Tag Archives: preaching

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Most Read Articles of 2020

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I did less writing on my blog in 2020. I don’t know if it was covid, my changing role at my church, or thinking about things more than creating.

Whatever it was, I’m thankful for all of you who have stuck with me and continue to read and share this content. I hope that it helps you to lead and live at a higher level.

Below, you will find the most-read posts of the year:

What Will Ministry in a Post-Covid World Look Like?

I wrote this post in April when we were only a month into quarantine and online church, but the 7 questions in it are incredibly relevant to every pastor and staff as we move into 2021 and what the “new normal” will look like.

7 Keys to Preaching to a Camera

Every pastor spent more time preaching to an empty room than they ever planned to when they started in ministry, but the camera and online church are here to stay. Yes, it won’t always be an empty room, but we can and should grow in this ministry arena. And yes, this is the second post on this list with 7 ideas in it!

How to Be Still in a Crazy World

All of us were forced to sit still more than we expected this past year as we spent more time at home than normal. But while we did, the world got crazier. My fear looking back, is that we missed some chances to be still and be with God. Even in this time of the year, this is a timely post to help you be still wherever you are.

Building a Healthy Staff Culture

For many churches and teams, we learned this year the kind of culture we have in our churches and our staff. This was a good thing, but for many churches, also a hard thing to see. If you fall into the category of not liking what you learned, this might help you rebuild your staff culture in 2021.

When You’ve Been Betrayed in Leadership

If you’ve been in leadership any length of time, you’ve been betrayed. You’ve been hurt. 2020 hurt many leaders as we saw people leave our churches for reasons we never expected. Who saw a spiritual divide coming over masks and online church, but here we are. If you have felt betrayed or hurt in 2020, this post is for you.

Relationships in Quarantine – Kindness

Just like the crisis’s of 2020 revealed things in our churches, they also revealed things in our relationships and marriages worldwide. I joked with our kids that they need to marry someone they could quarantine with for months on end. But in the midst of quarantine and life in covid, kindness is still a crucial piece of relationships and something every relationship needs.

5 Thoughts from Moderating a Conversation on Race

One of the most difficult parts of 2020 is seeing the racial divide in our country continue, bu9t one of my favorites parts of 2020 was being able to speak into that at our church in one of our deeper dives (if you missed it, you could watch it here). In this post, I share 5 things I learned from that night. The deeper dive is one of my favorite things to do at our church, and we had some great ones this year. You can see them here. And stay tuned for some great deeper dives coming up in 2021!

Three Things to do Right Now to Strengthen Your Church

Yes, 2020 has eaten our lunches. Yes, leadership is hard. Yes, church ministry is changing, and we aren’t sure what it will look like in 2021 and beyond. But there are some things you can do to prepare and enter that new season stronger.

One Tweak that Took my Preaching to a New Level

I’ve learned a lot about leadership and preaching in my new role at our church, but this lesson, this tweak, took my preaching to a level it has never been at before.

Relationships in Quarantine – How we Destroy Relationships

Relationships are hard but add quarantine into the mix, and it can be even more difficult. And in this time of the year, we can destroy relationships without even realizing it.

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Preaching & the Future of the Church

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A lot has been written about the future and the church in this covid world and what church attendance and engagement will look like in the future.

I think a big part of that and where that ends up will be connected to preaching. And for many of us, for the time being (and a lot longer), that will include preaching to a camera, whether in empty or half-filled rooms or with people watching online.

Pastors know this, but preaching is the rudder of the ship, so to speak, when it comes to church. It is the driver in terms of setting the vision and direction for the whole church. It is the place where we have the most connection and engagement with the biggest group of people.

But, in a post-covid world, that looks a little different than it did in 2019.

But how?

I think some important shifts have happened that preachers need to be aware of.

5 important shifts to preaching in the future.

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1. Focus matters more than time. Any book or blog on preaching or communication will have something about the length of a sermon. Yes, attention spans are shorter today than decades ago. But people are still listening to 3-4 hour podcasts every week, so there is an argument to be made that you can go long.

That isn’t my goal today.

My goal is to make this point: Focus matters more than time. You can have a great sermon that is focused and go for 45 minutes and have a terrible one all over the place, and it is 12 minutes. Time isn’t the factor. It is a factor, but the most important factor over time is the focus of a message.

Is your sermon simple, clear, focused? Does it grab people’s emotions and their minds? Can they walk out with any tangible steps? Do you have a memorable line?

As sermons begin to live longer and people access them in various ways, the focus will need to rise higher than it has in the past. The reality is people will be watching more in homes and listening in their cars.

Focus matters more than the length of time in preaching.

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2. Marry Sunday with the rest of the week. A lot of debate has happened over the years about how much of a sermon should be applied. That isn’t the point of this article.

The point here is how applicable is what you say to the other 6 days of the week, especially because many people will be watching your sermon and engaging with it on a Tuesday night.

I think a big part of the future of the church will have to do with how we equip people to live on mission in their daily lives. Our sermons and content must help people in their relationships, as parents, and as employees and bosses.

How applicable is your preaching?

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3. Helpful content will rule the day. If you scroll through your timeline on any social media channel, there’s a good chance it looks like mine: Lots of yelling.

But the content that will remain and will be the most viewed, I think, will be the content that is the most helpful.

Here’s why this matters for pastors. When our content is helpful, it causes us to think of the people who view it and the struggles they are having. It helps us to see ourselves as servants instead of rock stars. It also helps to take the spotlight off of our church or us and see how we can be, in the words of Donald Miller, a guide to those who are listening.

Helpful content is the most sharable content.

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4. People are longing for meaning. This is connected to #2 but is really important for the future of preaching.

I believe many people will come out of covid with a renewed desire for their lives to matter and make a difference. If 2020 has taught us anything, it has taught us how short life actually is and how we can’t take any day for granted. As communicators and content creators, we can’t miss out on this because the Bible has a lot to say about meaning and our search for it and where to find meaning that lasts.

In a post-covid world, people will be looking more for meaning in their lives.

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5. People are still looking for hope and help. Right now, many people feel hopeless and stuck. If pastors are honest with themselves, many of them do as well.

But this is a great opportunity for churches because we have the hope and help of Jesus.

Each week, each message or video that is created and shared asks: Did I give hope? Did I show where to find help?

I think if we can do that in our messages, people will listen. It will rise above the noise around us. People are more likely to share something that has brought them hope and help. This is why we recommend any book or podcast, or blog to someone.

I think this is also a great grid for us to use when it comes to the messages we preach and the content we create.

5 things pastors need to remember about preaching.

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One Tweak that Took my Preaching to a New Level

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One of my favorite parts of being a pastor is opening up God’s word and preach. To see how God changes people, how He moves them along in their spiritual journeys, and when people have that aha moment of clarity from a sermon.

It is incredible.

Over the years, I have always tried to improve my preaching, but my preaching has gone to a new level in the last year.

And I believe a big part of that is because of the teaching process we have at Pantano.

I didn’t create this, but have greatly benefited and thought I’d share what we do.

The preaching process at our church.

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Like most churches, we plan our teaching calendar out a year in advance. So in August of 2019, we laid out our 2020 calendar of series, topics, speakers, etc. Heading into 2021, because of what 2020 has taught us, we will only plan the first 6 months, so it gives us a shorter runway of topics.

Once the series is laid out, each series is assigned a creator. This creator lays out the passages, the main idea, and the next steps. While these will often get changed by the team, it is a launching off point. The goal is to hand the creative team and the teaching team a roughly half done series.

This all happens 10 – 12 weeks before a series is taught. So the creative team can begin working on stories, videos, and other elements.

The importance of planning your preaching.

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At this point, the teachers have what they are doing, and so does the rest of the team.

13 days before a sermon is taught, the notes are handed to the teacher’s teaching team for them to be reviewed. This team is made of men and women, all ages and personalities. This team is looking for inconsitencies, places where the teacher didn’t go deep enough or far enough or went too deep into the weeds. This team helps to make sure the sermon makes sense, has a good flow, enough personal stories in it, and makes sure that we speak to each person in our church, to the best of our ability.

This team has saved me many times.

Once the teacher has feedback and this team has about a week to give it, they go back to work, going through the comments on a google doc.

How my preaching went to a new level.

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Then, on the Thursday before teaching, we do a live run-through for our teaching and creative team.

No matter who you are, everyone does it live.

At first, this can feel really awkward because you roll into the room and go. But as we have seen in covid, many of us ended up doing this anyway.

For a communicator, this is one of the best things you can do for your preaching.

Why?

You get the feel of a joke; you get the feel of a story. You can work on your eye contact in the room and as it relates to a camera. The team can give feedback on how things feel, how vulnerable you are if you need more information in a section, or how clear your main idea and the next steps are.

Then, the week after, we give feedback to the speaker for how Sunday went.

The importance of feedback in your preaching.

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Is this a lot? Yes. Has this been worth it? Yes.

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5 Tips for Preaching a Great Christmas Sermon

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Thanksgiving is over, it’s almost Christmas, which means if you’re a pastor, you are working on your Christmas message.

Many pastors make the mistake of waiting too long to work on their message, trying to be too creative or just not being creative at all, to the point they’re boring.

If you’ve been in ministry for any length of time, you’ve given many Christmas sermons and series. It is hard to continue to come up with fresh material, to surprise your people or say something unexpected.

I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. I wonder if we need to “surprise” our people with something unexpected.

But this Christmas, you will have people who will walk through your door who have never been to your church (or any church). You will have men and women, boys and girls who walk through your door who are giving God one last shot. People who are skeptical, hurting, doubting, wondering if there is a God in the universe who loves and cares for them.

I say all that because there is a lot at stake at Christmas.

Christmas is the time of year where depression and anxiety reach its peak. Divorce rates double over Christmas. Please, please, please, keep these numbers, stories, and faces in front of you as you preach this Christmas.

Ready?

5 Tips for Preaching a Great Christmas Sermon

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Here are a few tips as you prepare and preach a great Christmas sermon:

Before we get to the preaching, just a quick pro tip!

1. Dress appropriately. It is incredible this still has to be said, but no matter where your church is, people tend to dress up on Christmas. People are out as families; people are meeting potential in-laws for the first time (hoping to make a great first impression), families and friends will take pictures together. So dress appropriately. Also, dress comfortably. There is nothing worse than speaking in the wrong outfit. There is also nothing worse than watching someone in a suit too big (or too small) or pulling at their collar because it is tight so make sure that whatever you’re going to wear matches, is Christmas-y and fits!

Now for more of the how-tos of preaching.

2. Understand the pain and baggage people bring with them. When people walk into your church each week, they walk in with a story, a story filled with hopes, dreams, hurt and pain. Christmas has a way of magnifying our stories.

Christmas has a way of magnifying our stories.

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Arguments that are decades old will come up, broken relationships, divorces, abuse. They will sit at tables with empty seats because of those broken relationships, bad decisions or death.

Many of the people that will sit in your church and mine did everything they could to get to your Christmas Eve service and hold it together. They are stressed, run down, tired, partied out, wondering if their kids are thankful, wondering if they will fail Christmas with their family, worrying about the next year and what it will bring.

They need a moment to catch their breath; to know you hear them; to know God hears them.

3. Tell the Christmas story. Let’s be honest; as a pastor, the Christmas story can be hard because you know it, other people know it, which makes it difficult to keep it fresh and relevant.

The Christmas story is about hope.

And right now in our world, if there’s something that people need it is hope.

If you take what I said in #2 seriously, you should be able to come up with a whole host of ways to bring hope into peoples lives.

One of the struggles I’ve had is that people walk in expecting the Christmas story and I want to surprise them. The reality is, it’s Christmas. So talk about Christmas.

4. Surprise people with the Christmas story. Going along with the previous point, there are so many ways to surprise people and tell them something about Christmas that is unexpected or they didn’t see.

You could talk about doubts people have, the importance of names and stories by walking through a genealogy, talk about God’s presence with us.

The list goes on and on.

One exercise that might be helpful is to make a list of all the questions people have about Christmas and baggage they are carrying in. Then make a list of all the things we learn about God through Christmas.

This exercise should give you years worth of Christmas sermons and series.

5. Be brief and to the point. Lastly, be brief.

While people came to church, they don’t want to spend the holiday at church.

My Christmas message is often the shortest one of the entire year.

That’s okay. People will forgive you. Your volunteers will thank you.

Remember, this sermon is just part of the marathon of your preaching ministry, not the end of it.

5 Tips for Preaching a Great Christmas Sermon

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How to Talk About Money in Your Church

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Many church leaders struggle with talking about money in their church or loathe the offering time. However, this fear can be alleviated by making a shift in their perspective about money. The topic of money is not about money per se. The Kingdom of God and helping people to live as disciples of Christ is the true aim of money. In the words of Peter Greer, “Money is a vehicle, not the ultimate objective.”

The reality for pastors is that money is important. It is needed when it comes to ministry and money is one of the biggest struggles and stresses of the people who sit in your church.

Many pastors this time of year (or after the new year) will talk on money in a sermon. Here are 5 things to keep in mind for the next time you preach on money:

5 things to keep in mind when you preach on money.

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1. People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money. People come to your church to hear what the Bible has to say. They drove there, probably looked at your website, they drove past a sign that said church, so they are expecting for you to open the Bible and read it. I think people want to know what God thinks about a whole host of things, money included.

Why?

Because very few people have strong financial knowledge. There are so many takes on it, ideas on what you should do, how to get out of debt, where you should invest that it becomes overwhelming and then people stick their head in the sand. Telling them what the Bible has to say is incredibly helpful and refreshing to them because it says more than “you should give to the church.”

People genuinely are interested in what the Bible has to say on money.

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As well, most couples are fighting over money. Most people are laying in bed at night stressing over money. Talking about it hits them where they live and answers some of their most burning questions.

2. Get your financial house in order. Many pastors don’t talk about money because many pastors aren’t generous and don’t give. Generosity doesn’t come easy for me but preaching on what the Bible has to say about money has convicted my heart to grow in it. If a pastor doesn’t preach on money, generosity or stewardship of finances, it is usually because he isn’t doing well in those areas personally and that will affect the life of a church. Generous churches are led by generous leaders.

Generous churches are led by generous leaders.

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Be honest with your struggles if you have them. Talk about what you have learned and how God is continuing to grow you. People will resonate with that. Every time I talk about money I’ll hear people say over and over, “Thanks for being open about what is hard for you.”

3. Make sure you don’t make promises God doesn’t make. Especially with passages like Malachi 3, it is easy to make promises God doesn’t make when it comes to money. Is God faithful? Yes. Does God bless people financially when they give? Yes. Are there lots of rich people who don’t give? Yes. Are God’s blessings to us always financial reimbursement? No. This is the one area that a lot of damage has been done in terms of preaching on money.

4. Stewardship is more than money. While most pastors preach on money to get more people to give money, that isn’t the goal. The goal is to help people follow Jesus when it comes to stewardship and that includes money, but also includes how they use their time, house, car, retirement and steward their whole life.

Stewardship is more than money.

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Make sure that when you talk about stewardship, you help people understand that God’s heart is for more than their bank account, but also their calendar, relationships, and heart.

5. Give clear and helpful next steps. You should have clear next step every week that you preach but with money, it is incredibly important. Whether that is doing a 90 day giving challenge, a financial class like FPU or something else. Don’t just leave people hanging on this. Especially because as I said on point 1, people want to know how to handle money.

5 things to do the next time you preach on money.

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3 Tips for Preaching the Book of Daniel

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I just wrapped up a series on the book of Daniel. You can see the sermons and resources here.

Because I get asked a lot by pastors about sermon prep, putting a series together, making the Bible relevant, I thought I’d share three tips to preaching the book of Daniel.

Why?

The book of Daniel is not one that many pastors preach through. In researching it, I found most people who preach through Daniel stop at chapter 6. I’ll be honest; it’s tempting to do. The first six chapters are filled with narrative, extraordinary faith, prayer, and God doing incredible miracles. The last six chapters are filled with visions, revelations, images that are debated and a lot of head scratching.

1. The book is about God, not Daniel, the end times or your church. Yes, the book of Daniel has a lot about the end of the world (especially if you are a dispensationalist), but spending your time on this does a disservice to the book and your church.

The word king or kingdom is used over 150 times in the book of Daniel. That is the theme, that is the battleground of the book. While it’s tempting to focus on Daniel and his life and faith are an essential part of the book, the book is about God and his power. The book is about the temptation to worship something or someone other than God.

2. Don’t get stuck in the weeds. Daniel, like the book of Revelation, is filled with a lot of images. These images are fascinating, confusing and debated. One of the things we decided at the beginning is that we wouldn’t get into the timeline debate that centers on Daniel. You can see how we handled chapter 9 (which is one of the most hotly debated passages in the Bible).

Are there people in your church who want to debate the end of the world, when Jesus returns, who the anti-Christ is? Yes. What we asked was: What are these passages trying to tell us? For us, they came back to who God is and what His character is, so we focused on that. What do these passages tell us about God, because that is what God was communicating with Daniel?

3. Tell people about God’s character and power. Preaching through Daniel, especially when you talk about the lion’s den and furnace, for those who are skeptical about God, these are passages that make you scratch your head. I had multiple conversations with people wrestling with, “Do you believe that happened?”

These passages, the images in the visions and dreams are about the power of God and his character, who He is.

Your church needs to hear those things, and it is an excellent opportunity to show the relevance of them.

Many sermons today, and I’m all for this, are based on felt needs and speak to what the people in your church are struggling with and walking through in their lives. Focusing on who God is, while not a question they are asking, is the question they need answering and is the hope to what men and women are struggling with when they walk into church.

This power not only catalyzed the faith of Daniel but can do the same thing for your church.

One of the most significant examples of this is how much Daniel prayed in the book. While I was preparing for the series, I missed this, but as I was preaching through it, it stood out boldly in the book.

Several times we’re told, “Daniel prayed as was his habit” (or something similar to that). That’s important. When Daniel came up against struggles and power, he prayed to a God he trusted and had the power to save him.

Daniel is a book every pastor should preach through. It is so relevant to our day and age as we struggle to live out our faith in a culture that is opposed to it. It is a book that reminds us of the God we serve and the power He has.

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The 1 Thing Most Christians Miss

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When you think about God, do you think of God’s love for you or God’s disappointment in you?

Do you think of God’s love for you or God’s disappointment in you?

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Stop and think about it for a moment.

If you’re like most people and me, you don’t have to think very long to decide the answer; it’s God’s disappointment, his anger.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that Christians would live differently, our culture and churches would be different if we understood God’s love for us.

We read passages like Romans 8 and how nothing can separate us from the love of God and shrug. Then when we sin, we feel far from God and wonder why we don’t feel close.

We read how God sings over us in delight in Zephaniah but aren’t sure what that means or even how that would feel.

I had a conversation with a friend recently who gave me some pushback on my preaching. He told me that I spent too much time talking about God’s love and not enough time talking about God’s wrath. In his words, the gospel is what we have been saved from and what we are saved to, and I spent the majority of my time in a sermon on what God has saved us to.

The reality for many (especially in the reformed tribe) is to focus solely on God’s wrath and make little mention of his love. The Bible doesn’t say God is wrath. It says “God is love.”

The Bible doesn’t say God is wrath. It says “God is love.”

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I want to return to the question at the top. Is there a verse in the Bible that says God is disappointed in you?

Most people live like there is, but there isn’t.

Now, the Bible has plenty to say about life apart from God, sinful desires, giving into temptations and not letting go of past hurts. The Bible has plenty to say about shame, regret and other sins and negative emotions.

But it doesn’t say that God is disappointed in you.

Make no mistake, if you think God is disappointed in you, that will drastically impact your life.

If God’s love or God’s wrath is prominent in your mind, that determines so much of your life.

If God’s love or God’s wrath is prominent in your mind, that determines so much of your life.

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Back to my friend.

The reality is that I do spend more time on God’s love for us and what we have been saved to.

For a couple of reasons:

1. Jesus spent a lot of time on that. Many times, Jesus would talk with someone and end by saying, “Go and sin no more.” That is future-oriented.

How to be a future-focused preacher.

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2. The Bible is full of hope, and that’s what people walk into a church looking for. Every Sunday people walk into a church looking for hope and help. They may not say that, but that is what brought them there. The beautiful thing about this is that is precisely what the Bible has for us.

The Bible is full of hope, and that’s what people walk into a church looking for.

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Now, to be clear before I get emails. When the text calls for it, talking about God’s wrath is something we do at our church (we spent almost a whole year in Romans once). It is in the Bible.

I’ve learned though that regardless of whether or not you have a church background, believing in God’s wrath is not difficult. Believing in His love is.

The 1 Thing Most Christians Miss (and It’s Big)

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Links for Leaders 4/6/18

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It’s the weekend…finally. Today is a special day as it is mine and Katie’s 16th anniversary! So that’s fun. We’re working on a post about some of the things we wished we would’ve known when we got married, so stay tuned for that.

We’re spending it with our 5 kids traveling to Pennsylvania for my grandmother’s memorial service. So we’d appreciate your prayers for that (and the people who have to sit next to us on the plane).

And since it’s the weekend, it’s the perfect time to catch up on some reading. Below, you’ll find some articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts on my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

Here are the posts I enjoyed:

It is easy to get tired as a leader or get stale, but staying fresh is important as a leader. Scott Cochrane shares 3 ideas to stay fresh and why it matters.

If you speak every week (or almost every week), understanding your audience is crucial.

Focus as a leader is crucial to success, but also incredibly difficult to have. Here are 8 ways to focus instead of multi-task as a leader. 

Inspiring people as a leader and a speaker is crucial and Kurt Bubna shares the secret to that.

Growth is crucial for a leader and a church or business and everyone desires growth, but many times we run into invisible barriers without realizing it. Here are 7 big barriers to church growth.

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Links for Leaders 11/10/17

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It’s the weekend…finally. The perfect time to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on some reading. Below, you’ll find some articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Before diving into those, in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts from my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

Now, onto the articles I came across that I hope will help you:

I’m always on the lookout for a good book from leaders I respect and Brian Dodd is one of those leaders. He gives his list of 18 books leaders need to read in 2018. I’ve read some of them but look forward to some of the ones I haven’t.

Most people, pastors and churches have an opinion of what being an effective preacher is and does. Jason Allen shares what a faithful preacher is, which I found to be incredibly helpful and insightful.

Many leaders are busy, driven people, but they can also very easily fall into laziness as a leader. That laziness, can show up in unexpected way. Ron Edmondson shares 7 ways laziness show up in leadership.

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When You Preach a Bad Sermon

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There are all kinds of reasons for a bad sermon.

It could be poor delivery, incorrect theology or making a passage say what you want it to say, not what it actually says. It could be that your sermon was bad because you went too long and had 2-3 sermons wrapped up into one.

Most of the time a bad sermon is preached because the pastor is unprepared.

This can happen because they didn’t give priority to sermon prep. They let their week get away from them, and they were scurrying around on Saturday trying to figure out what to say.

Many times a pastor is unprepared because he hasn’t edited his sermon and has too much information.

Every sermon you preach will leave things left unsaid. Why? Because people can’t handle a running commentary or an hour long sermon.

I remember a pastor saying once, “Tim Keller needs 32 minutes for his sermon, and you aren’t Tim Keller.”

Tim Keller needs 32 minutes for his sermon and you aren’t Tim Keller.

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There’s a lot of truth to that.

And honestly, most weeks I say too much. A few weeks ago in one of our services I circled the airport and refused to land the plane, went 10 minutes longer than I should have and said more than I needed to. (As a side note, if you do preach too long you should walk back to your kids’ ministry and apologize to the workers, as they feel it more than anyone else in your church).

When that happens, it is important for a pastor to evaluate why that happened.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

4 questions to ask yourself when you preach a bad sermon.

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Did I give adequate time to sermon prep this week? It is easy in the busyness of a week to crowd out sermon prep. Meetings, counseling, family responsibilities, budgets, all of it screams for your attention. As a result, any pastors find themselves waiting until the last minute (Saturday night) to work on their sermon. Your sermon must get priority in your weekly calendar and schedule. You need to do it when you are most alert (which for most people is the morning).

Was I focused when I stood in front of my church? This is difficult. You arrive at church and there is a lot happening. Not only at church with your volunteers, staff or technology issues, but you also have everything that happened that week in your church, your world and your family.

I think pastors need to think through a Sunday morning routine that helps them to prepare their hearts and minds. What music do you listen to on Saturday night and Sunday morning? What is your prayer routine like? When do you read through your notes? I lay out my weekly rhythm here and what my Sunday mornings look like.

Did I preach more than one sermon? This happens more often than I’d like to admit and is a lot harder if you don’t preach every week.

In any given passage you could preach 2-3 themes. Many times when covering a longer passage, there are a lot of themes. A pastor must edit down and determine what he will and will not zero in on. Sometimes this means that you not only don’t cover everything, but that you might need to take that chapter and make it four sermons instead of one. Your people will thank you because you will be clearer.

Do I believe God will still work if I don’t say everything that is in my notes? Recently in a sermon, the person doing the slides asked me after the first service if I was going to skip two pages in the second service. I asked what he meant, and he said, “You skipped almost half your notes.” When I got to that part of my notes, I knew I didn’t have time for it. This means a pastor must feel okay with what he did and did not say. You don’t have to share everything. If you missed something crucial, write a blog post or share a video on Facebook.