PP83 : How I Plan A Year Sermons
Everyone wants to have a sermon plan for the year, but how do you get there?
It took me a few years of weekly preaching to figure out MY system, but it has formed the backbone of my own process for nearly a decade. Let me show you what I do to get there each year.
Do you want to be part of my yearly ministry planning workshop on December 11th? It’s $25 and we are covering how to plan, how to map things out, AND how to think through project management. Sign up here.
Collecting Sermons Through the Year
Throughout the year I am thinking about potential sermons. I keep track of them in an Evernote folder, and I also have a certain colored tag for reading that notates some idea or concept. The closer I get to the end of the year, I start compiling things from my journal and reading into the document. That way, I am not sitting in front of a blank page when I start thinking through the series.
Designing the Calendar
I always build out my sermon calendar in Trello. I teach a whole module of Trello for Personal Ministry on this idea. I find a visual calendar works best for this sort of thing. Here are the elements (and sequence) I ask myself while building this.
Major Sundays
What Sundays fall on the calendar and when? This makes sure I know when both sacred and secular things are going on. When is Mother’s Day and when is the first Sunday of Advent…those sorts of things.Major and Mini Series Design.
For me, a major series is super evangelistic and designed for people to invite their friends uniquely. These series are almost always about felt needs in the community and mission field. If it is appropriate in your context, these are the series I make invite videos for and perhaps create even more content for. I can handle 2-3 of these a year. Tops.Mini-series are preaching series that might not have as deep of connections and aren’t as invitational. I usually preach through a smaller book of the Bible each year. This is a great example. Or just walking through a specific teaching of Jesus, like the sermon on the mount. The big difference between major/mini isn’t the content, but how it is shared to the larger church and community.
When I am at this place, I try to ask myself the question “How long will this take?” and get an idea of how many weeks this series will need to be.
Stand-Alone Sermons
I try hard to not make every series 4 weeks, and start on the first Sunday of the month. That gets a bit predictable AND really limits what you are trying to do. So between Major Series and something else, I will have a couple of sermons that can stand alone. I like to preach Psalms for these sermons. The BIG stories of Jesus or other Bible characters would make sense here as well. If you can think through these thematically, that will help your planning as well.
Building the Calendar
Once I have all of this information down, I start building out the calendar. First, I write down all of the dates of those BIG holidays. Then I start sequentially putting together my series blocks. If something needs to come first, I make sure it shows up higher on the list. You might not really need any ordering like this, or maybe just for a few things.
Get it hammered out first.
Since you’ve already asked yourself the question “how long will this take?” you can start putting the series on the calendar. This way you can make decisions about maybe shortening a series, or if it is a “mini-series” you can let it get split up by one of those holidays.
For major series, realize these work best at certain times of the year, so make decisions about when and where those might go. For example, you don’t want to start a major series, complete with an invitational campaign, on Labor Day Sunday. Instead, move it forward a week, and put a stand-alone sermon on that weekend.
Once you have some practice, this method will help you get a really good 50,000ft view of your preaching calendar. It doesn’t mean things won’t change, but this helps you.