July 1, 2026 begins my 14th year of ministry under appointment in the United Methodist Church. I want to take some time and reflect back over how my ministry approach – and I – has changed over the last 13 years.
First, my sermon preparation has changed significantly. In the beginning I would pore over commentaries and try to get a sense of what the text was saying to me. What was I seeing in the text? How was I interpreting it? Over the years I’ve come to find that this is a very bad way to exegete. The word “exegete” means to read out of, not into. In other words, the role of the exegete is to try to understand what the author is trying to convey. The text can only mean what it meant in the mind of the writer, and not what I take from it, separated by 2000 years of time and culture, not to mention language.
Over 13 years I’ve changed my approach to researching the cultural and historical context of the writing, consider who the author is, consider who the intended audience is, and consider what the occasion of the writing was. Now I can better understand what the author is trying to convey, when I first take into account what issue or obstacle is being addressed. For example, Matthew is writing to a predominantly Jewish audience, probably in Antioch. So what is going on in Antioch at this time, and what do the Jews there expect of the coming messiah? Matthew’s gospel is written in order to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth fulfills the prophecies of the scriptures, so that the Jews of his time will come to believe that Jesus is the Christ. With this background and understanding, reading Matthew takes on a different shape. It no longer is written to me in the 21st Century, although it certainly is not NOT written to me. I’m not the intended audience, but that doesn’t preclude me from trying to understand what Matthew was trying to say with his gospel.
One other thing that has changed about my approach to sermon writing is that I used to write a framework, an outline of the sermon, and then would deliver it off the cuff on Sunday morning. This approach makes the delivery more natural, but there were two major issues with it. First, the amount of “um”s and “ah”s were considerable. I’m trying to direct my brain to the facts that I learned over the previous week of preparation, and just like a college student taking a test, sometimes I have to think about it for a moment before I can recall the information. I tried writing the pertinent stuff into the outline, but then the outline began to become a narrative, and it became awkward to deliver.
The second issue with my following an outline is my AD/HD. In the middle of the delivery, a thought would pop into my head and I would start to pursue that thread. I had so many side-tracks that sometimes it was difficult to get back to the main track. Also, this caused my sermons to rattle on. I once took pride in the fact that my sermons were 35-40 minutes, when the rest of the UMC was getting a 20 minute sermon. Now I focus more on being concise and straight to the point rather than letting my thoughts wander.
To that end, I now write out my sermon as a script, and I read it word for word. Some might say this is a bad way to deliver a sermon. For churches where performance is the method of grabbing hearts and minds, that is an understandable sentiment. But with my message, I explain the text in a way that the people can understand what the author is saying, and I let the Word of God do the preaching. Besides, Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley both wrote their sermons out verbatim and read them as a script. They seemed to capture their hearers’ attention, and so do I.
This is only one brief glimpse into the evolution of my ministry approach over 13 years. I’ll be writing more on other aspects in the near future.
S.D.G.
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