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Preparatory work for a sermon
If your starting point is a Bible passage, then you could jot onto a page four ways of approaching it.
- How I respond to the passage
- How the meaning of the Bible passage was likely to have spoken to people originally
- How the Bible passage might affect / speak to the congregation today
- How other worship ingredients could interplay with the Bible passage
1. How I respond to the passage
- Be honest with yourself about this.
- What leaps off the page for me?
- Does it reassure you? inspire you? challenge you? humble you? anger you?
- Does it resonate with your recent experience?
2. How the meaning of the Bible passage was likely to have spoken to people originally
A commentary or two is useful to have for this way of approaching the Bible passage, but there is much that common sense can do too.
Jot down basic information about the passage:
- Who wrote it?
- What sort of writing? e.g. law? history? poetry? wisdom? prophecy? gospel? (parable? miracle? saying? teaching?) letter? eschatology?
- Who was intended to hear it / read it?
Note what comes before and after the passage + anything that 'colours' the chosen Bible passage
- What is going on around this scripture?
- Does the chosen passage reinforce or contrast with what's around it?
- Does this passage have links to other passages elsewhere in the Bible?
What significance did the passage have originally?
- Are there layers of meaning here?
- What impact did it have first time round?
- What are the key words? the main message(s)?
3. How the Bible passage might affect / speak to a congregation today
- How might this congregation respond differently from the way I did?
- How does this passage speak to individual Christians?
- How does it speak to church communities?
- How does it speak to society / national and international affairs?
4. How other worship ingredients could interplay with the Bible passage
- At what point in the Church Year does this service take place?
- How has the Church traditionally approached this Bible passage?
- What hymns / songs / prayers etc come to mind as I reflect on this passage?
- How might the Bible passage be treated in worship?
The Methodist Church's training programme 'Faith & Worship' uses a sheet of A4 paper (landscape) to record answers to questions like these. Students are encouraged to make a large cross across the page and record their responses to 4 sets of questions similar to those above in the 4 triangles created by the large cross. That way the jotting down does not have to be sequential (as suggested by the numbering 1-4 above) and it becomes easy to let one part of the resulting diagram affect another. For the record, students record Preacher responses (set 1 above) in the top triangle, Exegesis (set 2 above) in the bottom triangle, People (set 3 above) to the right side of the page and Worship (set 4 above) to the left.
The next stage from this is to clarify a sermon's aim. This is covered in the article Aimless sermons?
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