Proclaimer Blog
Doing the numbers
When you're planning a sermon series, there comes a point when you have to decide how you're going to divide up the book. Note this is even true if you take one week at a time and don't announce sections in advance. At the very least (in this situation) you are making weekly decisions – though I would contend that if you're going to take that approach (and I have sometimes), then your pre-work should have given some time to this question – otherwise there is a danger your sermon series could feel very bitty.
Now you have to make some crunch decisions. Take a book like Numbers. Is this going to be a three year series, or a shorter one! I would suggest that with such an unfamiliar book you don't want to rush things, but then neither do you want to get bogged down. There are obviously great benefits in going slowly – it gives a chance to tackle all the issues and also does justice to all your study. But, conversely. larger sections gives people a broader sweep of the issues the book raises and which we need to take to our hearts.
The answer is….. whatever is right for you. It will depend so much on context, congregation, location, style – all manner of things, in fact. I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I want to do justice to a book like Numbers, but I also recognise that a sermon series is unlikely to cover everything – these are not expository lectures I am planning. So here, for what it's worth, is my sermon planning for Numbers, a series I called "Homeward Bound" – though I might not stick with that title another time through. I've given each sermon a punchy one word title which is my effort to summarise the direction of the section.
- Numbers 1-4: Numbers
- Numbers 5-6: Purity
- Numbers 7-8: Worship
- Numbers 9-10: Preparation
- Numbers 11-12: Discontent
- Numbers 13-14: Rebellion
- Numbers 15: Grace
- Numbers 16-18: Rejection
- Numbers 19: Cleansing
- Numbers 20-21: Salvation
- Numbers 22-24: Blessing
- Numbers 25: Seduction
- Numbers 26-30: Beginnings
- Numbers 31: Victory
- Numbers 32: Disunity
- Numbers 33-36: Inheritance