Proclaimer Blog
What to do when you have not prepared your best sermon
It happens to us all. Last week I was on holiday, then ill, then stepping in for someone at the last minute. A pretty chaotic set of circumstances that meant by preparation was poor, prayerfulness was lacking and every time I tried to sit down and concentrate I found it hard to keep going for more than about 40 minutes before coughing and spluttering through another cup of tea.
What do you do?
I think (and I hope this is not too contentious), you relax.
Let me tell you what I don't mean. I don't mean that sermon preparation is not hard work. I don't mean you can get away with the bare minimum most of the time. I don't mean that you can borrow other people's sermons. I don't mean that prayerfulness doesn't matter. I don't mean that your congregation can get by on a diet of half baked teaching.
This is what I do mean. God is good and gracious. He knows and understands our weaknesses and failings because he has taken on human flesh. Ultimately the effectiveness of our preaching is a spiritual issue not a human one.
So, whilst I will still try to work and pray through a sermon, I will not let Satan tell me that its effectiveness is down to my effort or skill. I believe that even though Paul and Barnabas "spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed" (Acts 14.1), that passage must be seen in the context of "and all who were appointed for eternal life believed" (Acts 13.48).
And my testimony is often the same as other preachers I have met – that the sermons I am most pleased with have had least effect…. and vice versa.
Thank God that it is so.