How a 21st Century Pastor Studies is an explanation of how I (a pastor) make sermons, in sermon preparation, easier using the tools of today.
Contents
About me, Pastor and Missionary David Cox
Firstly, I want to explain some things about me and my point of view. When I grew up (I was born in 1958), there were only mainframe computers which occupied a very large room, using cards. So I grew up thinking in the “no computer” days. But people lived just fine in those days, and businesses used paper and ink systems to get things done. In those days, photocopying was also just really taking off. So it wasn’t an option most times.
But from my perspective (as an old guy), there is a problem with the people of today. Most people want to use computers simply because they can. In other words, they will type 3 days to enter information into a system that you can lose it all without remedy in a few seconds, when writing that same information on cards with a pen will take you two hours. If the information is large, I understand the advantage of using a computer. When the information is smaller, I see no advantage. I am constantly moving my writing notes (as a pastor, I have a lot of handwritten sermons) from physical paper and ink copies to the computer, and yes, the easiest way is to take my cell phone and make an image of it, and if I need to change things, I scan it with OCR software, and then have it in an electronic format. So, yes, I do have one foot into the electronic age, but also I have a foot back into the old ways. So that is “where I am coming from”.
I also run 34 websites, and so I am not so unfamiliar with computers. I have programmed in FoxPro database language before. What many people see as not necessary, I see as necessary. I have about 24 Gigabytes of information on all my websites, and I back all that up about once every two to three months. I have a Blue Ray DVD recorder that burns 100 Gigabyte disks, which I use for backing up my websites and my computer. When was the last time you backed up all the files on your computer? I do that regularly with USB drives, external hard drives, and Blue Ray DVD disks.
My principle is…
“Use the electronic forms when it is better, but do not ignore the old way of doing things either.”
How a Preacher/Pastor works
The principle thing that a pastor or preacher does is preach, and maybe you could consider teaching in that. So there are so main essential elements that I want to focus on in this post. The most important element in any sermon is that God gives the preacher his message. I find that when God gives you a message, I can make an outline in a matter of a few minutes AFTER I GET THE MESSAGE FIRMLY IN MY HEAD! So I live thinking, “talking to God” all the time, praying without ceasing. But a lot of my prayers is because I analyze and “see” things in people’s lives, spiritual things. Deceptions that Satan has thrown on individuals that have ruined their lives. I meditate on these things, and many times, a sermon is given to me by God from that meditation.
So studying is one thing, but having a message from God is another. This message is nothing new really, it comes from the Word of God, but for the preacher, it can be new to him. He considers “life” around him, and he sees the principles of God in Scripture, and there is conceived a message from God for the benefit of the brethren. While this is simple, it is at the same time difficult, because just any old concept is not proper for a sermon. The sermon needs to come from the Word of God, and all sermons need an exhortation element, in that if the congregation understands the sermon, the message will in some way better their moral life.
As a preacher, I am constantly thinking about things, passages in Scripture as well as situations in life that I am exposed to. So I call these thoughts “seeds” or “sermon seeds“. I have yellow note pads on my desk, and I make a note or several of them on each note pad. To be honest, I think only about 2 of every 3 every get to the point of being studied by me to see if a sermon comes from that seed. Truthfully, I have a “gut feeling” that a principle needs to be preached on, but sometimes, when I sit down and meditate on that seed thought and search for Scriptures that would capture that thought, like I said, 2 out of 3 result in something and the rest give thrown in the trash can, and I try some other seed.
But that is my process of coming up with sermons. I will also mention that I have a Masters in Education, and one principle that I see great value in is making every sermon (mostly) into a two-page tract, front and back of a single sheet. So what I have as self rules, is that the total notes (with most verses written out) needs to fit in two pages. Moreover, if I do not wander in the sermon but follow my notes, that will usually be around 45 minutes to an hour, which is the length of our preaching time.
Collecting kernels
So a key to this method of sermon preparation is to firstly, get that kernel and study it, meditate on it. Although I do write down ideas (kernel thoughts) on yellow post-it notes (famously in the middle of the night when I am awake, and it is like 3 AM, and I get a good kernel that I am afraid I will forget it before morning, so I get up, go into my office, grab a yellow post note and pen, and in the dark, I write a brief description of it that I will remember in the morning). But I do that because I want to remember it in the morning, but at the moment I want to go back to sleep. If I turn on the light, I won’t go back to sleep, so writing something in the dark is best.
But I get these sermon kernels mostly when I am sitting hearing another preacher preach. We have a brother in the church who preaches the Sunday School hour, so he says things often that I want to develop. Usually it is not to correct him, or repreach his sermon, but they are ideas that, to me, need to be developed and have their own sermon.
As such, I have the Bible on my cell phone, the free Android program MySword. But I have found that I can go into the email program on my phone and send myself a note with the sermon kernel. Very few times when I do this in a church service do I write more than a line or two. But doing this produces some 5 or so kernels from a typical sermon that I am listening to. I would highly recommend pastors, especially younger pastors, to get into the habit of writing themselves emails to remind themselves of things to do, and also sermon kernels.
Using the Internet to Study the Bible
The first point here is to simply “NOT USE THE INTERNET TO STUDY THE BIBLE.” Okay, confused? Don’t be. There are phases of preparing a sermon, and the Internet (nor Christian references books, electronic or in page print editions) is just not where you start the process, nor is it in the first phases.
The first phase of a sermon is to get the message from God. It is 100% valid to read a portion in the Bible, and if God speaks to you about the principle you understand in a verse is needed in the lives of your congregation, then make a sermon on that principle. Yes, 100% yes!
But be very hesitant in using books or the Internet (pages on Christian websites) to get these messages from God. For the sermon to turn out good, it needs to speak to your heart as the preacher before anything else. God’s Word, the Holy Spirit working through your conscience and what you know of God’s Word is about the only real things that are going to make a good sermon. I found a booklet by J.C. Ryle that I thought was very needful in our congregation at one time, and I made a sermon from that (condensing about 40 pages into a 2-page sermon), but I fully noted that in the sermon (the tract that I hand out before I preach the sermon). I have done that 1 time in about 40 years of preaching. So I don’t regret that, but that is not a habit I follow as a preacher. I also preached through Lewis Sperry Chafer’s book, He that is Spiritual (I translated it into Spanish from the English) for our Sunday evening sessions one year, but with that message (that the Holy Spirit indwells us from the moment of salvation) I felt our people needed that point driven home (I took about 5 or 6 Sundays, and we studied the verses well in that), so it was worth the effort. But again, 1 time in some 40 years of preaching.
I do write my own books, actually booklets (because they are around 40 pages maximum), and I will preach through them at times. Over time, our people’s attention span is shorter and shorter every year, so I am not so much at liberty to do that. I one time preached a verse by verse series in Isaiah in Sunday School, but by around chapter 40, we had lost most of our people, they were not coming, which I felt they thought it was boring. I decided to give up on it.
How to Find verses for a Sermon
I use free theWord Bible program because of its features. One Christian reference book in that program is Torrey’s Treasury of Scripture Reference, which is a commentary module (i.e. you make topics which are a verse reference which is the only type of entry allowed) and in them, he puts verse references from I believe it was 1000 Bible reference notes. I don’t remember at the moment how many, but a lot.
The result is that just about every single verse in the Bible has some notes, and a lot have 2 dozen Scripture references. Within theWord program, if you go to a verse and pass the mouse over the references, the verse will popup in a dialog box as you move the mouse from verse to verse. I have set the Bible version to show in that popup box to be the Greek or Hebrew Bible text, depending on my purpose at the moment.
There is a great value to having this resource on your home or office computer! I have developed whole sermons just from the verses in TSR. Please do not underestimate the value of this resource.
But having planted that resource as extremely useful, let me go on to another level of usefulness.
If you take any Internet search engine like Google, and search for “verse adoption”, the verses you get in the results will have many entire pages with verses listed that you can very easily use. Since I use theWord, I set it to watch the clipboard, and then to copy verse references into the full verse in the clipboard, and since I work in Spanish, I set it to use the Spanish Bible. So I take English webpages that list verses (it doesn’t matter if they have the verse written out or not, you only need the reference), and I sort through them and pick the best to insert into my sermons. Normally, they will have pages of results in Google, but I seldom open more than 3 or 4 pages in the results. I get more than what I can handle in a single sermon viewing 2 or 3 webpages.
So remember, Google Search: “verse keyword” or “verse keyphrase”.
Next, please understand that when you put paretheses around two words, Google treats it as 1 word, always those two words together and in that order. So
Google Search: verse “Word of God”
will search for all the web pages which “Word of God” is exactly like that it them.
Some considerations. 1) Google lies. When they say that they have 5 billion hits, they probably do, but if you go page after page of their search results, very seldom will you hit a page 10 in those results. I search for old Christian books that show up as footnotes in other books that I have. I have searched for some works that I really want to have. I go as far as the Google results will let me, but for most of them, after 4 pages Google quits showing results. It is all show and mirrors. 2) Do not be overwhelmed by so many results. Even one page of search results can be daunting. After using this for a month, you will begin to spot which websites are really good in most everything that they have, others that are not so good. With time, you will pick up on the good ones and go directly to them. I really, really highly recommend “www.gotquestions.org”. I would recommend you read the short articles on any search you do and they are in the search results. Bible Hub is another good one, as well as Precept Austin.
Another good way of quickly finding good stuff on the Internet is to use “commentaries (Bible Reference)”. I use this one when I come across a verse I do not understand. They will likewise present an overwhelming amount of search results, but with a little time of investigating the results, you will begin to see results with value and return to those first.
Since I preach in Spanish, I also use “versiculo (keyword)” and “comentario (Bible reference)”. They both work. If you are an English speaker that speaks another language, my recommendation is to search in English first for Bible references, and in that other language for Commentary explanations. Verses are easily given in the other language even if you copy the reference to theWord in English. But the commentaries are more valuable in the language you are going to be preaching your sermon in.
How a 21st Century Pastor Studies