What am I going to preach on?

That’s a question we all ask at times. One of the best ways to determine what you should preach on is to look back on the previous year or two, and reflect on what you DID preach on. This usually reveals our favorite topics to talk about, as well as revealing our least favorite. For me, I tend to shy away from talking about money, which is one of the reasons I need to talk about it more. Every congregation needs a healthy, balanced diet from God’s Word though. 

The best way to determine what you should preach is, of course, to pray, study the Scriptures, and then plan. Have a plan in place. Tip #2 ,in our series of posts titled Three Tips for Preaching Fantastic Sermons in 2014, is create a 12-month preaching calendar. This calendar isn’t written in stone. It’s just a guide. But it gives you a clear picture of what the topics are, and what topics could be missing.

In our last entry, we talked about deciding on how many Sundays you are going to preach in 2014. Once you have decided that, create a calendar and start slotting series, topics and/or books of the Bible that you are going to cover. Make the calendar visible so that you can see it. This doesn’t mean you have the sermon done. It just means you have a general topic and once you have a topic you will be amazed at how many ideas, illustrations and examples will come your way — simply by deciding on what you are going to preach on.