5 Tools Making Preaching & Life Easier, More Inspired, and More Fulfilling (A Resource Round-Up)
I’ve noticed a number of improvements in my preaching and general life lately, so I’m sharing the tools that have been most influential in this shift. Perhaps one or more would be of use to you, too.
Five Steps to Exponential Sermon Messages—Including Holy Week!
Preaching multiple sermons in a short period (like Holy Week) is tough. We have to read multiple texts, research multiple texts, ponder multiple texts, pray over those texts, discern the messages, and then craft the sermons! Ack! But it doesn’t have to be that hard. Here are five simple steps to create an almost endless number of sermons messages, perfect for Holy Week or any sermon series.
Two Powerful Words + Three Easy Strategies To Write Sermons in a Busy Season
Because sermon crafting by its very nature is a creative endeavor, and because ministry by nature is unpredictable, sermon prep won’t always go according to plan. There is much we can’t control about the process. But there is much more we can! We increase the odds dramatically that sermon prep will go according to plan when we do this one thing: show up. And we can increase our odds of showing up by making it as easy, hospitable, and worthwhile as possible.
Lenten Preaching Themes (& how to discern your own seasonal themes)
Discover how to create a theme for a preaching season. Having done the hardest work of all in finding a message for the season, you’ll narrow your focus from the start. There will be far less decision-making and time spent looking for that germ of an idea. Plus, your exegesis time will be shortened because you’ll head into it with the theme mind, allowing you to focus on just the resources you need, decreasing the time spent on fruitless rabbit trails.
Make Space for Preaching: 4 Steps to Move Non-Essentials Off Your Plate
When preachers delegate effectively, they get out from under the tasks others could do, freeing them to focus on their essential task of preaching. Read on for practical suggestions to create more space for preaching in your ministry.
Challenging the Stories We Tell About Ourselves (A Guest Post)
There is freedom to be found on the other side of our assumptions. They’re called “limiting beliefs” for a reason—they hold us back, keep us stuck, prevent us from achieving the work set before us by God. What happens when we take action in a way that challenges those assumptions? Is there a new, truer narrative to be written?
3 Strategies to Keep Sermon Prep on Track When the Rest of Life Isn't
We know stuff happens to other people all the time, which means they might call on us all the time when they need help. And yet, we’re still surprised when our carefully constructed expectation for how the day or week is going to go evaporates in an instant because of an emergency someone else is having.
Other people’s surprises can have big impacts on our sermon prep. Rather than get paralyzed (and often resentful) in the face of the unexpected, here are three strategies to stay on track.
3 Steps to Make Your Continuing Ed "Stick" (Like This Certificate in Technology in Ministry)
How come we learn great stuff but it doesn’t affect our preaching long-term? After the initial boost of energy wears off, we’re right back to our old ways. Getting learning to stick requires a plan. Master this three-step process to ensure your next investment in professional development produces the improvement you seek.
Five Steps to Take Now to Right-Size Your Ministry Schedule
There is always more work to be done, and there are precious few of us to do it. To make up for it, preachers do more work. And more work. And more work, until our schedules are bulging at the seams. But I suggest that if our schedules are bulging at the seams, there’s something else going on.
Getting the God’s-eye view of your ministry
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.