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Building the Series Plan

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

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.

1. What's the Big Idea?

Just like an individual sermon will have an overall message, the same thing should be true of a sermon series.  In the scope of the several weeks that are tied together, what are you hoping will be accomplished?  There will be certainly differences from message to message, but what big idea is holding these all together.

2. Where's the series going?

What is the weekly progression of your series?  Be intentional about how weeks build upon the previous weeks; at the same time find ways to tie back to the current series.  Since you likely have a big idea in mind, how does each individual week fit into the big idea while also expanding upon that idea in a unique way.  If the sermon series doesn't feel like it's going anywhere, there might be a better way to lay out the indivdual weeks of the series.

3. What are the weekly main ideas?

If you knew the one thing that you were trying to communicate in an individual message several weeks before you did most of your writing, how much more creative would you be?  Work hard to figure out the big idea of your individual messages now so that you can let them sit in your brain.  The longer you have an idea and can let it be there, the more ideas you will come across that can serve your message well.

4. What's should it be called?

The content is most important, but the context of the sermon does matter too.  In essence, as we develop a sermon series, we are trying to create a brand for a group of sermons.  By creating a brand it helps people quickly recognize what we are talking about, where we are going, and it might even become a memorable set of messages.

5. How can I make it memorable?

The title and branding are certainly intertwined with this, but taking it a step further, what else can we do to make the content memorable?  It's important here that we understand, we are not trying to make an graphic or color scheme memorable, but actually make the content memorable.  What can you do with the web, with video, or graphics to help make the theme stick?

Photo Credit: Marcus-E

 

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A Disney World Surprise

Several months ago I decided that for our 11/11/11 anniversary, I wanted to surprise Jessica by taking her to Disney world.  I began looking into some of the details about costs, resorts, and such to see if it was feasible.  Once I decided that it was an actual possibility, I began devising my plan for the surprise.  I wanted to make sure that on 11/11/11 she would find out that we are leaving the next day for Disney World. Photo 1

The Plan

In order to make this plan work, I had to lie.  A lot.  I convinced Jessica to take a week off of work, which was not difficult since she doesn't enjoy working, so that we could spend a few days in Frankenmuth and also have some time to do work around the house and get the baby's room ready.  Once she had the days off, I put my next steps into action as I made reservations for our Disney Resort.  Immediately after I booked our reservation for the All Star Movies resort, I used my photoshop skills to fake an invoice for a hotel in Frankenmuth that Jessica was hoping we would stay at.  In the midst of this process, I made sure to talk about plans and ideas for our trip to Frankenmuth and our week off, while also at the same time makig sure only a select few knew about the actual plan.  I basically planned two vacations; the real one and the fake one.

Pixar

The Reveal

On our anniversary, Jessica had to work in the morning.  I took the morning off and had my sister come over to help me get started with packing.  I wanted to get the packing started so there would less to worry about when she realized in less than 24 hours we would be in Orlando.  When Jessica got home from work, there was a pile of gifts waiting to be opened in order.  First, Harry Potter 7.2 on Blu-ray.  Second, a Harry Potter wand and glasses.  Third, a Peter Pan book.  Fourth, Mickey Ears.  And finally, luggage tags for Disney World.  She spent most of that afternoon saying, "Is this real?"

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That's how I made Jessica's 11/11/11 wish come true.

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Leaving for Disney World

11.11.11 was Jessica and my 4th anniversary.  Since it was a once-in-a-lifetime date and our last anniversary pre-baby, I decided to surprise her with a trip to Disney World.  We are on our way to Orlando for a fun-filled week in the most magical place on earth. Photo

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How Do I Decide What is App-Worthy?

Iphone Occasionally I make apps.  I don't love the code engineering process in making apps, but I love coming up with ideas and using the App Store as a platform to share my ideas.  I often hear about people who want to make a ground-breaking app for the iPhone or iPad.  Everybody has a lot of ideas of what should be an app.  Typically it's motivated by the stories of people getting rich from a smash hit like Angry Birds.  My motivation for making apps has not been the same; my motivation for making apps has been that I've wanted those apps.

Two questions to help me decide what's worth building:

Do I want this app?

If you want to make an app and don't find yourself wanting to use it,  don't waste your time.  As I built Clips, I continually found myself using it as a resource even in the early stages.  I wanted to use Clips, so I built it and released it.  I did not decide to make Clips because market research told me that there was a possibility that I could sell a product, but because as I used my iPhone I knew that it would help me.  And if it would help me, it might help my volunteers.  And if if was helping my volunteers, I might be able to sell it to other youth workers throughout the country.

"Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?" - Steve Jobs

Can I Actually Pull It Off?

I've had lots of ideas that have never become apps.  These ideas have been apps that I absolutely would use, but unfortunately I couldn't technically pull it off.  If you're going to make an app, a helpful question to decide very early on, is can you actually produce the app that you envision?  The earlier you can figure that out, the more time and money it will save you.  I have lots of code and web domains that could of been saved simply by knowing the scope of possibilities with my own code-writing skills.

Photo Credit: Guilherme-Pavan

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3 Solas

3Solas In order to seriously talk about any theology, we need to make clear what presuppositions we are bringing with us into the discussion.  We can talk for hours about the doctrine of the Trinity, but if I believe that the Bible is God's word and you do not, we need to talk about something other than the doctrine of the Trinity.  Since I often use this blog for theological musings, I think it's helpful for me to make clear three presuppositions that I have as I talk about the Bible.

Grace Alone

We are saved by grace.  Grace is central to what it means to be a Christian, and this will be foundational to everything in our theology.  If we are saved by grace alone, this heavily influences what we believe about God's activity towards man and man's response to God.  The belief that man has any role in his own salvation is dangerous; it is only because of God's grace that we have salvation.

Faith Alone

Christ died for all people, but not all people are saved.  Why?  God's death and ressurection was for all people, but the way that this has been applied to us as individuals is by faith alone.  We are saved by grace through faith.  There are no lists of 7 principles that will lead us to the gift of faith; faith simply comes from God.  And it is only through faith in Christ that we receive the benefit of forgiveness.

Scripture Alone

The place that our theology comes from, is always from scripture.  Our theology shouldn't come from popular opinion or scientific theories, but from the Word of God.  The scripture is the authority for any discussions on what we believe; if we are going to make claims about what we believe about things like God, the work of Christ, the creation of the world, or homosexuality, it is going to be based on the authority of scripture.  The scripture shapes our theology and is the reason that we are able to have any knowledge of our sin and God's grace.

What presuppositions do you have when talking about theology?

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Teaching Notes: Sanctification

Caterpillar This week we finished our mini-series in our Middle School Ministry called "2 Big Words."  Certain words in our Christian faith can be difficult to understand, and in certain occasions these difficult-to-understand words are central to our faith.  This series was about defining and exploring the importance of the words justification and santification.

Faith Changes Things

Sanctification simply defined means "to make holy."  What this practically means in our walk with Jesus, is that God makes us to be more and more like him.  Sanctification is the process of being made to be like Jesus.  As we grow in our faith, we are changed to be more and more like Jesus in our attitudes, thoughts, and actions.  Sanctification is about the transformation that is taking place in us.  We are new creations.  We also read from the book "Very Hungry Caterpillar" to illustrate how a transformation takes place.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" - 2 Corinthians 5:17

As God changes us to be more and more like him, this becomes evident in three primary ways:

1. He changes our hearts.

As we are changed and growing by our relationship with Jesus, our hearts our changed.  We begin  to fall more and more in love with Jesus.  We desire to follow him and get to know him.

2. He changes our attitude towards sin.

As God is working in our hearts, our attitude towards sin changes.  It's not that we stop sinning, but that our attitude towards sin changes.  We begin to struggle with sin; we battle against sin as we fight to do what's right.

"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." - Romans 7:18-20 (the do-do verse).

3. He changes our actions.

As our hearts are changed and our attitude towards sin, our actions should follow behind.  We are saved by grace through faith alone, but these things are never alone.  Good works follow closely behind.  As we are changed by grace through faith, our actions will also change to share the love of Christ with the world.

Photo Credit: Logical Progressions

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Choosing What To Preach

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

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.

What People Want to Hear

What are the felt needs of the people you are preaching to?  Are there things going on in their world that need to be addressed?  Are there issues being raised by the culture around them that need to be talked about?  It's not likely that people are bringing these ideas to you and asking you to preach on them, but there would be little difficulty in seeing how these topics speak to a practical need in their life.  We need to find ways to help people navigate through their immediate felt needs.  For example, a common felt need among church-goers might be family relationships.  How could we in the midst of a sermon series help people understand the importance of family and how to deal with family relationships bibilically?

What People Need To Hear

We cannot only give people what they want to hear; that can be a very dangerous slope.  It may not even be best for the "want to hear" sermons to be a majority, but it should certainly have a presence as you plan.  What are the things that are not on the front of a person's mind that they need to hear?  What doctrine do they need to be reminded of?  As you read through the scriptures, sometimes the Bible speaks to felt needs of the people and other times it takes some education to realize how important something is.  When I think about what people need to hear, I tend to try to ask, what doctrines that my students need to be reminded of?  What books of the Bible would it be helpful for me to teach through?  What might a middle school student need to hear, but not want to hear?

If you only give people what they want to hear, you are in danger on being nothing more than another self-help guru.  And if you only give people what they want to hear, what do you do when you get to issues like sin?  Most people don't want to hear they are depraved, sinful beings that deserve the wrath of God.  But they need to hear that.  So the tension becomes balancing what people need to hear and what people want to hear and finding the right way to speak to the totality of what the scriptures speak of.

What are some things people want to hear?  What are some things people need to hear?

Photo Credit: Zanthia

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How Not To Use Facebook

Facebook As more and more people have flocked to facebook, it has also become common for more and more people to post things as their statuses that would be better left unposted.  For some reason, we feel as though every tidbit of information going on in our head should be shared; especially if we are upset with someone or something.  For that reason, I decided to put together a post of some things that I think are better left off of facebook.

How Not To Use Facebook

1. As a forum for debate.

Facebook is not the best place to debate your religious or political opinions.  I realize that you are passionate about these things, but the truth is that it is much healthier to have an in-person conversation over a digital argument.  Internet debates typically go nowhere good very quickly, and for that reason I think it's best for us to not engage in debates online or post things that are for the sake of starting a debate.  Post your opinions; disagree with others, but don't let it escalate to becoming a debate.

2. As a place to tell us all your problems.

If you have a problem with someone or a group of people, deal with it in person.  Posting it on facebook doesn't solve anything.  I regularly see this as a way for people to vent their frustrations when hurt by someone or something.  Jesus tells us to deal with our problems with the people directly not by broadcasting it on the internet.

3. A place to complain about your job.

This one is just not smart.  What you post online can be used against you in your job or when you are looking for future jobs.  Employers often check facebook before they hire new employees, and they often find out about things being posted with current employees.  Chances are that if you post on facebook a complaint about your job, your co-workers and possibly your boss will know about it.

4. To replace real relationships

I love to use facebook as a tool to connect with people that I don't always connect with.  I also love to use it as another tool for communicating with those I care about.  When we get involved in online communities, it can be a temptation to see our digital relationships as no different than our real relationships.  You certainly may really, truly care for your digital friends, but don't live in a digital world and forsake the importance of having real live friendships and hanging out with real people.

What are some ways that you think we shouldn't use facebook?

 

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Getting Ideas for a Series

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

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.

Learn to Steal Well

Great artists steal.  Steve jobs said it, picasso said it.  Let's be clear, I'm not talking about plagiarism.  I think it is terrible for any artist, especially those in the church, to rip off somebody else's idea.  What a great artist will do, however, is learn to take ideas from several different sources and use the ideas of others transform it into an entirely new creation.  When you watch TV do you see ideas that could become inspiration for a series?  When you walk through the grocery store, what do you notice about people and the objects you see, could those inspire an idea?  When you listen to other preachers, what ideas start rolling around in your head?  Generating ideas for sermon series in large part requires us to be intentional about paying attention to everyday occurances because anything might be worth stealing from.

Write It All Down

We have all had situations where we wake up in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea and are sure that we'll remember it in the morning.  Then the morning comes.  And the idea is lost forever.  It doesn't matter how good your idea is, you need to write it down.  You won't remember it in the morning; you might not even remember it an hour later.  Even it you have an average idea, write it down because it might later inspire other ideas.  Find tools that you can use to write down any unfiltered ideas that you think could be used for something.  You may not even know what you will use an idea for; it might clearly not fit as a sermon series idea, but it might be good for something else later.

Give It Time

Anytime I have a great idea, I want to use it right away.  I look for ways to bring it into my upcoming teaching even when it seems to be a stretch.  It's a natural part of creativity; you get excited about sharing your ideas, but learning to be patient with ideas is critical.  As you begin to generate ideas, learn to give your ideas time to grow.  Your idea may work good now, but 3 months from now it may be incredible.  Give your ideas time to grow as you reflect on it and add to it.  Once you write down your idea, let it sit and percolate until the perfect moment when it would make no sense to not use it.

How do you come up with ideas for your sermon series?

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Teaching Notes: Justification

Baseball cards This week we began a new mini-series in our Middle School Ministry called "2 Big Words."  Every now and then we come across big words that are difficult to say or understand.  In Christianity, there are a couple of words that are not only central to our faith, but because the words are uncommon we might not realize how important these concepts are.  In the two weeks of this mini-series we will be talking about justification and sanctification.

Let me justify this...

You may not know a lot about justification, but you have probably heard someone say something a long the lines of "let me justify it."  Perhaps it is an unusual love for Justin Bieber music and someone has the need to explain their reasoning behind listening to that kind of music.  Often it will happen in situations where somebody did something wrong; so someone will try to justify their wrong choice by explaining the reason behind their actions.

To justify something simply means "to make right."  When we try to justify our actions, we are trying to make them okay.  When we talk about our Christian faith and the idea of justification, we are talking about how our relationship with God is made right.

We all are guilty.

There's not a single one of us who aren't guilty for something.  We could go through the commandments one by one and list out the reasons that we are guilty of breaking them.  We are sinful and this sin has separated us from God.  God is holy and cannot be where sin is, so because of our sin, we have a problem.  God cannot be near us.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." - Romans 3:23

What can you do to justify your guilt?  What can you do to make things right with God?  Is there a certain amount of good things you can do to outweigh the bad decisions?  Is there any way that you can justify yourself?  Fortunately, the answer is no.  We can't justify ourselves, but God is not content with letting us be separated from him, so in his great love for us, God makes right our relationship with him.

The unfair trade.

When I was younger, I collected all kinds of trading cards.  Occasionally my uncle, who was a garbage man, would deliver boxes filled with trading cards that he found in the trash.  My two brothers and I would take the boxes and have to distribute them amongst the three of us; we'd all take turns picking the ones we wanted.  Sometimes my youngest brother would end up with a card that I wanted for my collection.  Since he was young and didn't know much and I was older and smarter, I contrived a way to get the card I wanted without losing other ones I loved.  I traded.  Now it was never a fair trade, I somehow would convince him that a rookie card for a rookie card was an even trade.  Even if one was a Shaq rookie card and the other was never heard of.  I got all the benefits while Corey got none of them.

When we talk about justification, we are also talking about an unfair trade.  Nobody gets tricked in this trade, but it is certainly not an even trade.  When Jesus goes to the cross, he is making the biggest unfair trade in the history of the world.  Jesus trades his righteousness for our sin.  We receive all the benefits; we get a right relationship with God.  And Jesus becomes sin.  Our relationship with God is made right because Jesus justifies and by faith we receive this gift.

Photo Credit: Calaggie

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