Teaching/Preaching Advice: Part 1, Teaching Calendar

First thing to focus on: Teaching Calendar (this is not a book so the thoughts are a little jumbled, here we go)-

Too often, Bible teachers spend little to no time thinking in advance what they’ll be speaking about. Either because of an overloaded schedule or an arrogant-like, over-dependence on the leading of the Holy Spirit; they’ll plan their message (in it’s entirety) for that week…THAT week, often even the night before.

I’ll adress those two reasons.

First, I believe that the teacher (usually also the head pastor) within a church has its most important and central role. They are the ones who communicate the church’s mission, vision, purpose, beliefs and values. They are the ones who teach the church the Bible, preach visitors the Gospel; and cast vision and envision ministries to the glorification of God and the advancement of His kingdom for his elders, board, deacons, ministers, and volunteers to administer and implement.

Too many times these leaders are expected by the their church to do too many things: counseling, visitation, secretarial work, book keeping, adminstering and implementing different ministries, prayer gatherings, phone answering, etc….

Now of course, all of these things are things that a pastor will have to do from time to time- especially more so in a smaller church. But the more empowerment a leader gives to elders, deacons, ministers, and volunteers; the less of a load he will have to carry so that he can spend the majority of his time doing what’s most important in his job: preparing the preaching of God’s work and casting vision for the church to follow.

Second, the most important thing a teacher (pastor) can do, after continual Bible study, is rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to direct, guide, and inspire them.

However, I have seen and heard of too many leaders that almost overly rely on the guidance of the Spirit when it comes to message prep.

You’ll hear things from them like,” I haven’t been led to know what I will be speaking about this weekend yet,” “God will give me what to say when I stand up to say it,” and “I haven’t gotten the go-ahead yet from God on the message I want to bring.”

Now trust me, I believe in the Spirit of God leading a teacher what to speak about. But the Holy Spirit is not a God of disorder. He’s a God of order. And while the Bible is clear on the sovereignty of God, it’s also clear on the responsibity of man. One such responsibilty we have is planning. This especially comes into play when getting ready to speak the Word of God.

I believe that failing to plan is planning to fail. And I don’t believe that God will greatly bless us in our efforts if we don’t prepare and work properly on the task at hand.

Look at Joseph in the book of Genesis! His whole life was sovereignly moved by God, but it was also a life of taking responsibility and allowing God to change bad situations into positive ones through faith, planning, patience, and the using of his gifts and talents.

So allow the Holy Spirit to lead you what to speak about. But pray about it and envision your speaking topics months, if not a year or so, in advance.

God will guide you, then you’ll have time to properly execute the preparation of your message. You’ll have time to come up with the right illustrations, study the right materials, write out exactly what you want to say, and to study and rehearse your finished message- all of that probably finished weeks before the day you nbd to give the message.

Planning out ahead gives you the opportunity to teach on large themes or books of the Bible and to connect them with other message series before or after them. It gives you clarity when planning the rest of your schedule for months into the future.

Planning ahead will always be most simple and most effective if you do series. Planning far in advance stand-alone messages would be very difficult.

With a series, you can decide many months in advance what you will focus on each week of the series, then have ample time to study and prepare a sermon for each of those topics.

Some people are afraid that they won’t be able to come up with a series months in advance. Don’t worry! God WILL guide you, but if you really can’t come up with anything, pick a book of the Bible and expositionally walk your people through it over the course of several weeks or months (even years). You can’t go wrong with the Bible. Just make sure that you break the book down into parts that you want to spend a week on, determine how long the series will be, then plan the next series after that and start studying for upcoming series.

Once applied, this principle will be liberating. Involve your elders and minaret staff in your decisions for your speaking calendar. God may use them to direct you where to go. Plus, you may even plug them or other great speakers into a rotation so they can take a week or two of your series for you so you can focus on…planning the next series…

I have always found that no matter how good of a speaker you are, audiences always respond better to someone who has invested much time and forethought into the preparation of the message being given. And they can always tell if someone is unprepared or simply winging it.

More to come tomorrow-

2 Responsesto “Teaching/Preaching Advice: Part 1, Teaching Calendar”

1. Bo Lane says:

   March 17, 2010 at 7:13 am

   I believe Jesus was intentional in everything that he did. From sleeping in the boat during a great storm, to waiting a few days to heal his buddy Lazarus – from every word he spoke, to every moment he was silent, Jesus had a plan. But I also believe that allowing the Spirit of God to speak through him in ways unexplainable to man was also a part of his plan.

   I agree with your thoughts of planning out messages. I believe it’s important to become successful at speaking (having a plan in any profession is important). But I also believe that if being led by the Spirit isn’t a part of that plan (changing the direction of your message at the last minute or throwing it out all together to listen to what God would have you speak on, etc), then you are setting yourself up to miss out on being part of a greater plan – one we don’t fully comprehend but one we believe in wholeheartedly.
2. Anthony says:

   March 18, 2010 at 12:00 pm

   I mostly agree Bo. Read my post ‘Drop‘ to see that I too am open to the last minute leading of the Spirit. You just better be sure it’s the Spirit and don’t allow your lack of planning to lead you into thinking that it is.