I used to be a lectionary preacher, but have mostly moved away from that and gotten into series preaching, whether it be topical or going through a book of the Bible.
I am getting together with a good friend of mine tomorrow to brainstorm how to preach the book of Revelations. I am planning to give eight weeks to a series of messages to start right after Easter.
In my own mind, I sense a tension - as a layperson, I would probably start to lose interest, even with excellent preaching, if something lasted more than about eight weeks (I normally plan series to be three to five weeks). On the other hand, how can I really do justice to a work as complex as Revelations in only eight weeks?
My question is, for those of you who preach using series of sermons, what is the most number of weeks you would spend on any one series?
Monday, April 10, 2006
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7 comments:
I'm both a lectionary & a series preacher. I look for a common theme running through the lectionary readings for a season & create a series around that theme. Thus most series run about 3 to 6 weeks. Never longer than that.
I preach mostly series with a few stand-alones mixed in at various times. I've preached everything from a 3 to a 13 week series. The 13 week one was last year walking through Matthew's gospel from the birth of Jesus through Easter Sunday. That's the only one of those I've done. Right now I'm in the middle of a 10 week series in John's Gospel that began the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and will continue a couple of Sundays past Easter. But apart from a gospel series located near Lent, I'm usually 3-6 weeks.
I think the main thing with series preaching is variety in the length of the series. Not all 3 weeks, not all 8 weeks. Mix it up.
I think you should make this series a life long one. Start with Rev 1:1 and preach one verse a week.
=o)
rev mommy,
Nah, the guy next door at the local non-denominational/Bible church has that angle covered . . . seriously, the congregations expect that kind of preaching over there. They spent three years on Romans. Interesting.
My dad was telling me recently that the pastor of the UM church I grew up in had spent like 15 straight weeks on the "full armor of God," and my dad's patience was starting to wear thin . . .
I preach series sometimes. However, I would never preach one sermon so that you had to hear last week's or next week's in order to follow along. I just know that some people are going to miss. So since each week is new in spite of a series (even a book series) I have preached series up to 16 weeks -- asI preached through Ephesians. And Ephesians is much shorter and less complex than Revelation. So I wish you well if you take on just 8 weeks.
PS: I recommend The Rapture Exposed as a good reference for you.
I often times do a Lenten or Advent series. And from time to time do others that don't need to be any more than 3 to 4 weeks tops. Of course I didn't listen to my own advice last year when I did an extended series on the Sermon on the Mount.
I would agree with rev roberts about not doing them where someone would have to have heard the prior week's sermon to understand something. Make sure that each could stand on it's own if need be.
Thanks for the good pointers about making sure any sermon could stand on its own. I think that is a little trickier when preaching through a book than when covering a certain theme or topic, but absolutely necessary. I will have to work at coming up with ways to ensure both a connectedness from week to week while still letting people enter into the text at any point.
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