It should allow for you to preach extended series through Bible books or sections of books as well as thematic series on doctrinal, ethical, social, and personal issues.
It should give you sufficient freedom to alter the plan when necessary.
It should serve the overall strategy of your preaching ministry.
In approaching the mechanics of planning, we will break down the planning process into its various parts. Careful and effective planning for your pulpit ministry will require the following six basic steps.
1. Schedule a planning retreat.
2. Gather the materials you will need to create your plan. Advertisement
We will now examine each of these elements of putting together a preaching plan.
Scheduling a Planning Retreat
Planning for effective preaching will require that you take some type of retreat. Winston Pearce described the planning retreat thus: "If a minister can find some relatively isolated spot — far enough from his church to keep his people from feeling that they can drive out to discuss matters with him, or that he can drive in for any celebration or difficulty that might arise — he has the makings of a good place to unpack the luggage of life and thought and get his planning done."3
The term retreat can be defined in several ways. In military parlance, it refers to the signal to withdraw from battle. By extension of that primary definition, a retreat can also mean a period of withdrawal and seclusion for the purpose of spiritual contemplation. This type of solitude has long been recognized as a discipline that deepens and refreshes the spiritual life of the believer. Through periodic sabbaticals and times of solitude, the Christian takes the opportunity to reorient his life, to evaluate his objectives, and to set goals for the future. Authors on Christian spirituality such as Dallas Willard and Richard Foster discuss solitude among other spiritual disciplines, including prayer and fasting. These authors recommend personal retreats for reflection and growth.4
Just as personal spiritual retreats are very fruitful in your growth as a Christian, a yearly professional retreat to schedule your pulpit work can help you to mature and develop as a preacher and a pastor. The planning retreat is unlike a personal spiritual retreat in that it has a more tangible agenda: to produce a completed preaching calendar for the coming year. However, as the preacher creates his plan, he will pray intently for discernment in formulating his preaching strategy and evaluating the needs of his parishioners.