Organising sermon preparationPosts in this series
Today I'm beginning a series of posts on organising your sermon preparation.
Firstly I think you should learn how to schedule sermon tasks for each day using a calendar. But I have already written about that here.
Now once you have set aside time on your calendar for preparation, the first task each day must be prayer. After all, if God doesn't bless your preparation and delivery of the sermon all other tasks performed will be useless.
But what do you pray for regarding the sermon?
Over the last couple of years I've developed a list of prayer points that I pray each day before I work on the sermon:
-May you have mercy on my sin and the congregation's sin and not withhold your blessing;
-May the single purpose of this sermon be to glorify you (May I preach well, but feel terrible, so when people are helped you get the glory, not me);
-Thank you for the privilege to preach;
-Give me joy in preaching;
-Give me a right understanding of the text;
-Help me to memorise the passage;
-Help me as I read books about your word (Thank you for the books I have access to; May I study them diligently; May I recall what I have read; May I read slowly where necessary but also quickly where appropriate so as not to waste time);
-Help me as I write the sermon (May the sermon be logical and plain, knowledgeable with good content and wise with good application);
-Give me an anointing of your Spirit when I preach (May I have clarity of mind and be fervent, loving, bold, powerful and authoritative);
-Please apply this sermon to my own heart (I then pray through the main applications of the sermon and ask that they be performed on me);
-May the Christians present be helped by the sermon;
-May non-Christians be drawn in to hear my sermon and then be convicted and converted;
-Please bless last week's sermon to those who heard it.
I then finish by praying a slightly modified prayer written by John Calvin for students:
'Lord, who is the fountain of all wisdom and learning, since you of your special goodness have granted that my life is instructed in good arts which may assist me to honest and holy living, grant also, by enlightening my mind, which otherwise labours under blindness, that I may be fit to acquire knowledge; strengthen my memory faithfully to retain what I may have learned: and govern my heart, that I may be willing and even eager to profit, lest the opportunity which you now give me be lost through my sluggishness. Be pleased therefore to infuse your Spirit into me, the Spirit of understanding, of truth, judgment, and prudence, lest my study be without success, and the labour of my teacher be in vain. In whatever kind of study I engage, enable me to remember to keep its proper end in view, namely, to know you in Christ Jesus your Son; and may every thing that I learn assist me to observe the right rule of godliness. And seeing you promise that you will bestow wisdom on babes, and such as are humble, and the knowledge of yourself on the upright in heart, while you declare that you will cast down the wicked and the proud, so that they will fade away in their ways, I entreat that you would be pleased to turn me to true humility, that thus I may show myself teachable and obedient first of all to yourself, and then to those also who by your authority are placed over me. Be pleased at the same time to root out all vicious desires from my heart, and inspire it with an earnest desire of seeking you. Amen.'
I'm always interested in getting new prayer points, so if you have some of your own, please share them in the comments below.
No comments:
Post a Comment