by Barney Wells, DMin
Director, The Fred Craddock Center for Preaching Excellence
Last week, the Sermon Crafting Blog looked at the benefits to both the preacher and the congregation of preaching a series of sermons. This week, as promised, we continue by looking at some common kinds of sermon series and how to craft them. Before we look at those in detail, let me suggest one guiding principle for a series: consider the length. A series should probably be at least three sermons and rarely more than thirteen. When I was a seminary student and had just begun my first regular (every Sunday) preaching ministry, I proudly mentioned in class that I was beginning a sixteen-week series on the Holy Spirit. My homiletics professor chuckled and said that should be a challenge for both me and the congregation. It was. While the length of the series is controlled by the biblical material to be covered, the vast majority should fall in that 3–13-week window.
The simplest approach to a sermon series is to preach through a book. Ephesians, Colossians, or 1 Peter in the New Testament, or Jonah or Ruth in the Old would be good places to start. A series 4-8 weeks in length will let you cover the entire text of these books, emphasizing the main idea in each logical section. For larger books like Genesis or Romans, you probably can’t read every word of the text in a series that goes beyond 13 weeks, but you can encourage the congregation to read the entire book as you preach through it, then your sermons can come from texts that summarize or carry the main message of each section of the text.
The Gospels present a challenge of being longer books, but you can go beyond the 13-week window by preaching through a Gospel between Christmas and Easter. This works particularly well for Matthew and Luke. This year there are 15 Sundays from Christmas to Easter; the least there can ever be is 14, and the most there can be is 19. While that is never enough time to hit every chapter in Matthew, Luke, or John, it is enough to cover carefully selected, representative sections.
Another approach is to preach a series of book sermons, where you preach one sermon from each of several book of the Bible, summarizing the main message. John and Luke each explicitly state the main message of their gospels, Luke at the beginning and John at the end. Book sermons from each of the twelve minor prophets would make a series, or a series on the five “books” within Psalms would work well.
There are also other approaches that can take you through a book, but not in a verse-by-verse fashion. Consider preaching through Acts by looking at the conversion accounts (3000, 5000, the Ethiopian, Saul, Cornelius, Lydia, the Philippian jailer) or through a Gospel by looking at people who met Jesus (Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man at Bethesda, the man born blind, all in John’s gospel, other groups of people are in other gospels). You can also do a series on just a smaller section of Scripture, such as the Sermon on the Mount. A series could look at the questions of Paul (he asks over 230 rhetorical questions in his letters—choose five or six). You get the idea.
A sermon series can also focus on topics that then lead to selected texts. A series on “words from the Word” might look at some major biblical vocabulary, like grace, peace, hope, joy, sanctification, and such—in other words, a sermon-series of word studies, each reflecting back on Christ, of course. A series might be seasonal, like preaching some texts on the family in the five or six weeks between Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day or preaching an Advent series in December. A month with a short series of “hot button” cultural topics can work.
You can benefit the congregation and yourself by planning and preaching sermons in a series, regardless of who wins the pennant race.