How Do You Prepare Sermons? by David K. Bernard Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript) Kind: teaching Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--how-do-you-prepare-sermons Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ well let me back up and answer more generally and then more specifically because I want it to be of Maximum value to everyone else but before I became general superintendent of course I was a full-time Pastor for 18 years as well as serving in in other leadership capacities and so I had the opportunity or the need to literally preach and teach thousands of times and prepare thousands of lessons or messages so sometimes you by your your schedule forces you to focus just on one message but more generally what I try to do is of course have a consistent prayer and Bible reading and Bible meditation life so I try to read the Bible through every year often I will choose a different translation to help me look at it afresh but for many years um perhaps all my Ministry and even before I've tried to read the Bible through every year so I read it not strictly to prepare for a a message but I just read it to study to hear God's word and then I also read books about the Bible books that help me understand the Bible books of theological input Apostolic and even non-apostolic that would help me understand the teachings of scripture more clearly and so with all that reading and then along that is prayer and meditation sometimes I read uh for large volumes sometimes just maybe a few verses slowly over the years I've also developed a practice of memorizing a number of passages so the when whenever I read and study the goal is not just to prepare one message but to hear from God to get thoughts so frequently I will get a thought in reading the Bible or it may be reading another book and it may not even be the main thought of the author but he says something in a certain way that just Sparks something and then even reading secularly um I write read biography or history or current events or psychology or magazines such as Reader's Digest but there might be an anecdote or story or an illustration that reminds me of a Biblical principle or a Biblical truth so lots of times I would just jot that down yes well um there are two ways so if I have a physical Bible I would always keep a notebook I mean a note paper at least one piece where I could immediately jot something down because I found if you wait till the end of your prayer or the end of your study you may have forgotten that point so immediately I would jot a note and I would jot the scripture and if it looks like a message I will try to think of at least a title that will remind me of the thought thought it might not be the ultimate title but I'll jot it down if I'm reading a digital Bible then I will try to keep notes I have a you know a note um on on my iPad for example you can have a program where you keep notes electronically so I will do that or computer keep notes on the computer and nowadays I usually try to transfer all these little thoughts to a computer and I have a list like right now I probably have a list of 50 sermons that I've never preached and some I may never preach but I have a title I have a scripture and may have a few extra thoughts jotted down well that I just keep in a word processing program I mean uh I I actually keep that in Excel just um you know a database so that way let's say I'm I have an upcoming event well I can go over those 50 topics and think about them pray about him about them see if anything jots anything I put down you know just strikes me or jumps out at me that could be a message so that's what I would do when I was pastoring particularly you're preaching the same congregation you have to have a new message so I would collect all these ideas and then the week that that I'm scheduled to preach I start reviewing these ideas to see if anyone is impressed to me and once I feel like this is what God wants and of course sometimes you'll speak outside of what I've jotted down but frequently what I've read over the last few weeks or months or what I've jotted down I will sense now is the time for that particular thought well then I would flesh It Out by studying the scripture studying other resources developing notes develop the main idea developing supporting ideas whether it be other passes of scripture stories of scripture personal testimonies anecdotes and flesh it out make a real sermon so it's not a full message until I do that which is usually going to be that last week or last few days well sometimes I would try to think of the idea and categorize it under that idea other times I would just put it in a physical file or scan it as a digital file and put a label on it so that I would know the subject so later when I'm thinking about preaching on a subject hopefully I can either remember the article or at least go to the subject index and search and say I want a a an anecdote about obedience and if I have two or three files or articles then I can pull one out and see if it fits uh not generally generally word I would type it in word or scan it and it would be a as a PDF or as a word file but I would organizing them and then uh of course I would have physical files but today since I'm traveling everywhere it's more convenient to have everything digitally in on my iPad than to have you know a group of physical files with me I still have those files uh in in my office but um I use the digital version so that's the general plan and the idea is you want to preach from the over overflow that is you're not desperately thinking of trying to find one thought but you have many thoughts and you're not desperately trying to pray enough prayers to hear from God but you're praying and even if that week you did not pray in extraordinary amount of time or some emergency came up and you didn't really have as much prayer time as you would like or normally but yet you're preaching from the Overflow it's from the built up prayer and study and meditation and ideas that's ideal that that you would do that now today I'm traveling every week I'm preaching a different place and many times I'm preaching for district conferences or camps so there are key messages that I feel God has given me for a district well I may preach if I feel like specifically for that District that's one thing but many times I feel like it's given to the church so I may preach the same thing in different districts and I may have a number of messages and so I discern what is God wanting to do in this particular setting so I'm drawing something that I preached before in another District but I feel it's pertinent for this District of course when I do that often I'm I'm using the same title and the same verse and the same key points but many times the testimonies the anecdotes the key points will change and it will be or I'll feel led if I have three main points I might feel led to emphasize one point this time versus another Point another time or I may feel led to add a point so it may be substantially different message but it's still starting from the same core but if I feel like God has given me a message for the church as a whole then I feel it's not only acceptable but important to preach it in several different places and for local churches somewhat the same thing of course I preached I don't know over a thousand message when I was a pastor at the local church so they're going to be lots of messages that are more pastoral and uh when I go to a local church I'm trying to do a couple things I'm trying to cast a larger Vision but I'm also trying to minister to the people there so often I will use a core of a message that I preached in our local church some time ago and that I may preach repeatedly in different churches but of course it will be significantly Changed by adding the vision of the upci adding the testimonies current relating to current events but at least I'm starting with a basic message that I've developed for a congregation uh now when I'm working toward a general conference or ministerial conference sessions because of the times it's going to cover many districts then I usually try to start several months in advance praying Discerning what is God speaking to the church this year in my role as general superintendent in some way even though I may not be as good of a preacher or no better preacher than many many others but yet I have a unique role and a neat unique voice and I'm speaking to the church trying to give direction and vision in a way that others don't have that same responsibility although God can use them in that way I feel like it's part of my responsibility so I'm praying more specifically and usually I will get an idea months ahead but we'll keep working on it thinking about it praying about it refining it getting scripture and it may morph in very different ways but usually the last month I try to focus it and flesh it out and give deep detail and make sure it's still pertinent and relevant and so those major messages usually are a process of perhaps six months a Praying meditating studying thinking trying to put different pieces together and then I focus uh you know in the last couple weeks of really honing it to that particular place and time so there's not just one method but I think the main thing is to try to develop a consistent relation with God hearing from God praying studying the word of God not just studying and reading narrowly to get one particular idea for one message but being absorbed in the word and reading other materials that will relate to the word that help you think afresh think creatively think outside the box think outside what you've already done or what you've heard so that God can speak to you personally yes time is a challenge so I always look at several messages ahead and try to be in prayer and thought about how you know what messages God would want to use at a particular time so it's just kind of a work in progress as we go month by month and week by week well actually uh there are newer books now that didn't exist uh when I was training but uh the training I gave is actually in a book called spiritual leadership in the 21st century and I actually have a chapter on preparing for preaching and teaching the word of God so a lot of practical recommendations would be in that chapter in that book spiritual leadership in the 21st century but we've got some great new resources at pentecostalpublishing.com we preach by Jerry Jones our former General Secretary and he is now a professor at Ocean College another one I think is called life preaching it's by Jonathan McClintock who's also a professor at urchin college and and the the campus Pastor there are other resources but those two come to mind uh by Jerry Jones and Jonathan McClintock so those are Apostolic United Pentecostal practical tools for learning to preach and learning to study so that God would help you with specific messages and I do believe obviously the message has to come from God but yet we can develop certain disciplines and certain patterns where we can be more effective in structuring a message that is suitable for the occasion