Four Ways to Transform Your Weekly Preaching

Essential Practices for Studying, Writing, and Growing as a Preacher

OK, maybe I’ve oversold it. I don’t actually know if it will transform your preaching. But I think there’s a good chance it will help take some of the weight off preaching regularly. I preach about 36-38 Sundays out of the year, and I could not do it well without these four things. They can focus your study, free up your imagination, and sweep you up into Spirit-inspired creativity. The most intimidating thing about preaching weekly or with increasing regularity is starting all over each time with a blank page on the screen. These four suggestions will provide you a framework, a community, and a set of practices to help you grow as a preacher.

1. Develop a message template.

If you’ve ever stared at a blank page on Saturday night, wondering how to shape your Sunday message, you’re not alone. Preaching is a sacred calling, but it’s also a weekly challenge. That’s why I rely on a simple sermon-writing template. It doesn’t just save time—it makes my preaching more focused, relatable, and impactful. Here’s how my three-movement template works and why it makes sermon writing so much easier.

Movement 1: Connection/Tension

Every sermon starts with connection. I want to first make a connection with people— usually via a personally story that ends on a humorous note. I then want to meet people where they are— I raise a tension by voicing a longing they can’t name, a question they can’t shake, or a fear they can’t face. The tension sets the stage for the gospel to speak into real life. By articulating what’s already stirring in their hearts, people feel seen, understood, and ready to hear more. With this first movement, I’m not just trying to get people’s attention; I’m inviting them into a shared journey.

Movement 2: Text/Participation

Next comes the heart of the message: God’s Word and our place in it. Here is where I unpack key ideas—usually two or three main points—rooted in the text. My goal is not to offer only exegesis or explanation, but also an imagination of where we are in the Story and what it might look like for this truth to be enfleshed in us. Or to put it another way, this is exegesis of both scripture and culture, helping people enter the world of the text, find connections with their own world, and discover how the Scripture invites their participation.

After naming each point (hopefully as memorable as possible), I typically layer the idea by cross-referencing from a wide array of sources: from sociology to the business world, pop culture to counselors. In our context, not everyone who comes is ready to believe something simply because “the Bible says so”.

I have found that in an age of “curious skepticism”, it can helpful to show how the truth of God’s Word echoes out in God’s world.

To move the point from an idea or a principle to a lived reality, I try to tell stories that bring the Word “through my life” to the world of the congregation, being careful to not make myself the hero of these stories. (It’s best when they are examples of how I’ve struggled to live it out!) It can also be helpful to weave examples from other people’s lives. When people see themselves in the stories of people like them, they move from passive listening to active engagement.

Movement 3: Gospel/Response

This is where proclamation gives way to provocation. The Word of God makes claims of us; God calls us to action, to Himself, to a new kind of life. This is often where my third point comes in, or if it’s after the third point it is the hinge on which the whole message turns. I want people to leave not just informed, but transformed—invited into a response. Whether it’s a step of faith, a new practice, or a change of heart, I call the congregation to action.

This movement keeps the sermon from being just a lecture; it becomes an encounter with grace. This is when the sermon turns to make plain the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the power of the Spirit.

The Bottom Line

A sermon template is just a tool that frees me to be creative within a clear structure, ensuring I connect with real needs and point people to Jesus every single week. If you’re looking to make sermon writing less stressful and more fruitful, give this three-movement template a try. You might get your Saturday nights back!

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2. Form a “Sermon Circle”.

In my mind, preaching involves three phases: sermon-study, sermon-writing, and sermon-delivery. The first practice— the message template— helps with sermon-writing; this practice helps primarily with sermon-delivery.

Who’s in the “Circle”?

The people who teach on the weekends have to be there. But anyone on the staff team who wants to grow as a preacher/teacher/communicator is welcome to participate as well. It’s a “circle” not a “team” because a circle can expand or contract. On average, about 10 people are in the circle each Tuesday morning.

Structure

Review

We spend the first 20-30 minutes reviewing the sermon from the previous Sunday. We take time to offer affirmations. Then we suggest a few “EBI”s (Even Better If… “I think this point would have been even better if you had included a personal story…”). EBIs make constructive feedback much easier to give and receive.

Preview

Then we take about 45-minutes to preview the upcoming sermon outline. (Or outlines, because there might be a different preacher for our evening service.)

Guiding Principles

We have three guiding principles on offering input:

1. Be honest: Don’t save your thoughts; save us from a poor sermon.

2. Be kind: Remember these are beautiful and vulnerable human beings.

3. Be open-handed: They may or may not take your input.

I can’t tell you how many times the Sermon Circle has saved me from a mediocre message! I’ve missed addressing a struggle or an objection people may have felt; or I had chosen wording that was corny or cumbersome; or I was missing a story that would have helped people “feel” the truth of the point I was trying to make.

Plus, I find having a group of people in on the message creates greater ownership of the sermon on Sunday. There is a great joy and fulfillment of sitting in the service knowing they have helped shape the sermon.

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3. Write a Series Brief.

A couple months before a new series begins, someone from our teaching team— usually me or Ben Simonson— writes a 1-2 page brief on the upcoming series. This was a practice Rockharbor had done for many years but was new to me. I’ve come to really enjoy it as a way of sharpening my thinking on the “why” behind a series before we begin. It also helps me take time to pray about what God wants to do through the series.

Here’s a sample Series Brief from a series we did earlier this year:

Turn and Live: A Series on the Minor Prophets

Promo Copy: We are too easily enticed by idols—things that promise us fulfillment and joy, freedom and peace. But in the end, an idol can never deliver on its promises. God goes to great lengths to speak to us, calling us away from the things that destroy us and calling us toward Himself as the source of life.

In the Old Testament, God repeatedly raised up prophets, emissaries who carried God's words and God's heart. Sometimes they spoke words of judgment; other times they offered a promise of hope. They exposed idols as empty objects that can neither hear nor speak. Idols are powerless to deliver on their promises. Instead, they end up trapping us in destructive patterns. The prophets would go to great lengths to shake God's people out of an idol's spell, to rouse them to reality, helping them recognize the path of death they were being dragged along. Their forceful words and vivid enacted parables were, in the end, messages of God's mercy. "Turn and live," God says, to them and to us today.

Summary: The prophets are carriers of God's message and heart, calling the people of God to turn away from idols that can never deliver on their promises and to turn toward the only God who gives life.

Key Verse: “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.”—Jonah 2:8 (NIV)

Purpose: This series is designed to help us recognize the good news of repentance! We chose to do this series during Lent because Lent is a season of repentance. It is when Christians for centuries have humbled themselves in view of God's mercy. As we remember Christ's suffering and journey with Jesus to the cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of Easter, we embrace the Holy Spirit's work of purifying and preparing us.

Primary: To show God's mercy in calling us away from idols that lead to destruction and death and to Himself, the source of Life

Secondary: To help people see the gospel in the Minor Prophets

Target Demographic:

Center: Faithful Christians who are less familiar with these OT books

Edges: Casual Christians who have not adequately considered the idols in their lives

Preaching approach:

• Survey and summarize the entire book in one message

• Identify the idol or sin from the prophet

• Name the invitation from the Lord

• Approach: Confrontation + Invitation

We also often include a featured resource for the teaching team, and sometimes, for the church.

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4. Take a Study Break.

This is a newer practice for me. In 2023, I took my first 4-week summer break. It’s two weeks of vacation plus two weeks of study leave, though the structure isn’t quite as neat as that. The two objectives bleed into each other and overlap. This break is the space the elders have allowed me to create in my year to set down the mantle of pastoral leadership for a short stretch of time and rest, be with family, make some memories, renew my soul, and ready myself for the season ahead. (More on the study break here.)

For the study part of my time away, I focus on “deep work” that the normal flow of life doesn’t typically allow for. I read books I’ve been meaning to get to and write down notes on it. But a significant chunk of the study work is mapping our sermon series for the next 12-18 months.

All our preaching is grounded in Scripture. As we plan, we aim for a series to fit in at least one of three categories:

1. Text: A series anchored in a book of the Bible (like Galatians) or a key text (like the Sermon on the Mount)

2. Topic/Theology: Theological reflection on a topic (like, What does it mean to be human? How should we think about money? or How can we respond to common objections to Christianity?)

3. Practice: Guidance on Biblical practices for formation (like prayer, fasting, communion, fellowship, and more).

I wrote a bit about our series planning here and included a sample of the plan of sermon series.

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That’s it.

If you aren’t doing anything like this, I would recommend starting with the Study Break, using that time to draft a Series Brief and develop a Message Template. After that, test out forming a Sermon Circle.

Do you do anything like this? Which of these four would you like to try to test out? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

Save the Date!

Rich Villodas and I are doing a 4-hour webinar on September 13th on what it means to connect spiritual formation to preaching, how understanding the life cycle of a sermon can lessen your anxiety, what it looks like to preach in an age of curious skepticism, and more. We will also share several practical tools and habits we use to strengthen our own preaching and the preaching at our churches.

Registration details to come!