Recently, I guided participants through a process to make space for sermon prep for the multiple sermons they’d be writing for Holy Week and Easter. I encouraged three steps, and while there was some resistance to the third, once completed, I sensed a shift in energy and renewed sense of enthusiasm for the tasks ahead. Read on to energize your own sermon prep with this 3-step scheduling process.
Dedicated planning time helps me step out of the day-to-day to work on my ministry so I have a clearer vision of what to work on in it. It’s what helps me sing—more often and more wholeheartedly—“alleluia” for the gift of serving in Christ’s name. And it helps me sing fewer notes of lament. This kind of practice is transformative, so here are my best suggestions for how preachers can harness the power of planning time outside the ministry.
While we’re building the kingdom of God, however, most of us in the West “drink the kool-aid” of the productivity-equals-success/respect/love poison our society ladles out for us during our construction breaks. Even though the drink tastes bitter, and we say the Church is in the world and not of it, and we say we hate the stuff, we preachers keep going back and holding out our cups for refills.
While we drink, we look with dismay at that partially constructed kingdom and see all the work left to be done. So we double our efforts, squeezing more tasks into the cracks of time, adding a patch here, pouring cement there, but seemingly to no avail. Because the work is never done and the task lists only seem to grow larger. And that’s in a non-pandemic year.
Every time we assume responsibility for a plumbing leak, a pastoral care request, a new bible study, the church bulletin, an email newsletter or blog, a staff meeting, a new initiative, etc., something else is lost. The problem comes when we keep saying yes without recognizing the corresponding no. As a result, we say goodbye to any semblance of a sabbath, to family togetherness, or to the peace of mind on Sunday mornings that comes from delivering a well-prepared sermon.
