by Barney Wells, DMin
Director, The Fred Craddock Center for Preaching Excellence
If you haven’t listened to the classic Good Friday meditation by Shadrach Meshach Lockridge, it’s certainly worth your time. “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Coming” is a masterful example of the use of language, repetition, and cadence in a sermon. Lockridge was, of course, talking about the crucifixion in light of the resurrection—a message filled with hope. For many busy preachers, however, that same phrase can have a very different meaning—one full of pressure and anxiety. It’s Friday, and I have to preach Sunday, and I’m still not sure what I’m saying or even what text I’m preaching, and I was just informed a church member has been taken to the ER, and the copier just broke down, and my daughter has a band contest tomorrow, and—it’s already Friday, and Sunday is coming, coming fast, much too fast.
Preachers, I’m advocating, I’m recommending, I’m begging: plan your preaching. Plan your sermons well in advance, weeks or better yet, months in advance. There is no other ministry task you will do during a week that is more important than preaching, because it is the one thing you do that touches every person in the congregation. Counseling may help one or two at a time, a prayer group or Bible study may help a dozen or so, but your weekly sermon will touch more people than anything else you do. It is important, but unfortunately it is rarely urgent. Sermon preparation time can be put off or shuffled around when a congregant shows up with a need, or some piece of equipment breaks down. Before you know it, the week is gone, it’s almost Sunday, and the sermon preparation that has been put off for more “urgent” things is still undone.
So how does a busy preacher find time to plan ahead? One way is to take a week when you don’t have to preach, when there is a guest speaker, and use the time when you would normally prepare a sermon to sketch out several sermons—at least the text and the theme or big idea of each. Preaching sequentially through a book of the Bible will help you settle on a sequence of texts. If you can’t plan a full year’s worth of sermons, try to do three months, or even one month. Then try to always work at least a week ahead, so that next week’s sermon is ready. Then if you do hit that week with urgent demands, you still have the sermon for that week ready.
Sundays come every seven days. Plan on it.