My Sermon Writing Process

We all have our method. Here is mine.

From time to time, we pastors get asked about our process of writing sermons. In hopes that it could be helpful to my fellow pastors and and other public speakers, the following is my method.

When it comes to writing sermons, I'm not the best example as I spend less time than average preparing sermons these days. I think I'm able to write sermons quickly because of 25+ years of preaching every week (there's no substitute for practice...so keep at it!), and because of habits #1 and #2 and #3 below, which prepare me well to get right into writing the sermon after I've done exegesis and other text study. In a nutshell:

1. As a regular habit, I voraciously read articles of relevance from Christian sources (I especially like Christianity Today, Patheos, Centre for Public Christianity, Gospel Coalition, and Tim Keller’s Gospel in Life). I highlight as I go.

2. I also consume as many secular “common grace” sources as I can on a daily basis (music, film, theatre, and the arts in general, Harvard Business Review, local newspapers and magazines, NY Times Op-Ed's, The Atlantic, and Huffington Post come to mind). I also peruse Twitter and Facebook every day for gems that are trending. This helps give me a window into what is current, what people are thinking about. I try to follow Spurgeon's sermon writing philosophy of preparing a sermon “with a Bible in the left hand, and a newspaper in the right” I highlight as I go.

3. I read a lot of books, alternating between genres. Theology, apologetics, ethics, biography, thoughtful fiction, and of course CS Lewis, who is his own category.

* Doing the above three things will create an at your fingertips “storehouse” of current material that you can draw from. But...it takes time. For me it's worth it.

In addition to the three things above, here is my typical sermon preparation process. I usually do all the reading on Monday, then write the sermon on Tuesday. The entire process takes me about 5-6 hours total.

1. I immerse myself in the text I will be preaching from, first devotionally then academically, and jot down my own insights as I go.

2. I carefully read and highlight several short commentaries...I'm not into long ones typically, though they can sometimes be helpful on more complicated texts. I always use IVP Bible Background Commentary, ESV Study Bible notes, The New Bible Commentary (DA Carson, et al), NT Wright’s For Everyone Commentaries, and the online ESV Hebrew and Greek tools. I continue to jot down more insights as I do this.

3. By this time an outline will have formed in my head. Because I've preached weekly for several years now, outlines usually come to me very quickly after I've done the above preparation.

4. After completing the outline, I usually listen to a sermon on the same text from another preacher or two. James Boice and Tim Keller are frequent go-to's. Also, for apologetics oriented messages, John Dickson can be very helpful. New insights can come to light doing this.
   CAUTION: I don't recommend depending heavily on others' sermon material. For me this is almost always the last step, after I have created my own outline and the sermon's trajectory has already formed in my head. Listening to others' take is mainly for window dressing...last minute insights that could add some extra “pollen” to the sermon I have already written. As Wiersbe once said about preaching, “Take pollen from several flowers, but make your own honey.”

5. After doing the above, I forget about my sermon until 5:30am Sunday morning. I don't like to work on sermons on Saturdays because it's the only full day I get to have with family. So Saturday is guarded time.

6. On Sunday morning, I wake up around 5:30am and go into the office. I spend until 8:30am praying, putting final touches on the sermon, and drilling the content into my head. My outlines are generally short enough to fit on one, single page. I color code my outlines with highlighters. Blue for illustrations, orange for main points and key words, green for sub-points, pink for Scripture references, and yellow for everything else. Then, I go through and circle/underline key words with a thin point black marker to finish it off. By this time I will have been over the notes six times (one with each highlighter, one with the black marker).

7. I preach the sermon.

8. I go home and get frustrated about all the things I wish I had said but didn't, and did say but wish I hadn’t.

9. I thank God that he covers my weakness and foolishness (known and unknown), and that his Word never returns to him void.

10. I take a Sunday afternoon nap.

The finished outline looks like the image at the top of this post. I know, it’s kind of messy. But so am I.

Hope this helps!!!