Contributed by Eric Morris, Victory Student Ministries Director and Twenty Four Seven Pastor.
Growing up in the church I don’t really remember the branded sermon series that are now so prevalent in most churches. Now day’s churches like Elevation, Life Church, and many others have series that is branded around an idea or subject. Every month has a “Theme” that is advertised all over social media. While I was in college I was taught expository preaching going verse by verse systematically through the bible. While this developed a great disciple in me of allowing the word to speak for itself, as well as over time presenting a holistic picture of God’s word I found it difficult to brand in a “cool and catchy” way.
Many times we see ministers lean towards topical preaching, where they take and idea and then find scripture to build off of that topic that they feel lead to speak on. This allows you to brand and market a series more easily.
For young students just beginning the preaching journey I want to encourage you in just a few things.
- Start with Scripture : Whether you are a topical preacher or expository always start with what the scripture is saying. The scripture is a bottomless well to preach on. The topics and series you can mine from the scripture will always be rich. It just takes true study and preparation. If you constantly find yourself coming up with ideas and then attaching scripture, it could lead to redundancy in your preaching.
- You preach alone but you don’t have to prepare alone: Yes, there is an element to preparing your message that must be done between you and God, but one practice that has truly enhanced my sermon preparation and creativity is inviting trusted individuals to help me study and creatively think about to communicate in a impactful way. The way this looks practically is as the preacher, you responsibility is to do your study and prayer to hear from God on direction, but then invite others to help build out what you have received from the lord.
- Take notes : Many young preachers are probably sitting under someone, or are not the regular weekly communicator. One piece of advice I received very early is take notes in all sermons, because many times God will give you a message that could be completely unrelated to whatever is being taught on. I also like to have a note available when I do my personal bible reading, as there are moments when scripture presents itself and jumps off the page.
I pray this helps and encourages those of you in areas of ministry where preaching is part of your responsibility!