Last week’s “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinars were a great success and I’ve enjoyed hearing from so many of you about how your planning is going.  Here are my answers to more of your frequently asked questions.

Q: Once I have my preaching calendar together, who should I share it with?  Should I share it with other leaders in my church?

A: You want to share the entire preaching calendar with everyone in leadership that it will help to do their jobs.  In other words, you definitely want to share it with your Worship Leader, Pastors on staff, Creative Team, and anyone else you think will find it helpful in doing their job.

Once you have the calendar together, you can intentionally give your people a sneak peek from time to time about something that’s coming up.   For example, in a message where one point is about dealing with relationships, you may want to mention that they don’t want to miss the _________ series that we’re doing in February that’s all about relationships.

There is no reason to make the calendar secretive, but if you place it in the hands of too many different people too early it can become confusing as blanks are filled in, titles are changed, etc.

Q: I noticed that you have 2 open dates/standalone messages planned in the first half of your calendar, but none in the last half of the year?  How many should we aim for?

A: Really this just depends on how the calendar comes together as you’re planning.  For us, as we looked at our Big Days and the timing of holidays and special weekends, it just so happened that we filled in each week from June through the end of the year.  There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to how many open dates.

The goal in planning the preaching calendar is to seek God’s will about what to teach and when to teach it, and sometimes as you go through that process there will be weeks that just don’t seem to fall into place.  Those are good to leave as standalone messages.

Also, you may consider the weekends before your Big Days (most notably Easter) to be standalone weekends where you can specifically teach about and challenge your people to invite their friends the following week.

P.S.- If you missed the “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinar, you can listen to a replay of the audio at: www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/preachingreplay

© Nelson Searcy. All Rights Reserved.

About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.