Greetings my friends. It is Sunday July 31ST 2022, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.
One of my new favorite tweeters is a fellow disciple of Jesus and Preacher of God’s Good News. This past week he tweeted – “Preachers: What kind of notes do you use on Sundays for your sermon ? I use a one-page, bullet-point outline, landscape, two-columns. Rubber band around it into my Bible at the place of the text.”
I caught the tweet the next day, and I was pleasantly surprised by all of the replies (some 130+). At a time in my ministry when I was starting to feel as if I was on my own old-school island of preaching – it seems as if there are still plenty just like me.
Most of my sermons are prepared full-manuscript style via Microsoft Word. They average about 10 to 11 pages in length (single-spaced) with Calibri (Body) font size 16. Words I wish to stress are in bold, and Scripture is in italics (including red letters). PowerPoint slides are sequentially numbered in [brackets] as a cue for me to click the clicker.
I write each sermon over a period of several weeks (sometimes months). Once it’s done I occasionally go back and update and enhance it. When I’m asked to preach on Sunday morning (sometimes with less than 24 hours notice) I do a top-to-bottom rehearsal of the sermon that God has called on me to preach while making final updates and enhancements. Once I determine that it’s final I create a PDF out of the Word document, and I save it to my iCloud Drive. I then take my iPad with me to church on Sunday morning with my sermon on it.
I used to print out my sermons (double-sided) and place each two pages in a document protector, but I stopped that practice a little over a year ago.
As I present my sermon I occasionally look down at it and read it, but if my rehearsal was effective and productive then the looking down part is minimal. I prefer to make direct eye contact with my brothers and sisters – either collectively or individually. As for Scripture I’ll intentionally read directly from my manuscript to ensure that I read it verbatim.
Most of my Scripture is presented on PowerPoint slides, but I’m not a fan of reading from the overhead monitors. I tend to lose my place in my sermon when I do that.
It was good to see that many preachers do it the way that I do it – and for the same reasons. Eventually I’d like to move to more of an outline format for my sermons, but I’m not there yet. I’m currently writing my 50TH sermon over the past 6 years. I’m given the honor and privilege of preaching God’s Good News to my church family about 8 to 10 times per year.
Someone recently asked me if I didn’t get to preach to my church family would I still write sermons. The answer is absolutely yes. I would continue to write sermons just as I do now, and I would present them here on my blog, for you are part of my church family online and worldwide.
If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !
Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:
The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp
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