Thoughts On Being Prepared

I mentioned that the creativity team met and I feel that we have put together an awesome message for my return on the 31st of this month. If you attend New Spring or listen on-line then I know you have probably heard me speak about the incredible team of creative people I have surrounded myself with…and on more than one occasion I have had people ask me exactly what goes into preparing a message at New Spring.

Let me be very up front—I believe in being prepared—and being prepared as a speaker involves a lot of time. This has not always been a conviction of mine…I used to sort of have the attitude that I would get up to speak, have a passage in mind, read it—and then “let the Spirit move me” in whatever direction He wished.

But since that time I have discovered that the moving and working of the Holy Spirit is not limited to a one hour window on Sundays. The Holy Spirit moves me to always be thinking about the message that I will be speaking on—He is present with me in my times of study—He is present with me as I am preparing and running through the message in my living room—and He is present with me as I present the message.

I can honestly say that every message that I speak is Spirit led—I usually have about 90% of what I want to say in mind when I step out on stage to speak every Sunday—and He always moves and gives me about 10% more than I had planned to say.

I believe God honors those who honor Him through loving Him and the people who are going to be in attendance. How do we honor God & those people—if we are the speaker—it means that when we step up—we are prepared. I am guided by the conviction that people are willing to give me 30-40 minutes of their time every week…and I do not want to communicate in that time that God is boring or meaningless—so I prepare.

My preparation for a message usually begins at least three weeks out. (Sometimes it will be several months!) I begin with a Bible and a blank sheet of paper without any lines! (It’s a personal thing!) I begin to explore passages of Scripture and I journal my thoughts as I go through this—this normally takes at least an hour or two.

Then I take those thoughts and try my best to put them in some sort of outline form that will make it both easy for me to communicate and easy for people to understand. This is probably the most challenging part of the process. After I put my thoughts in outline form I continue to add to the outline and take away from it for about a week. (I usually develop four or five days a week to this process.)

Then, after I feel like I have squeezed as much out of it as possible I send my notes to our creativity team here at the office. They have about a day to review it & then we meet, usually at 9:30 on Tuesday mornings, to review the message. The people on this team will often offer other views that I had not thought of, challenge views that I may be presenting, assist in the development of incomplete thoughts…it is an amazing process and I feel has helped me to be a much more effective communicator.

(For example—this past year for mother’s day I invited every female in our office to assist in the development of the message. I met with them one day for a brainstorming session that I expected to last for 30 minutes—we went for an hour and a half—did you know that women are extremely detailed? Then I took their thoughts, developed them around a passage of Scripture, and gave a message that totally communicated to women on a level they could connect with. I feel that pastors many times forget that there are people in their congregation who do not always appreciate sports illustrations—that is why it is so important to have females on this team!)

After the team assists me in dissecting the message I then wrestle with it for the rest of the week, often asking two or three people from the team to come into my office so I can bounce “my new angle off of them.” Then the next week I usually begin trying to speak the message on Tuesday or Wednesday—committing it to memory so that I can connect with my audience instead of my notes on stage.

Well—that’s it—that’s how we do it here at New Spring. I am not saying that we are the best…this process continues to develop—but we are convinced that we need to work as if everything depends on us…and then pray as if everything depends on God—that combination will assist anyone in becoming a more effective communicator.