The sermon has been the centerpiece of protestant worship since the reformation. Up until a few years ago my idea of sermon preparation was essentially confined to the pastor in the study, surrounded by books. Yes of course, it has always been the preacher’s job to find ways of presenting Bible truths in ways that would be relevant and could be applied in the life of the congregation. The sermon must connect with an audience.
Traditionally, the pastor knew the congregation and the broader community intimately through pastoral visitation. That knowledge was the basis for how he/she developed sermons, week by week to meet the needs of the congregation. I still believe pastoral visitation is probably the best way to build this knowledge. No technology can replace face time with another person. Yet I must acknowledge that the world is not the same as even a decade ago. People are busier, more guarded and private than ever; pastors are burdened with larger loads of administration and church running than ever. This combination makes necessary using different methods to achieve similar results.
A few years ago, I heard a suggestion from a colleague that opened up my thinking about sermon preparation. He suggested a strategy that he uses in a very large congregation to make sermon preparation a participatory process rather than the work of a solitary wisened sage in the study. He has a committe that meets regularly weeks, even months in advance of a sermon. He provides them with the biblical content that will be presented and some resources as starting points to their conversation. They then study, prepare questions, provide illustrative anecdotes or even jokes that might work with the themes that develop. He then takes all of that as an adjunct resource to his own study as he writes the sermon, and a fine preacher he is too.
Since I heard his suggestion, I thought it would be fun to try. There’s only one problem–his committee is about the size of my active congregation! I tucked his strategy away for future reference. A few months ago I was looking at download statistics for the audio files of sermons on our webpage. Suddenly it hit me, there’s a world wide congregation that listens to sermons from Victoria that reaches to the thousands of downloads per month. Might it be possible to form an online sermon circle that does what my friend’s committee does? Blogging certainly provides the power to do just that, but also to complete the circle to debrief and discuss the sermon after it was delivered.
This blog is my attempt to see if it works. Keep in mind, the objective here is not “sermon by committee!” I expect that there may be many posts that I can only use as touchpoints as I craft the sermon toward people who will hear it. One further note in that regard, my primary congreagation will always be those who attend Victoria in person. Tomorrow, I will open the discussion for my upcoming series, “Exit to God.” This series will be based on the book of Exodus.
Tags: Add new tag
