Hey Friend-

It's week 3 in a writing series about creating a yearly sermon calendar. Today, I want to talk about developing sermon series in the yearly calendar.

Week 1 | Are you thinking about your 2025 preaching calendar yet?​
Week 2| Crafting Your Sermon Calendar.
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I didn't learn to preach sermon series in seminary. Growing up, I remember being around sermon series, but it wasn't always the norm. I remember at first it was simply some overarching theme and slowly they became more and more normal.

When I first started preaching weekly, I immediately went into sermon series. It wasn't long until I realized starting off a new series on the first of each month when United Methodist churches normally serve communion, could create a more complex Sunday than necessary.

Why?

Because at that point I thought every series needed to be huge.

And the first Sunday of the series needed to be the largest. I had been doing a consistent stream of 4 sermon series each lasting a month. Many people I talk with do the same thing.

When I began church planting, I slowly fell into a new idea of how to do sermon series in a way that doesn't burn out the church or slide into the same pattern over and over.

So Chad, you are writing this month about a yearly preaching calendar, how does this fit?

That right there is the question I want to answer and the perfect time to build in this strategy of sermon series is when you are working on your year-round plan. I like to plan for 4 types of sermons.

1. Big Sermon Series: These are major series. With invite cards and I am really intentional about every stage of the process. I want to make sure each message connects to the other in a larger flow and scaffolds the learning and information. These are usually also highly evangelistic series designed to be easy ways to invite your friends to church.
2. Mini Series: Shorter (sometimes), but less focused overall. This is more of a thematic series. I pay attention to the sermon, but we aren't doing the rest of the dog and pony show with the launch. They might be more discipleship or "interior" focused.
3. Special Day Sermons: Mother's Day, Pentecost, those sorts of things. They are outside any series and I don't try to make them fit.
4. Stand-Alone Sermons: These sermons do what the title says. They stand on their own. They are designed to be a placeholder between series OR a message with a singular focus.

Here is how I start trying to design them as I plan a year of series.

1. I have my big list of sermons or series ideas I want to focus on. We talk about this in a previous email, but I always have a running list of these. When I get an idea, it goes into the list.
2. I decide if how the sermon fits into the previous 4 categories. How does that help me make the next few decisions?
3. When I begin to form out an idea for a series, the first question I ask is "How long will it take for me to do this well?". That gives me an idea of the weeks involved. Rather than the standard monthly series, I realize it might take 3 weeks or it could take 10 weeks. I still like the 3-4 week span for Big Sermon Series, but I am willing to change it up depending on how much time I need to communicate things. For mini-series, I have done 2 to 8 weeks.
4. I then begin asking how this sermon fits into the cultural calendar of the year. I know there are 3 main times new folks are more likely to come to church. The beginning of the school year (post-labor day), the new year, and after Easter. Those slots always go to Big Sermon series.
5. I then start making sure I have at least something notated for each of the Special Day sermons. I want to start seeing which gaps I need to fill in.

At this point you should have at least major parts of the year lined out. Special Sundays, and around 3 sermon series at some pretty crucial points of the year. At this point in the year, I now want to add in any vacation days or times I am going to be out on Sunday morning. If you have multiple people preaching, it isn't a bad idea to at least block out the days when someone else might be preaching.

What I start to do at this point is looking where my mini-series sermons might begin to fit in. I do take the time to ask myself if there is a sequence to when this might be the most effective, in both discipleship and the church calendar. I try to start dropping them in where they make sense. After that, your calendar is starting to look decently full.

Now, I begin assigning stand-alone sermons to the calendar. Sometimes I realize a stand-alone message can prop up an upcoming series or I realize a certain type of sermon I haven't thought about might work well also. I will try to brainstorm enough of it to get the information into the calendar.

At the end, you hopefully have 52 weeks of sermons planned. I much prefer this idea of different types of series AND sermons to help think through a year of preaching.

If you've got questions or just want to say hi, remember you can always hit reply to this email and get in my inbox.

Chad

PS. Have you checked out today's Productive Pastor episode? It is all about preaching with vision and strategy. Listen here.