One of the core methods of an effective worship planning system is to have your own preaching calendar. And the process for meeting and building out your preaching calendar is an opportunity to think through and prayerfully consider what God wants to teach in 2019.
At The Journey we wrap up our planning in October, but the norm really is towards the end of the year. So be sure to schedule some time before the end of the year to pull away and do your own preaching calendar retreat.
Here’s what you need to consider in maximizing this most spiritually significant meeting of the year:
WHO needs to be there
Whether it’s a meeting of one, or a retreat of many, the first step is deciding who will be in the room. If it is you alone that’s OK too — don’t let the fact that you don’t have a huge team prevent you from doing this. Just get started.
If you are meeting with a team, think about who else on your staff teaches as well and should be a part of this.
WHAT is the goal
Once you know who is involved, now you need a concrete goal in mind; what do you hope to accomplish during this time?
I’ll tell you up front, it’s a myth that you need to have every series laid out for the entire 12 months of the year. That’s definitely not what’s required. You can start much smaller, even with just the last 6 weeks of 2019.
After all being just six weeks ahead is still better than living week to week and is a great gift that you can give to your teaching pastors and worship team. Even if you have holes to fill, you can keep meeting and keep working on it through the rest half of the year.
In the end, if you walk away with broad outline of series names and timeframes, that is really a powerful step in the right direction.
WHEN will you do it
Go ahead now and commit to carving out part of November or the rest week of December to do this planning.
This could be a half-day, a single day or a multi-day retreat. You could even split it up over a few weeks, doing the same block of time each week.
However you split up the planning, this retreat is going to save you so much time.
WHY do it
Planning your preaching calendar will help you break the week-to-week cycle, so you’re not stressed out. In the long run, it will relieve so much work for you.
And the further that you can plan ahead, the better your sermons will be. Your impact will increase exponentially. You have more time to write your sermons, more time for research and more time to do message run-throughs during the week.
Whether or not you have planned a preaching calendar before, and whether you will have a meeting of one, or a retreat of many, hopefully these insights will help you maximize this planning time and create a better preaching experience than ever before.
Your partner in ministry,
Nelson
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