Decision

The first stage of sermon preparation is knowing what you are going to preach about. In many cases these days, this part of the equation is already decided. Perhaps you are in the middle of a sermon series such as when you are preaching through a book of the Bible or doing a topical series. In those cases, the topic or a passage may already be designated. Some churches have preaching teams that set out a series long in advance. In many churches still, however, it is up to a single pastor to determine what he or she will preach on a given Sunday.

Rev. Ingersoll presents three parts to this decision phase:

• Answer the call.
• Get a word.
• Develop a burden.

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Answer the call.

Are you going to preach? If you are the only pastor and are not on vacation, the answer is yes. You already answered the call when you took the church. You have committed to preach every Sunday.

At other times, you are asked. If you are on staff, you might be offered the opportunity to preach on a given occasion or in a given series. Or perhaps the pastor of the nearby church is away. You have been asked to preach. Will you answer the call?

Get a word.

If you do not have a sermon topic already decided or assigned to you, then you must discern what you believe the Lord wants you to preach. This phase thus requires you to listen to God’s leading. Rev. Ingersoll has Evernote on his phone so that he can constantly be taking notes as he goes around his day. Others might have a little notebook and pen with them to jot down thoughts as they come.

What is going on in the world? What is going on in your congregation? What is the Lord stirring within you? What are you reading in the word? What don’t you want to preach but you probably should? What book of the Bible have you never preached on?

Develop a Burden

Pray that the Lord will impress on your the urgency of this message for the congregation. This sense of urgency is often called a “burden,” a “weight” that the Lord has put on you about the importance of what you are going to preach. Charles Stanley once indicated that his nervousness about preaching went away when he realized that this moment was not about him. It was about the needs of those to whom he was preaching. That made all the difference.

As one works on the sermon, it is important to sense the urgency of the topic for those to whom you are going to preach. That helps you move from merely being the professor to being the prophet and the pastor. Often when preaching is not impactful, it is because the preacher never became impacted by the word God gave them.