HOW MANY sermons or talks will you give this year? On the average Adventist pastors probably preach three or four sermons each week. If you add nonregular speaking appointments such as devotionals, funeral sermons, weddings, and evangelistic presentations, it's not unlikely that these would total at least 200 presentations a year.
For most of these occasions the pastor, of necessity, is supposed to prepare new sermons. Unfortunately, owing to the diverse nature of his work and the administrative load he carries, he too often is forced to depend on some "Minister's Annual Manual" or published sermon outlines for his materials rather than his own study and initiative.
In-depth Preparation
Study implies more than devotional reading and the hasty jotting down of notes and texts for a sermon. It means digging into the Bible and other source materials in such a careful and organized way as to enable the pastor to plumb the depths of the subject under consideration. In this way superficial sermons and the preaching of what is basically the same sermon under a different title on occasion after occasion can be avoided. Something more substantial than a catch-as-catch-can "reading" ought to be offered at the midweek prayer meeting, and this also implies thorough study and preparation.
In-depth study naturally involves time. Not only time expended for the basic physical work of digging out the material but time to meditate and assimilate. I find it absolutely impossible, for instance, to decide early in the week that next Sabbath's sermon will be on Joel and, without previous in-depth study, do any kind of justice to the book. What too often results is a general paraphrasing out of the text, the reading of a few more-or-less related passages from sources and commentaries and a moralizing "There fore, brethren, let us . . ." conclusion, but no real Biblical, exegetical message. The problem is that no time was available for prayerful meditation and personal experiential assimilation.
Continuous Learning
In the field of education, the concept of continuous learning is now being given much-needed emphasis. Along with this, as Harold Bernard points out, "Learning how to learn is now of primary importance. There are also some corollaries which merit consideration. Pupils must not only learn how to learn but they must also develop a positive regard perhaps the word 'love' might not be too strong for continuous learning. An aim of education at all levels must be to develop a 'self-renewing' mechanism that will have reference to both the present and the future. . . . Teachers must them selves be involved in the process of continuous learning and in individual self-renewal." *
This concept is certainly a tremendously important one for the minister to apply, and priority in such application must, of course, be given to the area of sermon preparation.
A Three-Year Study Cycle
From the standpoint of one whose experience has included both academy Bible teaching and pastoral work, it is apparent that the main difference between sermon preparation and presentations by a classroom teacher is that the class curriculum is systematized, and the teacher, of necessity, is systematic in his preparation.
As a pastor faced with this problem, I came up with an idea. I don't remember where it came from, but it works for me and may be of help to others. Any topic that one wishes to study re quires four things: reading, close study and research, organization into usable form, and time to meditate and assimilate. This method of study takes a topic or subject area of a Biblical book and organizes it into a three-year program as follows:
First Year. General reading. About one half the books read during this year should be on the topic being emphasized. This reading includes underlining, preliminary note-taking and filing of cross references.
Second Year. A detailed in-depth study of the topic emphasized in reading. Notes are taken, outlines made, in-depth studies undertaken, and documentation filed. By the time this year is over, the minister should pretty well have mastered the topic. His files, at least, are bulging.
Third Year. Organization and presentation of the accumulated and assimilated material in sermon outlines, prayer meeting studies, Bible studies, and other such services.
Each year a new topic for emphasis is chosen, so that while one topic is being studied and researched, preliminary reading is being done in a new area and a third topic is being organized into form for various presentations.
Of course, this doesn't mean that only this topic is presented in sermons during the course of the entire year. Other materials are studied, prepared, and presented as is usually done in pastoral ministry. But it does mean that in-depth study of a particular area of concentration is added to the ordinary type of study program so that after a few years' time the pastor has available a wealth of background and carefully researched material on which to build his sermons and talks.
By following this type of program, it is actually possible for even the district pastor to systematically study over the years a large number of topics and have fresh sermon material at hand. A wealth of material is built up, and preaching does not become one-sided.
* Harold W. Bernard, Psychology of Learning and Teaching (3d ed.). (New York, McGraw Hill, 1972), p. 42.
