How long should I spend preparing my sermons?

It's a tough question both for the new preacher and the experienced pastor.

Obviously it all depends.

It depends on what you are preaching to whom. It depends on your abilities and character and experience. It depends on the subject or book you are preaching and how well you know them. It depends on how well you know the people and what the occasion is. It depends what the other claims on your time are.  

Some of us will be tempted to cut preparation corners; others will be tempted to retreat to the study.

Some of my Anglo-Catholic friends tell me its good to look at the passages on a Saturday night. Getting up early before the 8am on Sunday can be leaving it a little too late! I'm told there are sermons in The Church Times you can read out. And Mrs Williams and Tom Wright have written books of sermonettes for each Sunday.

Of course, we Evangelicals have other sources of plagiarism: Ryle, Spurgeon or our favourite internet preacher, Dr Keller, Dr Piper, Mr Stott or Mr Lucas. The Doctor even.

I'm told that at a certain theological college, at one time it was taught that a sermon requires a minimum of 16 hours preparation. I've no idea how this was proved.

One rule of thumb that is sometimes given is an hour per minute. This doesn't really work. Of course you can't work for an hour on the first minute and then move on to minute 2 in hour 2. But say you were preaching for 20 minutes, that's 20 hours preparation. Maths was always one of my strong points! If you were going to preach for 40 minutes, that'd be a full time job done right there before you'd seen a single person or preached a single sermon. People sometimes say it takes longer to prepare a good short sermon than a bad long one. There's something in that. It may well be that after you've got a lot of notes, they need some editing rather than merely reading out.

They used to say never be out of your study in the morning and never be in it in the afternoon. So how long does that give you?! 9am - 1pm Mon - Fri = 4x5=20.I don't know if you're meant to do all your admin in that time too? And if you're a free church pastor, you probably have to preach at the midweek meeting and twice on a Sunday. So he might manage maybe 7 hours per sermon? Or he might concentrate on the main Sunday sermon, perhaps reuse some material for the others. Then he might manage 3 hours on the 2 sermons he has preached before and 7 hours on the new one, with 7 hours for admin etc.

I reckon the experienced pastor can probably manage to do a decent job on the sermon in 2 sessions - say 2 mornings of 4 hours each. He may also want a final cram. It depends. If you're preaching at 11am on Sunday, get up at 6am and you can easily manage another 3 hours and still be in church, suitably dressed, fed and watered 30 mins before the service starts. For some, a deadline like that will focus the mind. Preparation can expand to fill the time you give it.

For me, I think the best answer to give is that I should take as long as I think I need - plus a bit extra. It is tempting to think I am sufficiently ready without really tackling that exegetical problem I might just skate over or, perhaps the stronger temptation, to skimp on an extra hour on presentation and how to say it in the most affective, gripping way.



Thoughts?