Why I’m Back to Writing Sermon Manuscripts
When I finished as pastor of an established church in January 2012, I made a massive switch in how I prepared sermons. Up until that point, I’d developed a practice of preparing a sermon manuscript before I preached. I rarely took the manuscript to the pulpit with me, but writing my sermon in advance helped me think my way to clarity in my sermon preparation.
When I began the process of planting a new church, I first spoke as an itinerant preacher, often repeating the same message. In late 2013 I began to preach again regularly to our new church, but truncated my sermon preparation and tossed the manuscript. As a church planter, I felt I couldn’t afford the same amount of time to prepare sermons as I had before.
I still spend less time preparing sermons, but I’ve returned to preparing a manuscript again. The reason? My friend Paul Martin said something that stuck with me:
“A church will never be better than its preaching.”
— Paul Martin
We walk a tightrope here. Tim Keller says, “If you put in too much time in your study on your sermon you put in too little time being out with people as a shepherd and a leader. Ironically, this will make you a poorer preacher.” Someone else has offered this advice to church planters: “Spend the majority of your time out in the community rather than cooped up in your study preparing messages” (Roger N. McNamara and Ken Davis, quoted in Ed Stetzer’s Planting Missional Churches).
At the same time, I’ve found that if I don’t manuscript, I’m not capable of producing the kind of sermon that will live up to the kind of church that we want to see planted. Maybe other people can preach without having prepared a manuscript, but I need that practice in order for me to have the clarity I need.
“A church will never be better than its preaching.” That’s not an excuse to devote an inordinate amount of time to sermon preparation, but it is a reminder that every preacher has to figure out what they need to be able to preach a message that sets the tone for the church that is taking shape. For me, that means writing a manuscript.
