So I’ve been preaching weekly for about four months now, and I’ve been thinking lately about how the process is different. It’s mostly been as I expected. I enjoy it. Love it, even. Sunday is relentless though, and I cope with this by borrowing that old William Stafford thing I’ve quoted so many times here—how is he able to write a poem a day? By lowering his standards.
I lower my standards.
Admittedly, they were pretty high to begin with. No more. I’m not cooking a four-course meal once a month like I used to. I’m cooking each week, which means there are some Trader Joes items mixed in with the home-cooked stuff.
That’s not to say that I’m sloppy—I hope I’m not—or that I don’t care—I do. I don’t use canned stuff, though I do poach from old sermons, papers from my clergy group, you name it. And I certainly don’t plagiarize, though I do know that others have plagiarized from me, which doesn’t bother me as much as it maybe should, but there it is. Honestly, there is nothing new under the sun, and I’m with Google: information wants to be free. Especially when you’re talking about the gospel.
So I borrow from Stafford, but I also borrow from Annie Dillard, who said to “spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the [sermon] or for another [sermon]; give it, give it all, give it now.” I used to hoard, unfortunately, but hoarding seems a luxury I cannot afford any more. And she’s right. Something new always comes along.
The final observation I have about this process has to do with one of the things I struggle with in writing, which is just getting something down and not editing and tinkering as I go. I am a major tinkerer. There really isn’t time for that with a weekly deadline—you just need to get something down. But when you’re writing a book or even an article, there is time and a mechanism for feedback and corrections; there is no outside editing process with a sermon. Once Sunday is over, that’s it. The rough draft IS the final product. That’s not to say that I don’t hone things, but there’s no wiggle room with the deadline. It’s just due, as is, that’s it. And somehow, it works.
When I first started in ministry I had this visualization thing I would do once a sermon was over. I’d think about it for a while, celebrate what was good, cringe over what didn’t work, and then I would picture the sermon as a kite that I was flying, and I would cut the string and let it float away. I am not feeling the need to evaluate and dwell on my sermons as much now. The relentlessness of Sunday is like the wind that pulls the string from my hand on its own. And that is OK.
14 Responses to “preaching weekly v. monthly”
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» There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places. -Wendell Berry
» “The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.” -Barbara Kingsolver
» It’s National Procrastination Week (who comes up with these things?), and in honor of people like me who like to celebrate NPW all year long, here’s a good article.
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I love the kite analogy. Seems this can come in handy for many things we invest in, but have to let go of eventually.
This is a huge insight. I’ve been preaching weekly for 21 years and often feel consumed with guilt that what came out of my mouth was sheer dross. The miracle is that sometimes the Spirit turns my dross into gold. And sometimes it stays dross-ish.
Here’s the truth though: your dross is more golden than most people’s best stuff.
I love the kite analogy. There are times when I fear the kite has crashed to the ground, but nevertheless, I let the wind take it…Not that I haven’t gone back 3 years later, looked at one again and said…”Moron, you left the stick out of the middle, no wonder it wouldn’t fly.” Those insights, for me at least, can’t come 3 minutes after the sermon, I need the intervening years.
Being in my third cycle of the lectionary as a weekly preacher is both very freeing. The I HAVE TO SAY THIS aspect of certain passages has been indulged and no longer gnaws at the text. The amazing thing to me, the Spirit thing in all of this is the gift of a new word, of a new insight that a text can have for me as a preacher the third time around…It makes me excited for the 15th time around.
Robert Farrar Capon said something similar using the analogy of gourmet cooking. He spoke of the need for the preacher to bring good bread every Sunday rather than a gourmet meal. I have leaned upon that counsel many times over the years of preaching: that’s it my duty and delight to offer bread in sermon. No more and no less.
Among many of Capon’s books that I love, this old one is wonderful:
The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel against the Wisdom of the World.
I agree with Jan, and my congregation does too since they heard you while I was on sabbatical.
Well put, RM.
I, too, preach weekly, and I, too, am a tinkerer. Sometimes I get the sermon done fairly early in the week, sometimes it’s a Saturday thing. The irony of it all (Jan, I’m thinking of your comment about the Spirit turning dross into gold) is that some of the sermons that I thought were dogs spoke to people in surprising ways, and some of the ones I wordsmithed to an inch of their little lives landed with a thud. So it goes in the homiletical world, I suppose.
I try for bread. Sometimes it’s Wonder Bread, full of hot air and not much else. Sometimes it’s artisanal whole grain yumminess. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference, but boy I love doing this!
Great reflection…I’ve been preaching weekly since September after four years of every other week. Like you, I mostly love it, but it is relentless, and I feel like I ought to be spending more time prepping…but the time isn’t always there. My writing process is such that I work better under deadline, and I’m able to revise and edit as I go, so that mostly works with me writing on Saturday. But I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I was done on Wednesday and then came back to revisit it on Saturday. Truth be known, when my writing was academic rather than homiletical I didn’t edit and revise as much as some people do, so it might not be any different.
What I do miss in my new place is getting any feedback on my sermons. I had people who I knew I could trust to give me honest feedback in my other place, and it was helpful. I’ve thought about asking people to give me feedback, and I might at some point.
I think weekly preaching encourages way more experimentation than I typically engaged in as a relief preacher. Partly by necessity—Yikes, it’s Saturday! I dunno, let’s try *this*—and partly because if it bombs, well I get to try again in just seven days.
My weekly routine was shot during the blizzard and some kid illnesses, but I’m finally getting back into the groove of getting most of a draft done on Thursday.
The thing that gets short shrift right now is worship planning. I’m pretty canned when it comes to that. But in time I hope to mix things up a bit. Will be nice when I’m not doing absolutely everything for the first time.
my daddy preached once that sometimes, sermons are like peanut butter sandwiches, and sometimes, like thanksgiving dinner. The thing is, you can’t do thanksgiving dinner every week. But the important thing is, you’re getting fed.
and my best seminary friend once told me, when i started preaching weekly at happychurch and was freaking out about it, to lighten up, that whatever i said, no matter how dull i thought it was, was likely to be the best thing somebody in the room had heard all week.
good advice, both…
I love the Annie Dillard quote and need to remember that–give it all now!! As someone who only gives a sermon once in a while, I was wondering how the weekly grind would change things. If it becomes your job instead of your calling, it seems that would be the danger. Lose inspiration and have less time to seek it…
And yet I follow the schedule the pastor does in part as a suggestion from a fellow worship leader of the lay variety. Limit the time–start thinking of your sermon on Monday, not a month ago. Allow the Spirit to work through you just like it would for the pastor. He said he allows four hours of actual writing/thinking. I’ve never timed it.
I’m headed to Philadelphia tomorrow for a look at a seminary weekend. My husband thinks it might be a good motivator to finish my candidacy paperwork. Ever the procrastinator, I’m questioning every step.
Have a great time Angela!
so… maybe there is hope for the once-monthly preachers like me. thanks for the post!
I think I disagree with Ms. Dillard, for all that I respect what she says. I don’t think I’m “hoarding” things if I don’t put them in a sermon today. Weekly preaching has freed me from the idea that I have to say EVERYTHING I can possibly say about this text right now, this very minute.
I know that I’ll preach this text again, which frees me to leave some things on the cutting room floor, knowing I might use them the next time I preach.
I love weekly preaching, and am getting better about my schedule and making it work. I do wish I were working a little further out though. This last week, instead of a sermon, I wrote a Marriage Ref skit on the Prodigal son’s parents. I think it was a fair proclamation of the Word, but if I had come up with the idea sooner, the actors could have had more than one day to prepare!
That is a good point. I think I agree with both of you!
If you hold off on putting something in the sermon because what you already have is sufficient for today, that’s not hoarding. (To use the bread analogy, does your loaf really need roasted garlic AND goat cheese AND a cinnamon swirl?)
But if something comes along that works well this week, but there’s a possibility that it might work Even! Better! next month or next year or next lectionary cycle, and you leave it out, that’s hoarding. That’s fear based—a lack of trust that something else will come along—as opposed to being good craft.
I, too, have had to lower my standards lately. And the thing is, I’ve realized that my “good enough” teaching is better than most people’s best and it’s okay not to knock it out of the park every day. I’m learning to be okay with that.