[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]

As we gather ideas for our sermon series, there will come a point when we need to begin to flesh out an actual plan.  We eventually need to get our ideas on paper so we can begin planning the minute details that are necessary for making the sermon series a successful one.  As I plan my sermon series for our middle school ministry, my goal is to have seasons planned several months before we get to them.  For me that means in November, the plans for our January to May series gets nailed down.  In April or May, I finalize our summer teaching plan.  And I do the same thing as I plan our fall series.  The following questions are very helpful to me as I try to set the framework for an individual series.

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[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]

How do you decide what to preach?  Is it based on a moment of creative inspiration or is there a more methodological way of going about preaching calendar?  Whatever way you come up with ideas for what to preach, it is critical that are being intentional with what we are going to say over the next several weeks or months.  I believe there are two main categories that our preaching falls into: sermons that people want to hear and sermons that people need to hear.  The “want to hear” sermons are the ones that speak to felt needs, topics like friendships, families, stage of life issues.  The “need to hear” sermons are the ones that speak to the docrine of a specific belief or even teaching through an entire book of the Bible.

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[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]

One of the most difficult, yet also most rewarding parts of building a sermon series is getting ideas.  Anybody can come up with great ideas for a teaching series; the reason that oftentimes people don’t is because it takes a level of discipline and practice to do so.  It can be very hard work, but when you work through planning a series and know that the the theme will connect with the students, it is well worth it.

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[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]

In churches all over the world, it is common for the preaching to be organized in groups of sermons called a sermon series.  Youth pastors, senior pastors, and children pastors often will look for common threads to organize how they teach the scriptures in a memorable way.  As I’ve worked through putting together several sermon series for weekly programs and retreats, I have found using a sermon series to very helpful for both myself and those listening to me.

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Preaching is an important part of youth ministry.  We spend large portions of our time creating, writing, and giving sermons to our students because we believe that God’s word is powerful.  As you work with students, you likely not only want to preach God’s word, but you want to do so clearly and creatively.  You want students to be engaged with the scriptures, not bored by something that they think doesn’t relate to their life.

One of the most valuable ways, in my opinion, to preach through the Bible is by organizing it in a sermon series.  This isn’t something mandated by the Bible, so it is by no means the only way to organize your teaching calendar.  A sermon series is in essence a way to organize a group of messages that are tied together by some common thread and preach through those in succession and with a similar branding so that the messages are more memorable for the hearers.

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Throughout history God has used the spoken word to transform lives.  Preaching has been an avenue that the holy spirit has worked through for thousands of years.  Certainly over these years, many elements of preaching has changed.  The context of the preaching is significantly different than it once was, yet at the same time many elements of preaching have held true over time.

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