Yesterday I went out to lunch with a friend and we were talking about sermon series and how we plan them. I’m not trying to say there is one way to go out how to plan sermon series or what you should be teaching and how you do it but what I am saying is there should be some thought and strategic planning behind it. We were talking about we both knew people who say they just kind of teach things as they come up or what they feel their students need to hear and not give it a second thought.

We were talking about how there is nothing initially wrong with that just there could be a tendency to teach heavy in one direction without intentionally doing so. I know people who teach all topical and I know people who go verse by verse through a book and both are great, as long as it’s part of a thought process, strategic planning and it’s the direction on which your ministry’s vision is headed towards.

For me, our Wednesday night program is geared and programmed for students who want to invite their non-churched friends to. So we program games, fun things and events and our sermon series for that. I think we have a good system in order to make our place inviting for non-believers and expose them to Jesus and to also challenge the students who are believers.

Our sermon series plan is very simple and it’s fun for us. We do the following order:

  • Topical series – We do the typical dating/sex/relationship in February and things in culture our students are talking about. We did the Instalife series on DYM and it was a hit.
  • Go through a book in the Bible – Right now we are in a series called “Wizdumb: A Study Through Proverbs” where we are talking about friendships, pride, parents and broken spirits. It has been so fun.
  • Series on Jesus – When we get back from summer camp, all summer we are going to be talking about Jesus and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

For us, this system and rotation of intentional planning allows us to keep our vision of reaching the un-churched in our area alive but also make sure we are switching things up and making sure we don’t hit on certain things over and over again. Series planning is one of my favorite things to do as we look for God to guide us in the direction we feel He is wanting us to go with our students.

This works for us. It might not work for you, but what does for you? How do you plan out sermon series? Why do you do it that way? We would love to hear.

 

@justinknowles3