1. Relieves Stress
Alistair Begg once described preaching as akin to giving birth. His point was not to denigrate the real physical and emotional toll that women face in childbirth, but that the emotional (and sometimes physical) toll on a preacher is absolutely draining as he shares from God’s Word the truths that have come out of the study. It is hard to describe the process of returning to the study the day after preaching knowing that it all begins again. Now, frankly, there is nothing – nothing – that eliminates the stress of a pastor knowing he has to prepare a message from God’s Word for God’s people. Nothing. But, the lack of an annual sermon plan does add to that stress by the pastor not only having to prepare the message, but he also has to spend time in prayer and reflection to determine what to preach that week. Going through such a routine every week is emotionally and spiritually exhausting.
The simple truth is that God can lead us in planning several months in advance just as well as he can on a weekly basis. By planning in advance, however, the pastor can help alleviate a bit of the stress associated with preparing that week’s sermon.
2. Whole Team On Board
A second value of annual sermon planning is that it allows the pastor to bring his entire team on board. When I served in a small church, that “whole team” was my secretary and a music leader. Now, that team includes a few associate pastors, ministry directors and administrative assistants. The issue is not how many people the team involves, what does matter is that you are able to share with key ministry leadership the direction that the preaching will be taking. In my case, my annual sermon plan is in the form of a spreadsheet that includes date, series title, sermon title, passage, main idea of sermon, and any special notes (i.e. holiday weekend, etc). Once the whole staff has this info, they have a better idea of weekly themes and of sermon series themes that will be coming over the course of the year.
A quick note at this point: you may have noticed that “main idea of sermon” is included with the plan I use. Usually that means a pastor needs to take a day or two away to develop the annual sermon plan. In the early years, I took two days to work through a full 12 month plan. Because I have gotten in a “rhythm” of planning, I now spend time in the fall planning for January through June and in the spring planning July through December.
3. An Annual Preaching Record
The final benefit I have found to having an annual sermon plan is the ability to go back and review sermon themes from previous years. It also allows me to evaluate total number of Sundays I have been in the pulpit. In my case, I have found that I need to have one week out of the pulpit every quarter to clear my head a bit. Because I have kept an annual sermon plan for 18 years, I can point back to exactly how many Sundays I have been in the pulpit every year. For example, I know that in my earlier years, I was in the pulpit an average of 49 Sundays per year. Frankly, that is way too much. Over the past 10 years, I have averaged 44.5 Sundays per year. That number is much more manageable.
I’ve been fortunate that the two previous churches I have served have set 42 as the minimum and 46 as the maximum number of days that the pastor is expected to be in the pulpit. This is a very wise approach, especially because those churches did not offer a sabbatical. In those ministry settings, the church did not offer a sabbatical, so I made sure to utilize vacation time in the summer as a mini-sabbatical (2 to 3 Sundays in a row, including one holiday Sunday). Regardless of your setting, an annual sermon plan allows a pastor to know exactly how many Sundays he has been in the pulpit and to share that with church leadership.
After 18 years of using an annual sermon plan, I have found these three benefits to outweigh any extra work in the preparation of the annual sermon plan. If you use an annual sermon plan, what additional benefits have you found?
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