I am working on the weekend message this morning. Lots of people have been asking me how I prepare for the weekends. This is a hard question for me to answer, because sometimes it seems kind of random to me in how I do things. I will give it a shot though...
1) I am a week of guy when I prepare for the weekend... In other words, I do not have next weeks message ready to go... I do not even have this weeks ready to go. I knew what I was preaching about this weekend about two months ago... but I do not put it together until the week of. Why? I do not really know... But I think it is because I am tweaking the message up until I walk out on stage and even on stage sometimes. This is the way I roll. My team knows the idea... Most of the time... So they are able to create sets, videos, and things to go with the message or series... But the message is put together the week of.
2) Where the big ideas come from: Lots of times the series idea flows out of my time alone with God... I am going to do a whole series later on this year based on something that jumped off the pages of scripture last week in my time alone with God... It touched me deeply... Now it works in me, so it can work through me. I will lob this out to our creative team and some pastor friends in the next few weeks and we will build a series out of it.
Sometimes I will hear other communicators say something... Then off to the races we will go with another series. Sometimes they can say one phrase and it triggers us to build a whole series.
Another way I come up with ideas... I listen to our people. This encourages me to go into God's Word and help find answers for their questions.
Sometimes I may know the big idea months in advance or even a year before we do the series.
Knowing the big idea helps me when I am reading, listening to others, and talking with people... I get all kinds of stuff for my sermons, because I know the big Idea in advance... It is like creating anything. You learn and add... learn and add... tweak... learn and add.
The hardest thing in preaching is you really never turn your mind off. It works all the time... unless you totally disengage for a few weeks. The weekend is always coming and Pastors are always thinking about ways to communicate God's Word in a way that works in the hearts of people.
1 comment:
Thank you for letting us peek into your inner world and sharing a bit how you work! It always comes out right at the end, no matter how you get there! God bless!
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