how often your illustrations involve your family. It is possible to tell too many stories about your family. I have challenged pastors to preach an entire message without referencing their son or daughter, and it’s hard because they have so many great stories. But preachers need the discipline of looking elsewhere for illustrations.

My Thoughts On Using Commentaries During Preparation

How I have chosen to use commentaries differs from how many other preachers use commentaries. 

Plenty of wise voices will say you shouldn’t use commentaries until the very end to check your work. The idea is that you should come to the conclusions on your own — do the work — and verify you were correct at the very end when the sermon is nearly finished. 

I have done it this way before, finished my sermon, opened the commentaries, and gone, “Oops.”

Reviewing the commentaries, I would discover that I missed something significant, and at that point I had to go back and either start over or redo a large portion of the work I’ve already done. 

Finding out what the commentaries have to say earlier in the process gives me a greater level of confidence that what I’m building is correct. 

Generally, I will purchase 3 to 5 commentaries related to the book or topic for each series I preach. 

BestCommentaries.com is an excellent resource for discovering commentaries and reviews of commentaries to help identify which ones might be most helpful for a particular need. 

I also use Logos software and have built a nice library of commentaries which I will regularly use. A lot of times, the books I want are already in there, but I may need to add one or two more for a specific series.

What Gets In the Way of Sermon Preparation

One of the ongoing challenges you’ll face is the reality that much of your advanced sermon preparation is very important; it’s not urgent… until it is.

By the time it is Saturday night, and you’re still working on your sermon, you can’t read enough to overcome any deficiencies or gaps that may still exist. 

This type of sermon preparation is what Steven Covey calls a big rock. A big rock is a significant responsibility. Something of top importance. If you don’t create a plan for the big rocks in your life, your time will be consumed by all the small, minute details that are often unimportant but can appear urgent.

Put the big rocks in first.

Do the most important things first.

Only do what you can do. 

A lot of the leadership maxims are really true of the sermon prep process and someone is going to pay the price sermon preparation demands. 

Either you’re going to pay the price by doing the work and preparing well. 

Or your congregation is going to pay the price by having to sit through a terrible sermon. 

It Is Your Job to Read & Study

As important as it is to prepare the sermon, it is more important to prepare the preacher, too. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a great Welsh preacher, says, “The sermon needs careful preparation, but altogether more important is the preparation of the preacher himself.” You have to have a heart that is growing and a well of knowledge that is deepening.

Reading needs to be a regular part of your weekly discipline. You have to dig a well of content, and I encourage you to make it deeper than Twitter. 

It is our job to read and study. There may be a temptation to feel guilty using work hours to read for extended periods of time. There are plenty of readers in your congregation who are looking forward to the two or three hours they get to read at the end of the week — and yet you’re taking multiple hours a week to read as a part of your job. 

But it is your job to read. It is your job to study. It is your job to dig a well of content that deepens your heart for God and understanding of his Word. Don’t feel bad about it. 

Finding A Sermon Prep Process that Works for You Is Vital

I was talking to a colleague who had been a lead pastor for about two years. Before becoming the lead pastor, he was the college pastor. I asked him, “How’s it going with the preaching,” and he replied, “I hate it. It’s so hard.”

That surprised me because he enjoyed preaching in the college ministry.

I asked him what happened.

“When I was preaching in college, I felt like I needed to find one thing to say. The guy who was preaching here before me said, ‘You can’t miss anything.’”

That is so stupid.

You’re going to miss things. I don’t mean you’re going to get things wrong. I mean, on the one hand, you’re not going to see everything, and even if you did, there are things you need to leave out or always more you could do.

He hated the pressure and the process.

If you hate any aspect of the sermon preparation process, you’ve got to find a different way. You won’t be able to do this for the long haul if every week of sermon prep is a grind. 

The good news is you don’t have to keep doing things the same way. You can try something new. Experiment with elements you’ve heard me share in this article. Ask colleagues about their processes and what aspects are the most enjoyable for them. 

There is zero reason not to change a routine that is sucking the life out of you. There is more than one way to do it. Figure out some way to make this life-giving. One of the great parts of being a pastor is that, most often, you’re in charge of your own schedule, and if you hate the way you’re doing sermon prep, that’s on you.

And that means you can change it and hopefully fix it.

I hope you find the freedom to experiment and license to try other options after reading through my process, and of course, you’re invited to explore The Preaching Lab and be part of our next group to go through and get intentional, not just with sermon preparation but the art of preaching as a whole. 

No matter what it is, if you dedicate time and attention to improving an area of your life, you’re going to see results, and I encourage you to seek results in sermon preparation.

The post How to Prepare a Sermon: A Complete Guide for Pastors appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.

Many people don’t believe me when I tell them this, but it’s true. 

When I meet somebody who has served as an elder, I ask, “How were the meetings?” Almost universally, the next reaction is an eye roll and a sigh. “Well… not great.”

Stories ensue about late-night meetings that drag on and on, rising tension and arguments, and political negotiations that rival all the dysfunction of Congress.

There is a better way.

I’ve been part of an elder team for over 13 years and we’ve been through a lot: 

• adding elders 
• losing elders (to resignation and death) 
• merging with two like-minded churches
• multiple fundraising projects and building initiatives 
• firing staff
• seeing the church grow from a few hundred to almost two thousand in attendance
• navigating all the unprecedented aspects of a pandemic
• losing hundreds of people
• reaching hundreds more
• and on and on.

Some moments have been tougher than others. But through it all, we’ve had a strong team and enjoyed working together. It’s possible.

I want to provide you a step-by-step guide for elder meetings — really for being a functional elder team — so that your church can be healthy, your leadership can be unified, and serving as an elder is life-giving and joyful rather than a slow, agonizing death by a thousand paper cuts.

My Presuppositions About Elders, Elder Teams, and Elder Meetings

Before I get into the step-by-step, you should know where I’m coming from. Here are my presuppositions when it comes to an elder team:

1. Jesus is the Senior Leader of the church. He builds and sustains it. It’s His church.

2. Having godly, courageous, skilled, and unified leadership is essential to church health.

3. Elder is an office, not an identity. The elders are those officially serving on the team.

4. A person does not need to be an elder to have influence or leadership in the church. There will be excellent leaders who do not hold the office of elder.

5. Eldership should be a great joy and a life-giving experience. It need not be destructive to a man’s spiritual vitality, family, ministry, or quality of life.

6. As the church grows in size and complexity (additional staff, ministries, campuses, etc), the structure and function of the elder team will need to experience change and reorganization. 

7. The leadership structure of the church must be flexible enough to get the right people to the table for any given decision.

8. Elders are the male leaders of the church who are synonymously called pastors, bishops, and overseers throughout the New Testament. While the various words are used interchangeably, they each refer to a different aspect of the same role in the same office. Therefore, the elder team will consist of both paid and unpaid elders. 

9. Elders must consistently demonstrate the character qualities described in 1 Timothy 3:2-7 and Titus 1:6-9.  

10. In addition to godly character, elders must demonstrate competency (the skills involved in shepherding) and commitment, as well as share a high level of chemistry with the existing elders. This does not mean that the elders will all have the same personalities, temperaments, or gifts, but it does mean that they will have the ability to joyfully work together as committed ministry partners.

You may not share all these presuppositions, but I wanted to get them on the table. And — even if you disagree on some of the specifics — this guide will still help you.

Step #1: Clarify — What Do the Elders Do?

Any time we have a meeting, we want the meeting to help accomplish the purpose of the group involved. We never want to meet just to meet.

If you have a small group meeting, clarify what your purpose is for small groups. If you have leadership training, clarify the purpose of the training.

In the same way, we have to design our elder meetings in light of the purpose of our elder team. So… what do elders do?

The Basics of What Elders Are Responsible For

On one level, the big-picture function of elders is clearly laid out in Scripture:

• Oversee the Congregation (1 Peter 5:2; 1 Timothy 5:17). This likely means guarding the church’s doctrine, mission, vision, and values, overseeing financial integrity, long-range planning, and holding the Lead Pastor accountable.

• Tend to Needs of the Flock (Acts 20:28). This looks like regularly participating in church life, leading and teaching in different spheres of influence, investing in other leaders, praying for the church, visiting those in need, and more.

• Be on Watch for Trouble (Acts 20:29-31; Hebrews 13:17). This looks like knowing Scripture well enough to discern counterfeits, being discerning toward those who threaten the body, exercising church discipline, and evaluating any mistakes we might make.

• Live the Normal Christian Life (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:3). This looks like exemplifying Christian character and modeling godliness in family, vocational, and church life. 

These functions are essential. 

But how they flesh out — especially in the oversight of the congregation — depends a great deal on the size of the church, the number of elders, how many paid staff the church has, and more.

Getting More Specific On Elder Roles and Responsibilities

Depending on the size of the church, elder teams tend to have one of four functions in terms of how they oversee the church.

Think about it on a spectrum.

Stage 1 — Doing the Ministry

In a brand-new or very small church, the elders are often the ones doing much of the ministry. They’re setting up chairs, hauling in gear, greeting people at the door, leading every small group, and showing up at the hospital. As a church grows, elders often keep doing things like this, but in the early or smaller stages, the elders are the main ones doing all this.

Stage 2 — Approving the Ministry

As the church grows, the elders often move from being the main people doing the ministry to those who approve the ministry. Will the newcomer class be tweaked? Can the students go out of state for camp? What curriculum should the small groups use? Should we add a second service? At this stage, the elders are often answering these questions and making most of the key decisions. (The more staff elders a church has, the harder it is to leave this stage)

Stage — 3 Reviewing the Ministry 

As the church grows and staff is more empowered to make decisions, the elders move into a reviewing role. They try to keep a pulse on what’s happening and provide feedback to the Lead Pastor. They make more recommendations, but fewer decisions.

Stage 4 — Direction-setting for the Ministry 

In the final stage, the elders are functioning at a very high level. They approve the budget, guard the values, vision, and doctrine, and hold the Lead Pastor accountable. They must remain biblically qualified men, but they often function more like a “governing board” of the organization. 

Important Notes Regarding This Spectrum of Elder Roles and Responsibilities

Some important notes regarding this spectrum:

• None of these is more “right” or biblical or moral, but you have to be on the same page. Each of these approaches is a valid option (provided that you’re holding to the basic expectations of elders listed above), but having elders who are functioning in different stages will be a disaster.

• That said, many churches with multiple staff will end up functioning in the “reviewing the ministry” phase. The sooner the elders can begin operating there, the smoother the transition will be.

• The more staff elders a church has, the harder it is to leave the “approving the ministry” stage. Staff inherently are in the weeds making decisions, and too many staff elders will keep the elders in that phase.

• It’s emotionally difficult for elders who make the journey through the various phases. Change always involves loss and pain, and many elders will at some point miss a previous stage. 

And here’s the biggest takeaway when it comes to elder meetings: 

Decide what phase you want to function in and set your meetings accordingly.

An Exercise for Getting All Elders On the Same Page

A number of years back, I handed our elders papers with this spectrum and explained it. I asked them to draw an “X” where they thought we were functioning now and to draw a “✓” where they thought we needed to be functioning a few years from now. 

It was a good exercise to get everyone on the same page — and it set the stage for designing meetings appropriately.

How Elder Responsibilities Take Shape

For us, we’ve landed somewhere between reviewing and direction-setting. And, with the help of Larry Osborne’s book, Sticky Teams, we identified how it impacts the way our elder team responsibilities take shape:

• Pray regularly for the congregation and staff. Like priests who go before God on behalf of the people, one of their primary ways to serve the church is through intercession.

• Keep a finger on the pulse of the congregation. Like shepherds who smell like sheep, they should know people, love people, and have a sense of what is happening in the lives of people.

• Provide wise counsel to the Lead Pastor and senior staff. Like godly sages, they can offer a perspective that is easy to miss in the day-to-day of ministry.

• Be a crisis team in waiting. Provide the church the security of knowing that if a genuine crisis hits, we’re ready. Like firefighters playing cards in the firehouse, they are prepared, connected, and ready if the bell should ring — and some days, bored enough almost to wish it would ring.

• Approve the big-picture budget. Like a husband who is responsible for the household and trusts his wife to steward resources wisely, the elders set the parameters and give freedom to the staff to use resources in ways that are good and responsible.

• Carry out church discipline, in harmony with the pastoral staff. Like parents, they step in and discipline wayward members as needed.

• Entrust ministry design and day-to-day leadership to the Lead Pastor and staff. Like the owner of a sports franchise, they set the tone and empower the GM and coaches to succeed.

• Hold the keys of accountability. Should something go amiss with the Lead Pastor or staff, the elders can step in. Like brakes, they can immediately stop something that shouldn’t be happening (though brakes shouldn’t be ridden constantly).

So… in light of these functions, now we can design elder meetings that fit.

Step #2: Pick An Elder Meeting Rhythm

Now that you know where you want the elder team to function, you can decide the frequency and rhythm of meetings.

If you’re functioning in stages 1-2 (doing or approving), then you probably need more frequent meetings. You’re more in the weeds of information and decision-making, so more frequent meetings are more important.

If you’re functioning in stages 3-4 (reviewing or direction setting), frequent meetings with lots of details will keep pulling you back into the weeds. Meeting less frequently for less time will actually help you more faithfully stay aligned with your function.

At the church I lead, we’ve landed in a rhythm that seems to be working. We meet twice per month:

• Monthly “Business Meeting.” Here we have a defined agenda and talk through the issues facing our church (often things like budget, staffing issues, discipline situations, key initiatives, plans for church plants, etc.)

• Monthly “Shepherding Meeting.” Here we shepherd one another, share personal updates and pray, read an article that might encourage or sharpen us in some way, and experience brotherhood.

For us, these meetings are for 90 minutes on a weekday morning (5:30-7:00 am). The disadvantage is that it’s very early. The advantages, however, are that meeting before work keeps us focused and on track, and doesn’t take away much in terms of family time.

Of course, occasionally we have to do an impromptu meeting based on some unforeseen circumstances or crisis (this happens once or twice a year unless there’s a pandemic ????). Because our regular meetings are crisp and relatively infrequent, these extra meetings aren’t too burdensome.

Step #3: Consider the Physical Environment of Your Meeting

What do you want your elder meetings to feel like? Like a group of friends hanging out? Like a corporate board? Like a church small group? Like work? Something else? 

Any of these could be fine. But if you hope it feels like a group of friends hanging out and instead it feels like you’re facing a parole board… well… it might not be too fun.

As you think about where to do your meetings, pick a physical environment that fits your desired experience.

You know the power of a physical experience. Rooms with natural light feel energetic. Rooms with white walls and fluorescent lighting feel like a hospital. Our physical space has a dramatic impact on our expectations and experiences of an environment.

For us, we want our elder team to feel more like a small group/friends who are leading together rather than a highly corporate board experience.

So, even though we have a conference room at the church, we don’t meet there. 

For many years, we had every meeting at Village Inn. It’s hard to take yourself too seriously when you’re wolfing down pancakes and bacon.

More recently, we’ve been meeting in a room on our church campus that has couches and sitting chairs — it feels like a living room — because it creates an environment conducive to how we want to behave.

Step #4: How to Run an Effective Elder Meeting in 7 Steps

When it comes to the Elder Business Meeting, how can you run it effectively? It is your main gathering point and the primary space where your elder team will feel like an elder team. You want to do it well.

1. Determine who will lead the meeting. In some traditions, there’s an elder chairperson. For us, I run it as the Lead Pastor (or, if needed, I ask somebody else to lead a specific meeting).

2. Send a written agenda at least 24 hours before the meeting. It allows those who are slower processors to gather their thoughts and think through their input. Make sure this agenda is based on issues that are appropriate for the kind of leadership the elder team is going to provide.

3. Pray together. Maybe it seems obvious, but this is the Lord’s work. It’s His church. You need His voice. Invite God to speak and work in the time together.

4. Work through the agenda. As you move through the topics, be clear about what is needed for each topic: nothing (it’s just an FYI), a decision, input for a decision somebody else will make, feedback, perspective, wisdom, etc. Being clear on the desired kind of outcome helps the meeting move forward with clarity.

5. Invite input from those who don’t jump in right away. Every group has eager beavers who never stop talking as well as people who never speak up. Be sure to ask for the quieter folks to share their perspective. If you’re a Lead Pastor, you often need to resist the urge to speak quickly — your voice will often carry more weight and disincentivize interaction.

6. Make clear action items on the basis of the meeting. These might involve additional future agenda items or communicating a decision to other people or assigning a project to somebody. Whatever the case is, make sure you know what everyone is supposed to do on the basis of the meeting.

7. Put it in writing and share it with the group. It is helpful for two reasons: (a) frequently somebody is missing who needs to know what happened in the meeting and (b) sometimes even the people who were there forget what was discussed or decided. It does not need to be minute-by-minute notes that require a court reporter, just a high-level recording of the agenda and the outcomes.

Sample Elders' Meeting Agenda Template

Get a copy of the PDF we use for productive elders’ meetings. Use as is or modify to suit your needs.

Name

Email

Get It Now

Step #5: Develop Outside-the-Meeting Communication

Part of the reason elder meetings often are a drag is that too much is shared that could be shared in other ways. 

Endless updates drag on and on and should be communicated in alternate ways. We use Slack as a tool for our elders to communicate — but you could use a group text chat or email.

Every week or two I try to communicate a bullet list of FYIs, updates, and issues for them to be in the loop about. Additionally, any of the elders are free to share personal updates, ask questions, or loop us in on anything we should know.

Our elders frequently share personal updates and requests for prayer. All of it keeps us more united and aware of what’s going on in each other’s lives.

Step #6: Have an Offsite Elder Experience Annually

In addition to normal monthly meeting rhythms, schedule at least an annual time away as an elder team. Call it a retreat or an offsite or a getaway — the name doesn’t matter. 

But get away from the normal routine and be together for 24-48 hours in a new spot.

Sometimes these getaways are a good environment to work through a longer-term question or have conversations about vision and direction that require more than a 90-minute meeting. It could be a moment to talk about things like:

• What’s our vision for the next three years?
• What do we hope anyone who attends our church for more than 3 years experiences in their time with us?
• What’s most important right now?
• What are the brightest spots in the church that we have to replicate?
• And so on…

Other times, there isn’t a big agenda and the goal is simply to be together.

It microwaves and intensifies your relationships, builds and increases trust, allows you to laugh and make memories together, and reminds you, in the words of Zack Eswine, “Building relationships and sharing our lives together is part of our agenda and is no waste of time.”

Additionally, do other fun things throughout the year.

One of our elders hosts a bourbon and bonfire night a few times a year. Or we’ll go play Top Golf together. Or we’ll go out to dinner. 

Be sure to set aside some modest church budget for these outings and retreats. It’s a worthwhile investment in the health and unity of the church’s leadership.

Step #7: Review and Adapt

I think that the reason the Bible gives so few specifics about how elders are supposed to function is so that local churches have the flexibility to adapt based on their specific needs. 

What’s not up for debate: a plurality of high-character leaders who sacrifice for the good of the church.

What can change: everything else.

So pay attention to what’s working, what’s not, what can be improved, and what used to work but just isn’t meeting the needs anymore. Change and tweak until you have what works better. 

You don’t have to do this alone. Pull aside one or two elders from time to time and ask them what’s working and what could be improved.

And then do it all over again.

Final Thoughts On Elder Meetings

Church leadership doesn’t have to crush your soul — or the souls of those sweet people who God has provided to serve as elders.

One of the sweetest blessings in my ministry as a Lead Pastor has been serving with the men who have been my fellow elders. They have supported me, challenged me, and led our church with wisdom time and again.

Running effective elder meetings may seem daunting, but it’s not as complicated as you might think. Make it fun, be intentional, and adjust as you need to along the way.

If you have specific questions that aren’t covered in this guide, send me an email. I’d be happy to interact with you about them.

I also offer coaching for pastors or elder teams who need help. If you’d like a free introductory call to discuss your situation, you can schedule one here.

I’m rooting for you!

The post How to Run An Elders’ Meeting appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.

That pause is incredibly common. Most pastors feel confident in the New Testament. Christian living, the Gospels, Paul’s letters. Familiar ground. But when it comes to generating old testament sermon series ideas, there’s a real confidence gap. The material feels foreign, the stories are layered, and the theological questions multiply before you even get to the sermon outline.

Here’s what’s easy to miss, though: your congregation doesn’t know the Old Testament well enough to catch your stumbles. They’re opening their Bibles to that crunchy part that still has the gold lining on the edges. Even straightforward observations from the text land with real weight because the material is so unfamiliar to them.

That unfamiliarity is a gift, not a threat. And “get a few percent better each year” is a far more honest goal than “master the Hebrew Scriptures by fall.”

The Real Challenges of Preaching the Old Testament

Nobody benefits from pretending old testament preaching is easy. It’s not. But naming the obstacles clearly is the first step toward working through them. There are at least three that trip pastors up.

Theological Challenges

Which Old Testament commands still apply to the church today? When God tells Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you” (Jeremiah 29:11), is that a promise you can hand your congregation on a Sunday morning? What about moments where God seems to act differently than in the New Testament, like the Spirit “rushing upon” people rather than permanently indwelling them? Or Rahab’s deception being treated positively when Scripture forbids false witness?

These questions don’t have tidy answers. That’s part of what makes them worth preaching through. A congregation needs to see a pastor who wrestles with the hard parts of Scripture, not one who quietly skips to Romans.

Cultural Challenges

The world of the Old Testament is foreign territory. Slavery, concubines, violent conquest, idolatry as literal image-making. None of this shows up in your average Tuesday.

The skill is in bridging the gap without flattening it. The underlying heart issues — idolatry, injustice, the abuse of power — haven’t changed, even if the expression looks wildly different in the 21st century. When Exodus 32 describes Israel melting gold to make a calf, the modern equivalent isn’t a golden statue in someone’s living room. It’s whatever a person trusts more than God for security, identity, or meaning. That’s the move from a pulpit: name the ancient practice, then surface the version sitting in the room.

And some passages are just going to be hard. When Samuel hacks Agag to pieces in 1 Samuel 15, there is no cozy way to land that illustration. That’s fine. Developing the pastoral muscle to navigate genuinely difficult texts is part of the calling.

The “Why Bother?” Challenge

Someone in the congregation will eventually ask why the church should spend weeks in the Old Testament when Christians are under the new covenant.

The short answer: the first church’s Bible was the Old Testament. When Paul told Timothy that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), he was talking about the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus himself said he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). Much of the New Testament, especially Revelation, becomes nearly incomprehensible without Old Testament literacy. And there’s a bonus: wrestling with difficult OT material builds real credibility with the skeptics sitting in the back row. They can tell when a pastor doesn’t flinch.

Dynamics Every Preacher Needs to Understand

Understanding the Old Testament goes beyond knowing the stories. There are structural and literary dynamics baked into these texts that, once they click, change how you preach old testament sermons entirely.

Non-Linear and Chiastic Structures

Pastors who’ve spent years in Paul’s letters are trained on a linear structure: greeting, theological argument, “therefore,” application. The Old Testament doesn’t work that way.

Many OT books use chiastic structures. Think of it like a sandwich: the most important content is in the middle rather than building toward the end. In Judges, for example, the central story (Jephthah) sits at the heart of the book, not at the climax. Reading for a crescendo at the finish means missing the author’s actual emphasis. Resources like the Bible Project can help surface these patterns visually, whether you’re encountering these structures for the first time or just need a refresher. Once you start spotting them, they show up everywhere, and they unlock meaning that’s completely invisible in a straight-line read.

Intertextual Connections Across Books

Old Testament authors deliberately echo earlier books. This is one of the dynamics that rewards patience, because these connections only emerge after years of living in the broader narrative.

Consider the end of 2 Samuel. It mirrors the book of Judges: concubines, left-handed violence, a man with long hair setting fires, rape. The author is making a devastating theological point. The king was supposed to fix everything. Israel got the man after God’s own heart, and it still stinks. Everyone is still doing what’s right in their own eyes.

That kind of payoff only happens when a church has been immersed in the OT story over time. And when a pastor surfaces it for the congregation, it’s electric.

Preaching Christ from the Old Testament (Without Forcing It)

Over the past two decades, voices like Tim Keller and D.A. Carson have helped a generation of preachers see all of Scripture pointing to Jesus. That’s a genuine gift to the church.

But it can be overdone.

David and Goliath maps cleanly to Christ fighting on behalf of his people. The end of Judges? Not so much. Cramming Jesus into that text feels forced. It becomes an awkward, shoehorned pivot that the text doesn’t actually support. Some call it a “Jesus juke.” Whatever you call it, the congregation can feel it.

A better approach to preaching christ from the old testament: let the failure and disappointment of the text do its own work. Let it point to the need for Jesus rather than artificially inserting him. Not every old testament sermon needs a crescendo into a gospel presentation, but every sermon should connect to the larger story, whether through themes of salvation, the character of God, or the picture of what life looks like apart from him.

Some churches have even adjusted their liturgy during OT series, moving communion before the sermon because not every Old Testament text ends on a high note. Some old testament sermons end in disappointment. That’s theologically appropriate, and it’s okay to let the congregation sit in it.

This article is drawn from a conversation on the Preaching Through Podcast. Listen to the full episode for more on navigating Old Testament texts.

Old Testament Sermon Series Ideas to Get You Started

Enough theory. Here are specific old testament sermon series ideas organized by length, so whether there are four open weeks or forty, there’s something worth putting on the calendar.

Short Series (3-5 Weeks)

For a first old testament sermon series, starting small is wise. These books are manageable, familiar enough to give a congregation a foothold, and rich enough to reward careful study.

• Jonah. A chapter per week. Mission, compassion, God’s heart for enemies. Four weeks, clean structure, a story everybody recognizes but almost nobody has really studied.
• Ruth. Redemption in the middle of Judges-era chaos. Beautiful narrative, natural bridge to the gospel.
• Psalm 23. A deep dive on a familiar psalm. Most people think they know this one. They don’t.
• Isaiah 40. God’s comfort. Two to three weeks of some of the most powerful poetry in all of Scripture.
• The Joseph Story (Genesis 37-50). Providence, suffering, forgiveness. Cinematic storytelling carrying profound theological weight.

Mid-Range Series (8-12 Weeks)

Once some confidence is built, there’s room to stretch.

• Genesis 1-11 (topical approach). Science, human dignity, work, rest, gender, sexuality, evil, suffering, judgment, diversity, purpose. Justin Anderson’s Confronting Jesus framework is one way to structure it, pairing each topic with apologetics resources like Rebecca McLaughlin’s work and addressing the questions people in the seats are already asking.
• Isaiah 40-55. The servant songs and comfort poetry. Dense, beautiful, and pointing to Christ in ways that don’t require forcing the connection.
• Daniel 1-6. Exile and faithfulness in a hostile culture. Stop before the apocalyptic material in chapters 7-12. Six chapters, six stories, and extremely relevant to the cultural moment most churches find themselves in right now.

Longer Series (15+ Weeks)

For the deep end:

• Genesis. The whole book. It’s a commitment, but a congregation that spends serious time here will understand the rest of the Bible differently on the other side.
• Exodus. With flexibility on how deeply to treat sections like the tabernacle instructions or the Ten Commandments.

Topical Approaches: Summer Psalms and Proverbs

Summer is a natural window to experiment.

• Summer Psalms. Select five to seven psalms across genres: worship, lament, even imprecatory. Give the congregation the full emotional range of the psalter. Lament psalms in particular give a congregation emotional and theological tools to endure hard seasons, the kind most churches have been navigating for several years now.
• Proverbs. Either Proverbs 1-9 as a unit, or a thematic series covering the tongue, money, and relationships.

Worth knowing: Psalms and Proverbs have an unusually low barrier to entry for people who aren’t yet Christians. “Ancient wisdom” has real cultural appeal, and the Psalms speak directly to pain. If you preach to people in pain, you’ll always have an audience. These books work as a front door, meeting people where they actually are and drawing them deeper into the rest of Scripture.

Practical Tips for Your Preaching Calendar

Knowing how to preach the old testament is one thing. Actually doing it with any consistency is another. That’s where a preaching calendar earns its keep. “Calendar” might mean a spreadsheet, a planning app, or a conversation with one other leader. The format matters less than the intention.

A calendar makes it possible to plan a sustainable rhythm: a short Old Testament series after a long New Testament run. It allows building on previous work. (The 2 Samuel/Judges connection above? That kind of intertextual payoff only happens when a church has preached through Judges years earlier.) And it removes the pressure of mastering everything at once. Incremental growth beats heroic ambition every time.

The plan isn’t the power. The Spirit is. But God has a long track record of working through preparation, through faithfulness, and through pastors willing to open their Bibles to the parts that make them nervous.

“For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).

The weight of old testament preaching doesn’t rest on the pastor. It rests on the God who delights to save people through faithful, imperfect proclamation. Pick a book. Put it on the calendar. Start before you feel ready. Your congregation doesn’t need a perfect Old Testament scholar. They need a pastor willing to open the whole Bible and trust that God will show up in the text. He always does.

Looking for help with the week-to-week work of sermon preparation? Start here: How to Prepare a Sermon.

The post Old Testament Sermon Series Ideas: How to Bring the Hebrew Scriptures to Life in Your Church appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.

What is a sabbatical? How do you advocate for your own sabbatical? What should a sabbatical for a pastor look like? Listen to this episode from Preaching Through Podcast.

Many pastors ask about my experience, and this document explains some recommendations. This isn’t law, but merely advice that comes out of my experiences.

1. Be Proactive

If possible, be proactive about a sabbatical. Often sabbaticals are last-ditch efforts to prevent burnout or quitting. But the best sabbaticals are intentional and proactive efforts to provide rest and replenishment. 

2. Communicate Well

Communicate to the church well in advance about the sabbatical. My sabbatical began in May and we communicated about it in January. This avoided any rumors or speculation as to the reason for it, and allowed the church to be more supportive.

3. Opportunity for Discovery

While it is true that having healthy sabbath and personal care rhythms prevents the need for a sabbatical, I found that there were key lessons that could have only been learned through an extended time away. For me, sabbatical provided not only much needed rest, but also the ability to know myself in a new way that significantly improved my leadership.

4. Sabbatical Length

My sabbatical was 10 weeks, which is about the shortest that I would recommend. Crosspoint Ministry, who coaches and guides pastors through sabbaticals, recommends at least three months, but no longer than six. Many of the most valuable lessons for me came after the four week mark.

5. Wisdom In Counseling

If it were up to me, I would require that anyone taking a sabbatical get some kind of formal counseling through the experience. I used Crosspoint, who specialize in sabbatical counseling. Having a wise person to guide me and help me reflect throughout the experience was invaluable. This is worth the church investing in to help maximize the value of the sabbatical for the pastor.

6. Connect and Disconnect

I would recommend that the purpose of the sabbatical be to have rest and replenishment and that all kinds of ministry-related productivity be not allowed. For me, it was not a study break or a writing leave. It was not a time to attend conferences or network with other church leaders. I read books that were fun (a number of novels and historical books) and spiritually replenishing (books that I needed for my soul). I took up a new skill (rollerblading), and leaned into some hobbies that I find refreshing (cooking, exercise). It’s just too easy to fall into “work mode” if you let yourself.

7. Who Is This Sabbatical For?

Determine whether this is a sabbatical for you or a sabbatical for you and your family. Each situation is different, so there’s no right answer. In our case, we wanted it to feel like a sabbatical for our family, which changed the way we structured our days and activities. 

8. Daily Schedule

Work with your spouse to determine what you want the flow of a typical day to be. Zero structure over an extended time is anarchy, and can leave you more restless and anxious than rested. We broke the day up into three big chunks: morning, afternoon, and evening. We made a kind of flow for what would typically happen in those chunks. Of course, there were days we deviated from the plan and were flexible, but having at least some macro-structure was helpful.

9. Sabbatical Location

If possible, get to a new location for as much of the time as possible. This can be tricky depending on kids’ school and stage of life, but do what you can to maximize time away. For me, being home would mean running into a lot of people, wondering more about what was happening at church, and being drawn into conversations that put me back in ministry mode. This requires money, of course. We saved a few thousand dollars leading up to the experience and the church graciously gave us additional funds to allow us to leave town for nearly all of the ten weeks.

10. First and Last Week

Make the first week and the last week more active and busy than the others. You need time to emotionally wind down and then ramp back up. Going from a full-sprint to a full-stop is too jarring for your system. For us, the first week was going to a family wedding and then visiting an amusement park, while the last week was doing a lot of activities with my parents in Colorado. We had a number of fun excursions in between, but were mostly able to settle into a slower pace and rhythm that was truly restful and refreshing.

11. Weekly Examples

Here’s what it specifically looked like:

• Week 1: Drive to Nashville for family wedding, then Toledo and visit Cedar Point.
• Weeks 2-5: Stay in Toledo at a VRBO (near Molly’s family). This allowed us to spend lots of time with family, but still have our own space and be able to better dictate our pace.
• Weeks 6-8: Drive to Silverthorne, CO and stay at a friend’s mountain home for a few weeks, just by ourselves. This was probably the most refreshing time.
• Weeks 9-10: Go to Denver to visit my parents and then drive home to AZ.

12. Get Over Guilt

As fast as possible, get over the guilt of taking a sabbatical. A few church members won’t like it and will feel that it’s not fair because they don’t get one in their jobs. You’ll likely feel the same way — “Why should I have this awesome gift when others don’t get one?” Get over it. Those who have allowed it to happen have done so because they want it for you and want you to enjoy it.

13. Don’t Compete

Don’t try to win at taking a sabbatical. Because of the guilt feelings, your desire to honor the gift, and (most likely) your internal competitive motor that makes you a good leader, you will feel tempted to succeed at doing a sabbatical. This is not the right mindset. Take to heart that just like “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27), this sabbatical is a gift to you that’s for you. It’s not a pressure-situation to achieve success. It’s a gift to be received with gratitude and joy.

14. Flinch Towards “Yes”

Flinch toward “yes” throughout the experience. You may not get another experience like this, so make the most of it. If you get an opportunity to do something fun, take it. If your kids ask you to try something, try it. Even if you have to spend more money than you planned, do it. We determined that we were going to have a great experience and we weren’t going to focus on limitations. 

15. Away Messages and Automatic Filters

Take a scorched-earth approach to your email so that you can return and not have to manage email. I set up an automatic filter in Gmail that would mark-as-read and archive every single email that came in, allowing me to come back after ten weeks with an empty email inbox. Each email received this auto-reply:

I’m currently on Sabbatical until July 20. I’m offline during this time and all emails received will be automatically deleted. If you send me a message during this period, I will never receive it and never respond to it. Sorry.

Here’s what you can do in the meantime:

(1) If this is an emergency, you really should stop emailing and call 9-1-1.

(2) If it’s an urgent ministry matter, you can call the church office at 480-553-8295. 

(3) If it’s a cute forward (Dad), then know that I’m sure I would have loved it.

(4) If it’s something that you think really does need my attention or a response, please resend it after July 20.

I hope you’re having a marvelous day. Thanks for understanding.

Luke

16. Terms for Contact

Similarly, you want to avoid being contacted about ministry decisions or issues from your staff or elders. I told our team to use their discernment about whether there was something that they thought I would want to know, but to default toward keeping me out of everything. The only time they contacted me was when a man in our church passed away and they thought I’d want to know.

17. Interim Leader

Put one key person in charge during your time away. Lots of roles may need to be restructured while you’re away (you’ll find that many of them don’t need to come back to you once you return), but create a clear chain of command for decisions and communication. 

18. Clear Expectations

Create clear expectations for your return. Plan on gently wading back into the pool rather than doing a cannonball back in. You must prepare your key leaders that even after you return, you will be easing back in. These folks will have been carrying an extra load in your place and will be eager to hand it back to you. But they need to prepare for a gradual handoff.

19. Care for Staff

Expect that those who carried your load during sabbatical may need some extra vacation or rest in the months after your return. Especially if people have carried responsibilities that are outside of their primary giftings, it will drain them. Be patient and generous with these key people.

20. About Social Media

Step away from social media during the sabbatical. This is a no-brainer, but do it. The easiest way is to delete it from your phone.

21. About Attending Church

Be thoughtful about attending church during your sabbatical. On one hand, it’s good for you and your family to be able to attend worship services with zero responsibility. It’s good to be a normal person and sit under the word. But on the other hand, it can be very hard to turn off your “what would I do” brain at other churches. When we were with extended family, we attended church with them. The other Sundays we went to church a few times and stayed home a few times. God used one service at a church in Colorado to really speak and minister to me in a significant way. This should not need to be said, but if you are in town, do not attend your own church. 

22. “Report” On Your Sabbatical

When you return, plan on doing a special sermon along the lines of “What I Learned on My Sabbatical.” This will allow you to give one big update to a bunch of people, rather than having a thousand of the same conversation. While you’re away, don’t sweat this sermon. As you get closer to returning, gather your thoughts and takeaways. You can watch or listen to my sermon here.

23. Patience

Be patient with yourself and others. You may have a transformative experience that others did not have. You will likely learn things about yourself and consider changes that you want to make. These will take time and buy-in to enact, and you should be patient with the people who allowed you to have this experience and who carried the load while you were away.

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We all tend to shrink God down to size in our minds, crafting Him into a more comfortable and understandable being. 

But in today’s episode, the focus is on expanding the vision of who God truly is in all His greatness, glory, goodness, and grace. We will unpack the profound implications wrapped up in what we call “the 4 Gs.” Even if you don’t preach an entire series on them, these God-centered truths can revolutionize how you communicate the gospel.

The main points of the 4 Gs are: 

1. God is great, so we don’t have to be in control. Understanding God’s power allows us to trust Him instead of trying to control everything. 
2. God is glorious, so we don’t have to fear others. Recognizing God’s majesty makes other people seem less intimidating. 
3. God is good, so we don’t need to look elsewhere for satisfaction. God is the ultimate source of joy and fulfillment. 
4. God is gracious, so we don’t have to prove ourselves. We can rest in God’s grace rather than striving to earn worth.

These good news truths should show up in our sermons again and again and feel familiar to your audience and core to your teaching. Repeating these aspects of God’s character reminds people of who God really is, and each one addresses a common struggle that comes from failing to see God properly. 

When we fail to regularly remind people of who God really is, it is human nature to fill that gap with our own thoughts and ideas, building a version in our minds that is often a lot like ourselves. It takes consistent reminders for our congregation not to lose sight of the true character of God.

Hearing about the 4 Gs should stir the soul and shape the way the gospel is preached. We must continually proclaim His greatness, glory, goodness, and grace until they saturate every fiber of our being. 

Mentioned Resources

“You Can Change” by Tim Chester
“When People are Big and God is Small” by Ed Welch

The post Preaching Through 4Gs Sermon Series appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.

New lead pastor? Merging with another congregation? Sharing some disappointing news that impacts everyone? Changing the name of your church? Most preachers will experience the responsibility of preaching through a big change that impacts everyone in their congregation and leading change is rarely easy and seamless.

But doing it well it’s essential if you hope to thrive on the other side of change.

As leaders, we’re called to help our people navigate change and to see the opportunities that lie ahead. But how do we do that? How do we communicate change in a way that’s clear, compelling, and compassionate?

In this episode we take a look at what lead pastors may want to be considering as they preach through big changes in the church. We’ll discuss the difference between change and transition, and we’ll give you some practical tips for communicating change effectively. We’ll also talk about the importance of caring for your people during times of change, and we’ll share some stories of churches that have successfully navigated big changes.

So if you’re facing a big change in your church, this episode is for you. We hope you’ll join us as we explore how to preach through big changes.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

* The difference between change and transition
* How to communicate change effectively
* The importance of caring for your people during times of change
* Stories of churches that have successfully navigated big changes

As you prepare to lead your church into the future, this episode is here as a resource for you to navigate through that process and hopefully come out stronger on the other side.

The post Preaching Through A Big Change appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.

Preaching is most effective at leading congregational change when aligned with and supporting other discipleship environments in the church. The annual calendar provides natural seasons of momentum and choosing one core emphasis or initiative to “disproportionately” promote throughout the fall allows for maximum focus and impact without overwhelming people.

Imagine showing up every Sunday to a congregation energized, excited, and ready to get involved. Isn’t it awesome when there is a buzz across campus and people are in the mood for a fresh start or there’s a desire to establish new rhythms?

These are sweet times of ministry.

What if you could tap into this type of momentum without feeling like YOU have to be the one to create it?

You can! 

In this episode of Preaching Through Podcast we help you consider how to make this fall your best ministry launch ever — but also how you can take the same principles and apply them to other launch seasons. 

Storytelling, communication, discipleship, growth, and personal growth for the pastor… it’s all in this week’s episode, Preaching Through A Fall Launch.

The post Preaching Through A Fall Launch appeared first on Faithful & Fruitful.