Quick review…
- #1 - Get A Word from the Word
- #2 - Listen to other communicators
- #3 - Find your best time and place to prepare
- #4 - Organize a creative process
5. Work Ahead.
I realize that many pastors are preaching what I call “Saturday Night Specials” because they don’t feel they have the time or they don’t feel they can work ahead. I would challenge pastors to do everything you can to get your message preparation 2 or 3 weeks ahead of time. The reason why is simple: it relieves your team and helps them to prepare better.
Seriously you have people that serve in your church, video people, music people, whatever, that if you simply gave them 2 or 3 more weeks to pray through and develop some ideas you would would be AMAZED at the quality of work they could produce.
One of the problems that pastors have is they think their staff exists to serve them, therefore they will work week of, develop their message by Wednesday, give it to the people who have to help pull it together, completely stress out their music and video crew, make them work 60, 70, 80 hours a week just to get a job done…when if the pastor would repent of his laziness and egomania, the entire staff could serve the Body rather than the pastor manipulating his staff and using them to serve the Body.
When we work ahead it allows things to marinate in our minds. When we know what we are preaching 2 or 3 weeks in advance, it will literally help us because we become aware of what we are preaching on so we are always thinking about it, always praying about it, we’ll see something online that will refer to it. Marinating on an idea helps it develop. One of the things that I try my best to do is to work way ahead so that our staff, specifically our creative arts department, can do their best job possible.