Pastor's Pastor

Pastor's Pastor: How to preach week after week: the guaranteed well

Pastor's Pastor: How to preach week after week: the guaranteed well

Both consciously and subconsciously your sermon will grow as you are working.

Floyd Bresee is the Secretary of the General Conference Ministerial Association.

Flying over Mid- America in summer time, one sees myriads of giant, circular fields. Each is kept green by a huge, central-pivot sprinkler system showering well water on the crop day after day for the entire growing season. But sometimes more water is taken out of the earth than nature is able to replenish. It is with good reason that farmers live in perpetual fear that the water table may drop. What a relief it would be if their wells could be guaranteed never to run dry.

The preacher is a lot like those farmers. His sermons keep pulling ideas out of the limited supply stored in his head. He is expected to go on showering fresh, inspiring, deeply spiritual thoughts down upon his congregation week after week for an entire lifetime. It is with good reason that preachers often live in fear that they may simply run out. What a relief it would be if they knew secrets that would guarantee the sermon well to never run dry. Here are three:

Begin biblically

The truly biblical sermon does not just include the Bible. It begins with the Bible. The biblical preacher comes to the Bible first in his sermon preparation. As nearly as possible, he comes with a blank mind, knowing nothing but his passage or topic. He doesn't open the Book looking for something that agrees with what he wants to say. He opens it asking what it tells him he should say. Here's what happens:

When you begin biblically, you have an inexhaustible supply of sermon material. Your well is guaranteed never to run. More than 3,000 of Charles Spurgeon's sermons had been published when that great preacher declared, "After 35 years I find that the quarry of Holy Scripture is inexhaustible. I seem hardly to have begun to labor in it."

When you begin biblically, you don't get bored with your preaching. Why? Because you are continually learning rather than continually repeating over and over what you already know.

Begin early

One of the best secrets to a sermon well guaranteed against running dry—especially in illustrations and practical application—is to start early. Do your Bible study and reading the first days of the week. Keep at it until you feel you know about what God wants said. But you still won't quite know how He wants you to say it. The ideas need to soak in the juices of your mind. You must find illustrations and practical applications.

Now go about your other duties. Let the sermon wander through your mind, floating somewhere between the conscious and subconscious. Starting your sermon early produces these dramatic re wards:

It eases the pressure and lets the creative juices flow. Creativity despises deadlines. Last-minute sermon preparation produces first-rate ulcers and second-rate sermons. The brain's filing system tends to jam when pressed too hard. But if you take off the pressure, it may produce profusely.

It saves time. Instead of gazing at the ceiling trying to come up with a story or poring over books of old illustrations, let illustrations come out of your week. Both consciously and subconsciously your sermon will grow as you are working.

It makes your sermons practical and interesting. Sermons that grow out of the present fit the present. As you visit, as you counsel, as you face moments of trauma that engulf your congregation, as you relate to your own family, ask, "Could my sermon help here?" Or "Is there something here that could help my sermon?" The sermon whose illustrations and practical applications grow out of ministry to your congregation is bound to fit your congregation.

Stay close to Christ

Preaching is overflowing. You cannot overflow an empty cup. The discouraged preacher who can't seem to come up with anything to preach is looking at the empty cup of his own soul and trying to get it to pour out on others what it isn't filled with itself. First fill your own cup. Only then are you ready to overflow.

On the other hand, the cup that is overfilled has to overflow. Filled with Jesus, it is easier to speak about Him than to be quiet. You can hardly wait for your next sermon. The water of life floods over your congregation.

Right now, let Jesus fill your cup. And next time you preach—let it overflow!


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Floyd Bresee is the Secretary of the General Conference Ministerial Association.

May 1989

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