After all of my complaining about my time being crushed this week because of, a) an overwhelming schedule, and, b) taking hours out of my life dealing with personal issues, somehow my sermon and this weekend’s prayers are finished.

I do not remember when I had these two very critical pieces of our weekend services complete with time to spare. For some reason – probably laziness – I fell into a rut when it came to sermon writing. Pushing sermon writing off to the very last moment put pressure on me to deliver a good one; sometimes it worked; other times, I fumbled the ball. This wasn’t always the case. My old way of sermon writing was the following:

Monday, Tuesday – spend time reviewing the Original languages, studying the nuances and deep meaning of the words.
Wednesday – create a "brain dump board" — write down everything I think about the readings and my study; in no particular order, I throw everything down on paper that is running through my head.
Thursday - take some time to outline a general sermon.
Friday – finalize the manuscript; "memorize" the sermon; make minor changes.
Weekends – preach it.

For the first couple of years of my ministry, that was my routine.

And then … I really don’t know what happened. I started pushing off the study to the middle of the week, thus making the all-important "brain dump" impossible. I would sketch out a basic outline for the sermon and then I would study and preach from this outline. When I fell into this rut, I was never confident about my sermon writing.

Last Sunday I vowed that this would end. Generally, I stuck to my old plan this week and, praise be to God, it worked! The sermon is done. Now all it needs is a little spit-shine and polish.