As a young pastor I often found myself up late on Saturday nights, still working on my Sunday sermons. Back then, the weeks were full, and it seemed like Sundays came every other day.
When I left the church to join the Chapel of the Air broadcast, I was responsible for three 15-minute programs a week, each with a short Bible sermon. Piece of cake, huh? Not really. I soon found that short messages were sometimes harder to prepare than longer ones.
In less than a year I was in charge of the ministry and responsible for six Monday through Saturday programs a week. These were aired on over 500 stations around the country. Obviously I had to develop a system that helped me get on top of this schedule. I couldn’t stay up every night doing last-minute work. That’s when I began to come up with the four questions I share with ministers today.
Starting my preparation by taking the sermon idea and then first figuring out the subject, response, “how to” and “how long” of the messages greatly simplified my preparation. It’s not that these were easy questions to answer, but once I had resolved these basic issues, the rest could be put together quite easily. I knew what further research was necessary (and also what wasn’t), and even what illustrations were needed.
I continued making broadcasts for 20 years, and during the last five of those years I was also doing a five-days-a-week half-hour television show, You Need to Know, seen on over 100 stations nationally. In fact, in 1995 we won the “Religious Television Program of the Year” award. All this is to say that the four questions served me well by time and again giving me the gift of focus.
I tell ministers today to start their week getting the answer to these four questions on Monday if at all possible. Better yet, try to get to the place where on Monday you have the answer to the four questions for your message a week from Sunday, and you’ll be amazed how free you start to feel—and also how well you’ll sleep on Saturday nights
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For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.
