How do you help a church to receive a good healthy balanced diet of Bible teaching? Well here are some thoughts I have based on experience. I think that the crucial thing is not to over think it. We tend to over think it when we spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not there is a specific book or theme that the church particularly need to hear teaching on. So, of course, we end up with preaching series on Nehemiah whenever there’s a building project.
So, keep it simple. By keeping it simple, I mean doing something as straightforward as an alternating pattern between Old Testament and New Testament that covers the different genres. This might look something along the lines of
Old Testament history
New Testament Gospel
Old Testament prophecy
New Testament Epistles
Old Testament Wisdom
New Testament Gospel
Old Testament History
Apocalyptic (Old or New Testament)
I would also intersperse expository teaching from books of the Bible with themed or topical teaching. This might include an Advent or Lent theme in the build up to Christmas and Easter. It might mean picking up on specific current issues facing the church such as at the moment I might set aside time to address issues such as racism, war and peace, stewardship of the environment, beginning and end of life ethics etc. It is good also to consider how to introduce doctrinal teaching to the church. One helpful way of doing this is to plan in a few sermons picking up on specific doctrinal issues arising our of a book series. For example, you might want to pause when studying John’s Gospel to look in more detail at Christology and the Doctrine of the Trinity. A series on Romans might encourage some teaching on justification, The Atonement, Assurance and Predestination..
How would you approach planning a teaching programme?
Faithroots 