I’ve picked up on a little debate between preachers recently about whether or not you should reuse sermons when speaking at other churches or prepare a fresh sermon every time. I suspect this has been prompted, at least in part by this brilliant article from Tim Wilson. There are a couple of things I’d differ with him slightly on, including that I’m a bit more comfortable even with new preachers re-using their sermons (with some crucial qualifications) but I want to say something slightly different here.
There is a way in which every preacher should be re-using their sermon. I don’t mean here that we repeat the preach at several churches, in fact generally speaking my preference is not for preachers to build their experience by visiting lots of different chapels. I think that they do better when the primary preaching team, the pastor and or elders make space for them to preach frequently in their home church.
What I mean is that we should be re-preaching the sermon to our congregation in as many settings as possible in the week/month that follow it. We may even return to it and preach it again, six month down the line.
Now, hopefully obviously, I do not mean that you are going to get your script/notes out again and repeat the 20-30 minute monologue. Rather, what I mean is that the sermon itself should have a central point, a primary application and if you believe that this is what God is specifically saying to your church family at this particular time, then you will want to keep reinforcing it. Indeed, not only you but all those who are part of your church pastoral leadership.
So, for example, if you are leading a home/life group Bible study, then you might choose to use that opportunity to return to the Bible passage looked at on Sunday, you’ll then want to make sure tat everyone has grasped the main application. If you study something different in the group, then I’d encourage you to be making links. For example:
“Did you notice how the people of Israel went from slavery through the place of death in the Red Sea to new life as children of God in his presence? That’s the same thing that we saw about us when we were reading Romans 6 on Sunday, we died with Christ and rise to new life in in him.”
Again, if your church family meet for prayer or there’s a members or leaders’ meeting to make decisions, take them back to the main application from Sunday to show what its implications are for the specific context, how it motivates particular prayer or helps you to think through what will be most God glorifying in your decisions.
This is true again for pastoral conversations, whether the formal planned visit, maybe to a hospital bedside, or in marriage counselling, even too in the sad event of church discipline. It includes those informal opportunities when you are just spending time with believers. Keep bringing them back to what God’s word is saying to the church right now and help them to see its relevance to their situation at the moment.
Sometimes incidentally, it works the other way and helps with preparation. I might want to share with someone something pertinent from my preparation, encouraging them to make sure they are there on Sunday to hear the final form. This means that you’ll have preached your sermon in effect many times before it is preached in the pulpit.
The aim is to make sure that we are constantly pastoring the church with God’s Word.
Faithroots 