Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Developing A Preaching Calendar Part 4

Although you can't live life looking in the rear view mirror, it is important that you look back over your past year before you begin to schedule this next year.

This might be a little tip within this point but one thing to help you be organized so that you are able to look back would be to create an excel file that lists out every series and message you preach through the year. In this file log in what was the major point, scriptures, topic, creative elements, who the speaker was, in fact put down as much information that will help you as you begin to look back.

This is important for a variety of reasons but mainly to see where there might be gaps in what you are preaching. It can let you know if you emphasized one certain area to much or whether you didn't hit an area at all.

If you ever read Rick Warren's, "The Purpose Driven Church", you will know that he highlights from scripture the five main purposes every church should aim at fulfilling: Evangelism, Fellowship, Worship, Ministry, Discipleship.

These five purposes could be a guide for what you are communicating to your church. As you prayerfully look back and see that you didn't emphasize evangelism and that your church has not been very outward motivated, then as you set out to plan this next year that may be an area to preach on.

Start going forward by taking a look back on your year as you begin to lay the foundation for the coming year.

How has looking back helped you?

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking back helps me know what I've taught, and what I need to teach over the next year. This way I don't keep hitting my "favorities" over and over again.

Great stuff here!!!

Jason Curlee said...

Great point Adam...you are so right...sometimes we can start to say the same things that we like over and over....Looking back is a way that can keep you progressing forward and not stuck on one topic.