Behind The Scenes Of Making A Sermon - Day 1
DAY 1 - TUESDAY
Around 10pm, I finished episode 002 of my podcast. Sunday is coming and I don’t have a sermon text or topic. Yikes! So I look at my sermon garden.
This is my lovely sermon garden. When a sermon idea sounds promising, it gets turned into a folder and put in the sermon garden. Any time I run across news articles or quotes that might serve to illustrate one of these sermon ideas, I’ll put it in that folder.
As I look at the garden, the folder titled, “Losing to win” stands out.
Before committing to this sermon idea, I pray, “Jesus, if you want me to preach this sermon this Sunday, let it be heads.” I flip a coin on my phone app.
It is heads, so I commit to this sermon idea.
Notes in the folder, remind me of what sparked this sermon idea to begin with.
At this point, I have a general idea of where this sermon is headed.
“Losing To Win” sounds like an interesting sermon title, but as I study during the rest of this week, I might discover a better title. The sermon title may change ten times before I land on the actual sermon title.
I take sermon titles more seriously than I used to, because people will skip over titles that are too vague, and titles that reveal too much too soon. People are drawn to titles that create a desire to know more and make a promise.
The sermon title, “How To Be An Inspiring Leader” is promising to teach you how to be an inspiring leader. People wanting to hear a sermon specifically about how to be an inspiring leader will soon be disappointed if they realize, 30 minutes into the sermon, that the sermon isn’t about being an inspiring leader at all. Then they feel tricked. So I try to make title promises I intend to keep.
It’s late. I better sleep. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.