A couple of months ago a friend in my association invited a couple of us to get together to talk about preaching: what we’ve preached, how we study and prepare, notes or no notes, and all that good stuff.
For that meeting I put together a slate of the various series I have done at my church since I arrived in Summer 2010 (and I’ve updated it to finish out the year and included it HERE for you, if you want… it’s nothing special 🙂 ). My hope after 2016 is to get back into preaching through some books. I’ve taken a pendulum swing away from doing that these past couple of years, for the most part, instead opting for “expository series.”
Right now, I’m actually halfway through a 2-year series–which sounds insanely long (unless your name is Piper, MacArthur, or Lloyd-Jones), but it has its purpose. I borrowed the idea from Brook Hills before Platt left for the IMB: put together a 2-year Bible reading calendar for my church, and preach a passage from the previous week’s reading.
I really wanted to help my church read through the Bible (many in it never have), and I thought it sounded like a good way to encourage such. We’ve gone through the New Testament once and are halfway through the Old. 2016 will see a second trip through the New and finishing up the Old. So, keeping with that, this week I’m preaching from Job 19 this Sunday and talking about battling despair with a forward-looking faith.
So how about you, fellow pastors? What is your preaching plan for 2016? Doing a variety of series? Going through a book of the Bible or two or five? Stealing sermons from Dave Miller? Share your plans, and may God bless you in your endeavor!