A good pastor’s life is a busy one. Whether you’re living the stretching reality of bi-vocational ministry or full-time ministry employment, the time challenge is always a reality. From meetings, to counseling, to sermon preparation, it’s a long succession of planned events…and unplanned ones as well! But sometimes, you find yourself saying “these last 7 days, wow, what a week it has been. I mean, what a busy week, no, an unbelievably busy week.”
Since you do have to prepare a sermon this week (again), how do you get ready to “proclaim the Word of God and rise to the occasion and preach when it is convenient and when it is not.” 2 Timothy 4:2 TPT ? The answer lies in two approaches which you’ll discover by continuing reading.
APPROACH ONE: the typical week
If your typical week is always, or just about always, unbelievably busy and overwhelming, then you need to try the B.U.S.Y. way. It won’t solve your weekly concerns instantly, but you’ll be able to get a handle on it in a few weeks.
It is hard to sustain a hectic pace over a long time period without paying dues to the stress that comes with it. The B.U.S.Y. approach is there to help you master your planning and not become a slave to circumstances. Once you walk on this new path of B.U.S.Y. work, you will live out newly discovered freedom and regain your passion in your preaching ministry.
B is for Bible
Your Bible is still your main source material. Communicators sometimes fall in one of these traps of “I don’t know what to preach on” or “I don’t know which text to preach on”. To break free, you need to realize there are thousands of messages contained in the pages between Genesis and Revelation and hundreds of different topics too. It is easier to choose a text and work something on it than look for a specific text.
Every preacher has fallen in those holes to a certain degree, so don’t be hard on yourself. As a Gospel communicator, you need some “Jesus time” daily, even if it is in small amounts. Use these five reading tools to help you.
- Yearly plan to read through the Bible. And stick to it!
- Read 1 Gospel chapter a day. Once you’ve read the four Gospels, start over. All 89 chapters will be read four times a year. You will have a better understanding of Jesus’ life on Earth.
- Read 1 Proverb a day. It means you’ll go through the book of Proverbs monthly, gaining wisdom and perspective on a regular basis.
- Read 2 Psalms a day. Since there are 150 of them, you’ll be letting each psalm’s emotional and human experience move you five times a year.
- Read 2 chapters a day from the Epistles, including Acts. You will cover 75% of the New Testament at least twice a year.
Doing this daily requires less than 60 minutes a day, even if you note ideas, great verses and topics that come to your mind as you read. The Holy Spirit will inspire you. Guaranteed. “God now unveils these profound realities to us by the Spirit. Yes, he has revealed to us his inmost heart and deepest mysteries through the Holy Spirit, who constantly explores all things.” 1 Corinthians 2:10 (TPT)
U is for Use free resources
Yes, there are tons of free (or just about free) resources that can help you in your preparation. SermonSearch , SermonSpice and even ChurchStaffing all have great articles, some have sermon outlines and illustrations, application videos or even online sermons. You can draw tons of inspiration from these great websites.
S is for Schedule your sermon preparation
You could certainly benefit from a week-long approach to your preparation. You should also appoint specific daily time period for crafting your message. Many pastors hold dear to the last day of the week to prepare their message. For some of them, it might work. But if you are, for whatever reason, unusually busy all the time, your sermon prep will be better if you divide your sermon construction over five days.
Day 1: Main idea. One week it’ll take you five minutes to figure this out and some other weeks, well, you’ll agonize on it a little bit. Since you are Bible reading daily, you will know which text you’ll want to communicate.
Day 2: Define your points. Working this way will facilitate your preparation and delivery. You tie every point to your main idea. Most pastors will hold 3 or 4 points that are directly related to the main idea. This works with any type of message you preach (topical, expository or textual). For example, if your main idea is “Jesus cares” because of things you read in the Gospels during the week, your points could be Jesus cares when you are weak, Jesus cares even when you don’t and Jesus cares in every situation.
Day 3: Illustration Day. You may decide this is the day where you look for quotes, illustrations, images or anything else that would enhance your message. Your discoveries will help your listeners to remember what you preached on.
Day 4: Put it all together. Now, you have a message with a clear idea that is sustained by great points, seasoned with a moment to remember.
Day 5-6. Marinate. Let the Word of God do its work within you. Memorize it, read it again. A bonus with this is that you now have time to add, modify or eliminate parts of your message.
Day 7: Crunch time. When you work hard preparing your message, you will deliver it with ease. If you prepare it with ease, it will be hard to deliver.
Y is for Yield
The time you have planned for your sermon preparation should be absolutely non-negotiable. You have 2 hours planned to write your points? Everything else yields to that. A phone call, an email, a knock on the door? Nope. It yields to your schedule. Unless a life-threatening emergency happens, everything else submits to what you had planned to work on.
If you hold dear to this B.U.S.Y. approach, you will succeed every time. Almost!
APPROACH TWO: the rogue week
A rogue week, unbelievably busy week, well, that happens. On occasion that is. It’s not the usual. It’s outside the norm. In nature or in business, rogue events happen less that 10% of the time. When these occur, here are four things you can do to still preach a great message on very limited preparation time.
- Use someone else’s outline or message. Resources like SermonSearch and SermonSpice will be greatly beneficial to you. You’ll be able to have a clear communication path and work with professional help. You can compare this to buying an all-in-one meal at the groceries like a boxed taco kit!
- Use someone else’s sermon (give him credit for it). YouTube has millions of messages you could deliver to your people. You could even decide to show it on your screen and mention you have a special guest this week! You can compare this to ordering some food from DoorDash or Uber eats.
- Preach one of your past messages and change the wording or main points a little bit. If the message was good enough to preach once, it can be communicated again. You can compare this to eating leftovers from yesterday’s great meal.
- Invest a special guest. Don’t wait last minute but sometimes, you know ahead of time when a week will be a little crazy. You knew about the weeding, the paper you had to write, the conference you were attending or even the in-laws who were coming in for a few days. Have a guest preacher that Sunday and compare this to going out to the restaurant.
The “rogue week” angle is based on the fact that you habitually are ready, prepared and excited to communicate to your church. If this method becomes a little too normal, head back to the BUSY method.
You can do this. Begin your new B.U.S.Y. journey and like the great C.H. Spurgeon, you will “Preach Christ always and evermore” or like Billy Graham often quoted: “My job is to preach the Gospel, which has the power to change men’s lives from the inside out.”
