What is the sermon writing process? Does the speaker write the sermon in isolation, or is there a collaboration among church leadership during the drafting process?
While each of our pastors has their own unique way to best prepare a sermon, this answer is from Pastor Tucker who preaches the majority of our Sunday morning sermons.
Wow, that is a great question. My sermon writing process has changed from season to season, and I imagine it will continue to change, as I’m just not someone who finds the creative spark—and more importantly the voice of God—through a set formula. Sermon writing requires me to continually make sure that I’m not just putting out templated sermons.
There is definitely a temptation to get really good at finding three points and a catchy title, but my fear is that I wouldn’t actually be capturing the heart of what God is trying to say to our church. So, season by season, I look for new ways to stay fresh in the Word and to let God speak to me as I prepare to speak to our church.
In my early days, I would meet with my Bible mentor Tom Velasco (one of our elders), and we’d spend time talking over the sermon and different ways the Scripture was typically understood in the passage we were covering. I’d read the text, take lots of notes in my journal, and then meet with Tom to ask him questions about the Word and what it meant for that passage of Scripture. After that, I’d go back and do a lot of writing (and some drawing) trying to capture all the little things in my note. That season lasted for a couple of years. Then, feeling a shift, I moved to a more quiet and solitary approach. I would read over the text, think about it throughout the week, and write down notes as ideas came to me. I won’t go over every season of sermon writing (I’ve blocked the Covid era from my memory), so I’ll share the most details for my current process.
Now, we have what I call the Teaching Team. Anyone who is teaching the current week’s passage of scripture is invited to a mid-week meeting where we discuss the text at hand. This typically includes Parker (high school and middle school), Connor (Calvary Communities), Seth (Worship), Kirk (Cole), and Reggie (Trinity), and we all read through and discuss the passage together. I’ve also asked Dr. John Whitaker to be a crucial member of the team as a checkpoint for doctrinal questions, help understanding the original languages, and very useful sermon writing philosophies he has gathered from years of teaching young preachers at Boise Bible College. Also, his Listener’s Commentary is a great supplemental for all of our pre-meeting studies.
The teaching team meets in the middle of the week, and from there I take the different ideas, perspectives, and inspiration from that time of conversation in the Word, and I spend a good day wrestling with what the Lord is revealing to me as the most important thing to share, and then I start to think through the best way to share it.
Then, all day Saturday, I get alone. I take all my notes and the ideas, and I just spend the day with God. I might walk the Greenbelt, go to the foothills, park my car by a river, or sometimes just sit in a parking lot to be alone with the Lord and the Word.
After that, I come home for a meal with my family on Saturday night and try to get to bed early. Then, I wake early on Sunday morning, drive downtown, and think about everything I’ve written down and all my different ideas. I do a prayer walk through the city, talking to God, watching the sunrise, and thinking about the service we’re about to have. If there’s anything going on in the world, our city, or our church, I pray through that and make sure I’m focused on the Word while also letting it speak in real time.
I usually wrap that up around 7 AM, come back, take a bath, and get ready for church. I have one last quiet time during worship, and often times the Lord speaks to me then, leading me to add a few things to the sermon. My final sermon preparation happens during that prayer before I start preaching—I just quiet my heart, ask the Lord to use my words. Then I wait and see. I hope you are blessed by the sermons I get to share with our church. If you are asking this question because you are trying to prepare a sermon or feel the call to someday preach, I hope you find the right steps in your process. They could be similar to mine and they could be totally different. My encouragement to you is to do your best to share what God is sharing with you. Don’t worry about how it sounds or how you compare to other preachers. Only God can make a sermon effective.
