If you had asked me years ago how I prepared sermons, the answer would have been different from the one I’m about to give. Forty years ago, I would have been forty-four years old and in the prime of my pastoral ministry, I think we could say.
Back then I would have told you that a couple of times a year I take my Bible and some books and leave town for a few days in order to plan my preaching schedule for the next six months or more. I would decide on topics, scriptures, and themes, and little more than that. Then, back at home, I would try to reserve a few hours two or three days a week for sermon study, and give thought to the sermons in the hopper for the next month or two.
In the meantime, in all my thinking and reading I was on the lookout for material to flesh out those sermons: Illustrations, stories, insights, ideas, burdens, conversations with anyone, everything.
I was a sermon producing machine. You have to be–every pastor knows this–to turn out several sermons a week year after year, and not repeat yourself. Trying to stay fresh, always biblical, and forever interesting.
And we would laugh at the jokes about how pastors work one hour a week. My wife (wives) could tell you of the times I got up in the middle of the night to write down something about an upcoming sermon. Even in my subconscious, I was working on sermons.
But no longer.