Figuring Out What to Preach and When

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:

How Ministers Consider the Text For Morning and Evening Worship

Good Morning,

Of all the questions I receive at times as a pastor the one that gets brought up more than any other is: how do I plan, or know, what to preach on every Sunday. In other words what goes into making a decision on the text of the Bible that is proclaimed in both the morning and the evening. We’ll talk some more about the differences (and similarities) between the morning worship service and the evening at a later time, but obviously in both cases my call is to teach the whole counsel of God found in the whole word of God. For todays look at the Westminster Directory we will be hearing how our forefathers in the faith were told to do that.

I must say that not much, at least in my preparation, has changed, outside of my asking the elders, and the congregation at times what would be the most fitting or what it is they are desiring to hear about for the blessing of their own soul. Sometimes of course it’s not that spiritual, to be honest. There are moments fancy strikes in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and that’s what is taken up. As we are breaking this section into two let’s go ahead and read the first portion:

Ordinarily, the subject of his sermon is to be some text of scripture, holding forth some principle or head of religion, or suitable to some special occasion emergent; or he may go on in some chapter, psalm, or book of the holy scripture, as he shall see fit.

Let the introduction to his text be brief and perspicuous, drawn from the text itself, or context, or some parallel place, or general sentence of scripture.

If the text be long, (as in histories or parables it sometimes must be,) let him give a brief sum of it; if short, a paraphrase thereof, if need be: in both, looking diligently to the scope of the text, and pointing at the chief heads and grounds of doctrine which he is to raise from it.

These three highlighted paragraphs provide helpful boundaries for the preacher to consider. First of all, and this seems captain obvious territory, the sermon should come from the Bible. The content being taken care of the purpose comes next. Based on providence either the moment calls for teaching a head of religion, which means something like we are doing now in the evening where I am helping us as a congregation understand more about the humanity of Jesus Christ. Those texts are not chronological, or even from the same book, but are based more out of building a case one-by-one. So far we’ve been in Hebrews for the most part, but soon we’ll be hitting Isaiah and some other prophets. However, in the morning it is far more likely, and outside of a few cases this has been the norm for my seven years here, that we take the third of the ideas presented in the opening paragraph. I take a chapter, a psalm, or a book and work through it verse-by-verse. In honesty I am not sure I have ever preached a one-off based on some event.

Continue here.