After your Pastor Preaches a Sermon

The scientist (Cornell professor Dr. Jonathan Butcher) and

the pastor (me) answer some questions from students.

So, I'm a pastor. Part of my job is preaching. I share the preaching load at our church with our interim lead pastor. Since he's the lead guy, he preaches slightly more than I do.

I want to share with you a little bit about what it's like to prepare and deliver a sermon. And one thing to please not do to your pastor immediately after he or she preaches their sermon.

I normally start my preparation for my sermon Monday morning. I print out the text in the version I will preach from and in Greek, so I can access both the Greek and English while reading and making notes. I read the Greek first to get a good handle about how it sounded when it was first written.

Then I read through the passage several times, making notes and waiting for an outline to emerge - After about an hour I have a pretty good idea of how the passage is laid out. Now, it's time for deeper study. I crack open the commentaries and start to study. If possible I will listen to the passage preached by some of my favorite preachers. Usually:
John Stott, Martyn Loyd Jones, Tim Keller and Darrell Johnson.

This usually takes about 8 hours. And then I write the sermon. The actual writing of the sermon can take anywhere from 2 to 8 hours. It depends on how easily the outline emerged. Writing a sermon is more like wrestling with a biblical text - moving it around, trying to figure out what God's truth is lying in there - what specific thing he wants to communicate with my church.

Most of my reading, studying and praying is done over Monday, Thursday and Friday. I will still meet with people on Monday and Friday but usually try to block Thursday completely out to do serious uninterrupted study and writing.

If I think it is finished, I put it away for awhile. And then later come back to it for final edits - usually Friday afternoon or sometimes Saturday morning. When I am convinced I have done all I can I pray a final prayer dedicating it to God.

And then I preach it (I'll write another post about preaching later).

Now - here's the thing I want to tell you to NOT do immediately after your pastor preaches a sermon. Please please please do not correct him on something he or she might have said wrong. Do not point out an area you feel he or she was in error.

I am not saying never communicate it - I'm just saying, give it a couple of days. When you preach you are giving everything of yourself. You are often spent, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. It is a time of great vulnerability and fragility.

I am fortunate enough to have a very gracious and loving congregation who often compliment me on my sermons. But, there are also sometimes some people who for some reason feel led to tell me all the errors I made. Last month someone felt they needed to tell me I had mis-pronounced a name. Now, remember I'm not saying never do it - just give your pastor a day to 2 to recover (or even a few hours!)

I can't tell you how deflating and discouraging it is to put so much energy into a sermon, deliver it as well as you can and then IMMEDIATELY following to be told all the mistakes you made.

So, be kind to your pastor. He or she is doing the best that he or she can. They might not always get it right. But, believe me, they know when they have fallen short in a sermon. They really don't need your correction all the time.