Why Your Sermons Are Not Sticking
Tips for Creating A Series Calendar
By Josh Roberie
Do you have a preaching calendar for your church? If not, how are you giving your team the advanced notice they need to prepare for your messages creatively? Planning your message series does not just reduce your team’s stress and improve your ability to put together your sermons. It is also a way to strategically plan for how your Sunday messages will disciple your church.
What is a Series Calendar?
You may call it a preaching plan, message calendar, or sermon strategy. Whatever you call it, a series calendar is when you lay out the general topics you will cover in your Sunday morning messages throughout the year.
Why Is a Series Calendar Important?
Planning your messages is vital for your sermons to stick for several reasons.
Discipleship - It is your job, as the shepherd of your church, to make sure the sheep receive a healthy diet from God’s word on Sunday morning. Planning your messages ensures you lead your flock through different pastures of biblical content that will give your congregation a well-rounded spiritual diet.
Essentials - A series calendar will help you to cover the essentials that are important to your church every year without repeating unnecessary topics. Looking ahead on a calendar will allow you to see the best time to cover the most critical issues to your ministry.
Repetition - “Pastor, we’ve heard that story before.” No one wants to hear that after sharing a sermon! A message calendar will give you the opportunity to collect new stories, illustrations, and humor for your messages without repeating the same content from another message.
Creativity - Knowing what you will cover in advance will give your team a creative runway to do their best work.
How to Create a Series Calendar
When creating a series calendar, you need to understand the general overview of the year, people’s habits, and what you want to accomplish through your ministry in each season. Here is a quick summary of the flow of a typical church year.
Yearly Series Flow
Beginning of the Year - People establish routines for the new year and new school semester. Think about how many people are joining a gym and dieting during this time. They are looking to focus on their priorities which may be why church attendance increases after the Holidays.
Spring - Easter and Mother’s Day are two of the most well-attended Sundays of the year. What is your plan to invite them and convince them to return the following week?
Summer - One of the lowest attended seasons for churches. Plan messages for your most consistent group of attendees.
Fall - The first couple of months of Fall is when people return to their church attendance habits. School is starting back, and College’s return to session creates an opportunity for you to speak to people who are adding church to their schedule for the rest of the year.
Holidays - This can be a time when people are not in church as much, except for Christmas. Important things are happening during this time that you can use to celebrate Christ and emphasize the importance of faith in your members’ lives.
Use the Momentum
You want to use the momentum already present in people’s calendars instead of working against it. Here is how you can do that.
Plan your more evangelist series for when people return to church at the beginning of the year and school year. It is a natural time for people to return to church or try out church and can be an incredible time of soul-winning.
When attendance is lower, you know you have your most committed people in the room. You should use this time of the year to go a little deeper and prepare them for the evangelistic seasons coming up.
When you know there will be a more highly attended Sunday, like Easter, plan a series to start the following week so that people can feel like they are coming in at the beginning of something. The length of the series will give them an opportunity to “try out” the church for that length of time.
Final Tips for Message Planning
Give Yourself Breaks - Look for the weeks that have been the lowest attended, and give yourself a break at those times. Setting a calendar will also help you see when you have a long series of preaching back-to-back weeks. Planning for you to take a break is not selling your congregation short. It is a way to refresh and ensure you give them your best self each week.
Plan for Open Weeks - Do not expect to have a message series every week. Allow yourself to have a “one-off” message. An open week can also be when you invite a guest to bring a unique message to your church.
Be Flexible - A series calendar provides a great structure that allows you to plan, but it should not become so rigid that it does not allow you to mix things up when needed. Be ready to move series back or add something new if God leads you in that direction.
Did you know Deka offers social media services that will help get the word out about your series and the other amazing things happening at your church? Click here to schedule a complimentary coaching consultation to see how we can help your church’s social media presence today.
Josh is a ministry leader, communicator, and creative who helps train and coach church planters at the Association of Related Churches (ARC). He has written Believe Again: Finding Faith After Losing Religion and has contributed to many ministry publications, including Relevant Magazine. You can stay connected to Josh through his blog JoshRoberie.com and Social Media at @JoshRoberie.