Sermon Prep Strategy
Not only are we seeing churches take their groups strategy seriously, we are also seeing new and intriguing trends with respect to sermon preparation. In my mind, this is a particularly unique and helpful phenomenon.
In an era where too much emphasis is placed on the superpastor, it seems to me that moving sermon prep from a solo effort to a team enterprise can have some helpful results. It would seem that a number of churches which are being blessed with growth are seeing the same things.
Friendship Community Church—Mount Juliet, Tenn.
Like many of the Fastest-Growing and Largest churches, Friendship Community Church (No. 56 on the Fastest-Growing list) has moved from a classic sermon preparation process (a single pastor preparing the message on their own) to a team process that includes more elements than just the spoken message.
According to Pastor Todd Stevens, he typically prepares the majority of the content for the message each week. But the sermon calendar planning and the creative planning is done in concert with others from the church’s leadership. Stevens describes their process in this way, “We have a group of six to eight people that meet about six to eight weeks in advance of the series and we’ll talk through the creative ideas.”
Additionally, these creative meetings will lead to tactile giveaways connected with the series as a means of helping the congregation remember the series. During a recent series entitled I Quit, they distributed notepads with the series logo on it and encouraged the congregation to write down things that they were going to quit doing. These were then attached to a big board in the church to attest to God’s work in their lives. This kind of creative application of the message is a testament to the collaboration that the church employs.
Crossroads Church—Cincinnati, Ohio
In all of our research, I don’t think I have ever found a church with as much commitment to excellence and collaboration in their sermon preparation and delivery as the team at Crossroads Church (No. 14 on the Largest Churches list). The initial outlay for the sermon series is planned by their teaching team. Once the teaching team has mapped out the series, the messages are handed over to a creative lead which is a team made up of directors, video team members, stage and lighting team and producers. This team helps brand each series.
The leaders stressed that this planning is not to make the sermon “cool” but to make it “sticky.” They want those hearing the message to walk away with it firmly planted in their lives. The creative lead team is responsible for video content, music selection, visual looks, etc. The creative lead team meets each week.
Once they have packaged the messages, however, they are not finished. The pastor receives that information from the creative lead team, he shapes the specific message, and then meets with a team for feedback. The feedback covers content, illustrations, stories, jokes, etc. Perhaps most impressive, however, is their weekly dress rehearsal.
Each Saturday afternoon the worship team walks through a dress rehearsal of the entire service, and then meets for a feedback session so the message gets shaped a bit more. Not only do they reserve time after the dress rehearsal for feedback, but they do the same after each of their two Saturday services. This helps them feel prepared for their three Sunday services at their largest location.
The message is continuously shaped and influenced to improve it. One of the compelling realities about this kind of attention to detail is the humility necessary for the teaching team to constantly receive this kind of attention and critique. Matt Welty, director of experience for Crossroads, describes their teaching team, “Our teaching pastors are compelling communicators. They are really talented and they can turn on a dime because they receive feedback.”
Speaking specifically of Senior Pastor Brian Tome, Welty says, “He has been [preaching] for many years and if anyone has the chops to be able to say, ‘Guys, I think I know what I’m doing,’ it’s him.” Instead, he allows others to speak into his process, shaping the message and helping it become more effective.