We got dumped with a foot of snow in Chicagoland two days ago, so I’m happy to think about summer! But preaching, rather than weather, is what’s on my mind. What are preachers to do when their people are ‘in and out’ the whole summer? Is it possible to preach a sermon series even though half the congregation may have missed last week’s sermon and will probably miss next week’s sermon, too? Let me share how I approach this.
First, I remind listeners to listen to ‘missed sermons’ online or on CD-Rom. This way, I can still preach through books or blocks of text. I do not want to create the impression that I’m going to sell my listeners short in the summer.
Second, having said that I still preach through books or blocks of text, I tend to choose series which are more loosely tied together. Some years, I’ve done “Psalms for Summer.” If listeners missed the sermon I preached on Psalm 100 the previous week, they won’t be at a deficit when they listen to this week’s sermon on Psalm 121 or Psalm 145. This summer, I’m planning to do a series on Jesus’ parables. The series title is “Stories Jesus Told.”
Third, another way to approach summer is to plan for shorter series which last 3-4 weeks. Some of the smaller New Testament letters (Titus, 2 and 3 John, etc.) or the minor prophets (Joel, Malachi, etc.) work well in this approach.
Finally, I work even harder in the summer to make sure that each message stands on its own. Even if I’m preaching through a book, I don’t assume that most of my listeners heard last week’s sermon.
What adjustments do you make for preaching in the summer?
Posted by Steve Mathewson at 8:12 AM on February 8, 2008
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Even though I don't preach weekly now, I do remember that John Maxwell encouraged preaching during summer months to be a "by request" kind of series. My own preference is to use a simple series that can be as flexible as the Psalm categories entitled, "Jesus, Teach us." And the sermon series could be tied to any number of topics from the Gospels. It could easily be entitled, "Paul, Teach Us, etc.
Posted by: Robert Szoke on February 11, 2008
Last summer my congregation and I had a lot of enjoyment over a preaching series idea I got from a friend in Torrance, CA. It was entitled "You Asked For It". In the spring I encouraged people in the congregation to get to me the BIG question(s) of faith they would like to hear addressed from the pulpit. I received lots of good, thoughtful questions and had a lot of fun working on each week's question-based sermon response. While each week's message was part of a larger series, each sermon was also fairly self-contained. The feedback and engagement of the people was unlike any other summer series I have yet preached.
Posted by: John Walker on February 19, 2008