Writing a Sermon

Monday, August 4, 2025

Happy Monday, my friends! If you are not called or not in a position to regularly write and deliver sermons and messages, let me tell you that no matter how a preacher reaches their final product and no matter how frequently they enter their pulpit, the process of writing a sermon is deeply personal. The best preachers draw from their own stories and their own lived experience. Now think about doing that every week or at least two or three times a month. One of my Blue Ocean congregants said it bluntly, “I don’t think I could do that.” I admit it’s a challenge.

Every preacher has their own process, their own cadence and timing, many have a certain place where sermons seem to flow more than other places, and, according to the Rev. Dr. Teresa Fry Brown[1], “The best preachers are always thinking about their next sermon.” Unlike Monday Moments, where the origin of my ideas is always a bit mysterious and where the inspiration tends to strike me mere minutes before I sit down to write, my sermons are planned in advance. I keep a list of the topics and scriptural passages I intend to preach on several weeks in advance. Yes, I sometimes decide to go somewhere else or world events push me to address issues which I hadn’t planned to address, but normally I’ve been thinking and planning my sermons several weeks in advance. Typically, each week’s sermon percolates in my head until Thursday when, early in the morning, it finally gets written out and edited. I always practice it several times before I deliver it to the congregation. Those run-throughs involve more edits until, Sunday morning, when I’m finally satisfied.

The first time I ever preached was July 2008 on my last Sunday as the parish intern at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC. I was there through the Lily Summer Discernment Institute sponsored by Sewanee. I had been challenged in nearly all my thinking about congregational ministry. I had also learned a lot. I had sung in the mass choir for the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Eugene Sutton as the Bishop of Maryland, a man who could trace his ancestry to people enslaved by the Rt. Rev. Thomas Claggett, the first Episcopal Bishop of Maryland. That same summer bishops across the Anglican Communion gathered in the UK for the Lambeth Conference and Gene Robinson was excluded from their number. Into that climate and with everything I was feeling and everything I had experienced, I was preaching for the first time. I worked on my sermon far longer than most preachers ever have time to write and edit. The night before I had a serviceable, if not a bit naïve sermon ready. It was ten or fifteen minutes long, perfect for an Episcopal service, and while not rousing by any means, it was perfectly adequate for the time and the place. I could already feel the spirit leading me to something different, but I didn’t have the language or the experience yet to preach those kinds of sermons. Then, I got scared. I wondered how my sermon would be received. I wondered how I would be received by a congregation that was frankly still getting to know me. On Saturday night I rewrote most of it. It had been adequate. After the rewrite it was careening off the tracks. I’m forever grateful to the parish administrator who, having already posted the text of my original draft online, decided there wasn’t any need to post the new draft. While one particular line in that sermon will continue ringing in my head for eternity, I can honestly say that my first sermon was my worst sermon. That’s how it should be.

We all preach by our words, actions, and the people we impact and influence, if you’re not called to preach sermons or you don’t regularly do it, I implore you to be kind to your preachers. Until I began preaching each week and regularly editing recordings of my sermons, I was extremely critical of preachers and their sermons. Sometimes it’s very hard to arrive at a sermon which might be considered just “ok.” Even under the best of circumstances when we’re in our sermon writing happy place and have one or more good ideas, all the other pressures of our lives can derail the process quickly. Some Sundays even the act of standing and speaking for ten to thirty minutes can be difficult on us physically, spiritually, and intellectually. Give your preachers and your pastors the grace you would want to receive from them. Remember, even Jesus needed to rest and get away from the crowds.

If you regularly preach, what’s your sermonizing process like? If you regularly listen to sermons, what do you do to lift up and encourage your preacher?

Let us pray: God, you spoke, and the world was created. Your Word is your Son, Jesus our liberator. Bless the work of preachers who present your Word, who interpret your words through the Bible and other sources, and who speak truth to people longing for that truth in their lives. Empower preachers who are hurting and longing for inspiration. Raise up good preachers from among your children but remind us that every person is a preacher in their own ways. Remind us that effective preaching doesn’t always involve words. Permit every person to be a prophet and a preacher and put your spirit upon all your people. We ask this through your Word, Jesus our liberator. Amen.

Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Faithfully,

Ben +

[1] The Rev. Dr. Fry Brown is the Bandy Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory University.