How much time you spend on writing sermon ?

[bekkilyn]

Did Methodists historically use the lectionary? Having come out of a tradition which did?

John Wesley tended to follow the Book of Common Prayer and the liturgical year, but as the Methodist movement grew along with lay preaching and evangelical field preaching, a lot of "free form" preaching took place, which became more and more common. Free form was intended to be more supplemental, but became dominant once the actual denomination was formed and likely depended on how "high church" the congregation was. I don't believe the lectionary was ever enforced on a wide-scale basis for Methodists though, at least once they became their own denomination.

 

[Deegie]

Lately, I have been averaging 3-4 hours for a 10-12 minute sermon. Sometimes it comes faster (like last week where a 16 minute sermon took two hours -- praise Jesus!) and sometimes I've wrestled for 8-10 hours. I have found that the better I know my people, their lives, their fears, their hopes, etc. the easier it becomes to speak a message relevant to them. Crafting a sermon for a congregation I don't know seems to take a lot longer. It also very much depends on what type of sermon I'm delivering on a given Sunday. Narrative preaching, for example, seems to almost write itself. Good expository preaching takes more time and research. A final factor is whether I preached on the same lections three or six years ago, and if I can re-use any of that material. I rarely ever repeat a complete sermon, even if it's with a different congregation, although I do have a couple of favorites that I've used a few times now. But there are often themes or portions that can be re-used.

 

[johnnywong]

Part of my secular background is in teaching, so I've been doing a good bit of informational preaching. I've noticed that there is a lot of biblical illiteracy in general...even the very, very basic stuff. Fortunately, while many United Methodists do use the lectionary, we aren't forced to use it, so even when I do start off with a single lectionary text, it can turn into multiple sermons, especially when writers like Paul or the author of Hebrews, etc. assumes cultural knowledge of his time that we don't have. How many people, for example, could even point out where the city of Ephesus was on the map (or know it was located in modern day Turkey vs. everything being in "Israel" or the generic "Middle East", or may have even heard of it to begin with, despite a book of the bible being called Ephesians?

The author of Hebrews was very likely writing to a Jewish Christian audience, so assumes a lot of familiarity with old testament scriptures, which many people today often don't have.

This past week, I was focusing on Hebrews 4:14-15 about Jesus being our high priest and so went back to the time of Moses and Aaron and how the Israelite high priesthood was formed and what happened on the Day of Atonement (and even what the word "atonement" even means), etc. If people don't have this background, they aren't going to more fully understand what it means for Jesus to be our high priest and how his being our high priest helps us today. In fact, many Methodists don't even really know what a "priest" is because we don't have them (despite the Wesleys having been Anglican priests), and there is a difference, at least historically, between a priest and a pastor, preacher, minister, etc.

Should *all* our sermons be of just one type? Nope, of course not, but I don't think we need to neglect informational teaching, especially in smaller congregations that may not have a formal bible study or Sunday School time.

If people don't even know who Paul was, then they may not care what Paul has to say despite him being some guy "in the bible".

Great!