I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
The Sermon Calendar as a Collection Tool | Productive Pastor
Reader
This month I am writing about ways to work on sermons that solve the Monday morning blank page dilemma.
Intro | Preaching When Time Get's Crunched.
Before we go into this week's content, I want to let you know about my digital workshop Establish a Growth Game-Plan on February 29th at 9am CST. Growth in the normal-sized church has a lot of myths around it, and we will take the time to dispel those. In addition, I want to give you resources and tools to strategically think about growth in your church. The first step is about really grappling with your true church size and how we can set contextually appropriate goals. The workshop is $25 and you can jump in on it here.
On with this week's content!
The Sermon Calendar.
Yep, I know we are 6 weeks into the new year. But it isn't too late to not start leveraging a preaching calendar to enhance your sermon preparation.
Let's dig into a few ways using a sermon calendar helps you better leverage time and avoid a blank page each Monday when you start preparing for the coming Sunday.
Figure out a tool.
For me, I want my calendar to both let me visually see my preaching plan AND be able to serve as a dumping ground for all of the different ways I'm engaging the content as I prep. I use Trello to do this. I share how Trello can function as a preaching calendar as part of my course on Trello for Personal Ministry.
I also end up creating a file in Evernote for sermon series or just individual messages I find myself thinking about beforehand. I dropped the link to this file in the Trello card I've built out for the individual sermon. When I was in a ministry situation that required images and more information that needed to be shared with others, I would also put these things inside the Trello card.
Once I've preached the sermon, I also add in a link to the Goodnotes file of my sermon manuscript. I also added the link to the podcast audio for future reference. This lets me take advantage of previous sermons for all sorts of different things.
Visually understand where I am going next.
I like to be ahead in my sermon preparation. I have found this visual style of keeping a preaching calendar allows me to see how many weeks are left before a sermon starts. I know I have 3 Sundays till I am starting a new series, so I need to make sure I am doing whatever reading ahead needs to be done.
Save all those random engagements.
Since I have a decent idea of what I will be preaching for the next 6 weeks or so, I can begin to save any/all of the random ideas I encounter each day. Sometimes this is taking a screenshot of a tweet, or a quote that comes across in my Readwise email each morning.
I might be sitting at the pharmacy waiting on a prescription, or just having an interesting conversation with a friend and an idea comes. I've now got multiple places where I can drop the idea or thought. I'm not that rigid about using my Evernote file or the Trello card, I just try to get things saved.
Avoid a blank page on Monday.
If I am following my system, I never have a blank page when I start working on a new message. At worst, I have a few things saved that I have come across. At best, I even have an outline for the middle piece of my sermon.
A sermon calendar is much more than just a doc outlining texts and titles. It lets you take advantage of so many other things in an organized manner.
Next week I am writing about how I build and work through a reading list for the messages I am planning on preaching for the next 12 months.
Thanks for reading!
Chad
PS - This week's episode of Productive Pastor talks about the three things your church database does for you. It was released today and is already getting a bunch of downloads. I LOVE talking about databases!!! You can listen here.
Curious about one-on-one coaching?
Have you hit a ministry wall?
Maybe you are in transition and need to gain clarity over the next few steps.
Coaching is a fantastic way to gain a better understanding of specific ministry challenges or simply grow in your understanding of productivity and ministry practice. I'm also helping a handful of churches create these journey maps and think through strategic invitational campaigns in the new year.
I'd love to have a free exploratory call with you about what it might mean to work together. You can find out more and schedule that here. https://bit.ly/CoachingWithChad
Hey. I'm Chad Brooks.
I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
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