Preaching with a Plan: Sermon Strategies for Growing Mature Believers

© 2012 by Scott M. Gibson

Published by Baker Books

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakerbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-3589-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

To all the Boys

With love and gratitude

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword by Warren W. Wiersbe

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. All I Want Is a Practical Theology of Preaching

2. Of Plans and People

3. Of Preachers and Plans

4. Planning Sermons and Making Disciples

5. Planning Purposeful Preaching

6. The Best-Laid Plans for Discipleship

Conclusion

Appendix 1: Steps in Planning Your Preaching

Appendix 2: Planning Calendar

Notes

About the Author

Back Ad

Back Cover

Foreword

In 1933, when Dr. G. Campbell Morgan returned to London to pastor Westminster Chapel for the second time, he gave the church organist his preaching schedule covering the entire year.

Talk about planning!

In spite of a diligent search in my library, I failed to find the documentation for this interesting slice of homiletical history, but I believe it was told to me personally by Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Morgan’s associate and then successor at Westminster. Of course the preaching schedule didn’t control the preacher, and Morgan was wise enough to alter his plan should the Spirit so lead and circumstances so demand.

No matter what metaphor you select to describe your preaching—attacking a fortress, serving a meal, building a structure, maturing a family, cultivating a garden—that metaphor will probably contain some element of planning and order. Not only must the message itself be organized, but the spiritual diet over the course of the weeks must have variety, balance, and interest as well as nourishment. Sameness leads to tameness, and a tame pulpit is rarely effective. In one of his perceptive essays, Frank W. Boreham described a certain preacher as a lion in pin curls, which reminds us of the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz.

If planning for the pulpit is a problem to you, then be thankful you have purchased or borrowed this book. Read it carefully, take its message to heart, and put its lessons into practice. If you do, I’m sure your homiletical perspective will expand, your congregation will rejoice, and you will find yourself preaching and pastoring with exciting new efficiency. (Yes, taking time to plan does give us more time to serve.)

One more suggestion: pay close attention to the authors mentioned in these chapters and start searching for their books. As preachers, we must bring out of our storehouse new treasures as well as old (Matt. 13:52), and perhaps you need to catch up on the past. Some ideas that are contemporary often prove to be temporary, while something written decades or even centuries ago may be just the truth you need.

It’s a privilege to preach God’s truth and shepherd God’s people, and Scott Gibson’s Preaching with a Plan can help us do it more effectively.

Warren W. Wiersbe

Acknowledgments

Thanks to David Enyart, John Ketchen, Daniel Overdorf, and President Gary Weedman and the students at Johnson Bible College for their gracious reception and many kindnesses when I was there to deliver the Preaching Emphasis Week lectures in March 2008, on which some of this book is based. I’m also grateful to Provost Frank James for the invitation to deliver the Kenneth L. Swetland Lectureship in Pastoral Ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts, in April 2010. Thank you also to Dean Bruce Fawcett and the students in my Doctor of Ministry class at Acadia Divinity College, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, October 2010. I also express my gratitude to Jack Connell, Doug Cullum, and the Northeastern Seminary team for the invitation and opportunity to present this material at a pastors conference in April 2011.

Thank you John Prickett and Christian Eriksson for your help in researching materials for this book.

Thanks to Grant Buchholtz for his constant encouragement to finish this project. And thanks to Paul Gard on whom I lean in the Center for Preaching. I appreciate your assistance more than you know.

A million thanks to Bob Hosack and to the wonderful team at Baker Books. I appreciate your patience, understanding, and grace. When I first started this project, I was not yet ready to write it. A few years of thought, observation, experimentation, cogitation, reading, research, and prayer have gone into this work. In time, my thinking on the matter of preaching and discipleship has developed and I trust will be even more helpful now than when I initially began the project. Thank you, Bob, for your graciousness. And thanks to Mary Wenger and the Baker editorial staff for their careful and skillful work on the manuscript. I appreciate it more than you know.

Thank you Calvin Woosung Choi, Thomas V. Haugen, and Matthew D. Kim, who read the manuscript and provided helpful and insightful comments. Your support means the world to me.

My love and gratitude to my wife, Rhonda, who never ceases to amaze me with her support and care. I’m constantly grateful to God for you.

Thank you Dave Terzian and Jon Terzian and the congregation of the Watertown Evangelical Church. Your support in the project is immeasurable. Thanks too for the privilege of planning preaching in the hopes of moving us together toward increased spiritual maturity. You are a wonderful bunch, and I’m grateful to the Lord for your many kindnesses and generosity. I appreciate your willingness to enable me to work on this project in the midst of a busy professor’s and pastor’s life. Thank you!

To the trustees at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary I owe a profound amount of thanks. I’m grateful for the generous sabbatical program graciously provided to faculty members, without which I would not have been able to complete this project. Thanks to President Dennis Hollinger, Provost Frank James, and Dean Carol Kaminski for your support.

This book is dedicated to the Boys, the men—seminary students—whom God has allowed me to mentor, to disciple, to walk with through all kinds of experiences of life, ministry, and faith. You all mean the world to me, and I’m grateful to count you as my sons and brothers in the faith: Jacob Akers, Boo Arnold, Tom Backer, Casey Barton, Kerry Bender, Rob Berreth, Chad Bryan, Grant Buchholtz, Keith Campbell, Jim Cheshire, Calvin Woosung Choi, Michael Curtis, John Dao, Eric Dokken, Nick Gatzke, Bill Haley, Tom Haugen, Paul Hoffman, Matt Kim, Patrick Lowthian, Glen Massey, Mike Mazzye, John Meinen, Derek Mondeau, Stephen Nyakairu, Brannin Pitre, Chris Priestaf, Chris Rappazini, Todd Regester, Deryk Richenburg, Eric Russ, Stephen Sebastian, Ken Shigematsu, Todd Smedley, Michael Spurlock, Jim Teall, Andy Tisdale, Allen Yeh, and Young-Kee Yu. And to Patricia Batten. She’s also one of my boys even though she’s a girl.

Introduction

I think in all preaching we are discipling or making disciples through the sermon.

A pastor in The Haddon W. Robinson Center for Preaching Sermon Planning Survey

This book is about preaching—but more than preaching, it is about the why of preaching. Why do we preach? Why do we do what we do? Toward what end do we labor in the ministry of the Word?

We engage in what we do for the growth of men and women and boys and girls in the faith. We want to stretch believers to expand their faith and obedience as they grow in grace. Our goal is Christlikeness, and we know that believers in Jesus Christ will mature in their faith through faithful sermon planning and the preaching of God’s Word.

You notice that I included planning along with faithful preaching of God’s Word. We’re talking about purposeful planning, planning that takes into consideration the spiritual status of the congregation and moves them toward maturity through the ministry of the Word.

Of course we can’t do this on our own. We’re utterly and completely dependent on the Lord of the church to build his church. Discipleship through our sermons is what we’re after. Discipleship, then, is developing mature, well-rounded Christians who not only are fed through preaching and the wider ministry of the church but also are able to feed others and themselves well.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I invite you to walk with me through the following pages and assess for yourself whether you agree with me that the missing element in the church today is discipleship. We talk about it. We give approving glances toward it. We even preach about it. But we’ve not come to terms with viewing all of ministry, including preaching, through its lens.

Some of you might be thinking, I do this already. Discipleship is how I approach ministry. Perhaps so, but it may be that we are defining the word discipleship similarly while not actually practicing it in the same way. Discipleship is what we’re about as pastors. Men and women come to faith in Jesus Christ, and we have the task to pastor—to lead them, to disciple them. Preaching contributes to the overall spiritual development of believers. So the question for us is, Are we intentional about our preaching so that it actually makes a difference in the lives of our listeners?

We preach to help disciples mature. This is the why, and the chapters that follow deal with this and discuss how to go about developing a purposeful preaching plan that keeps discipleship firmly in view.

The aim of our preaching is to help Christ’s disciples grow, so we want to be intentional about it.

1

All I Want Is a Practical Theology of Preaching

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16–17

I’m a preacher. I love to communicate God’s Word to men