Having plan on how you will use your time and the days of your week is critical to finish your sermon by Thursday each week. You’re never going to give your church a “Saturday night special” again. In this post, you’ll discover a mock schedule you can use and tweak that will help you…

1. Finish your sermon by Thursday (I really mean done).
2. Spread joy to your team (because you’ll be done early).
3. Enjoy a two-day weekend most weeks.

SCHEDULE YOUR WEEK

Monday

Monday is for two things: follow-up and planning your week

1. Follow-up | People made decisions on Sunday: salvation, baptism, requested info about membership or small groups, want to serve on a ministry team. First- and second-time guests gave you their information. First thing on Monday, you want to thank God for all the decisions. Next, you’re going to follow-up with those people. Others have written quite a bit on assimilation and follow-up, so feel free to do a Google search on that. Here’s the key: If you’re not following up with people within 24 hours of Sunday, start doing it immediately.
2. Planning Your Week | You’re going to choose THREE GOALS you want to accomplish this week. Typically, one of mine is to finish my sermon by Thursday. Then, schedule your week to support those goals. Don’t wait until you wake up each morning to think about what you’re going to do. Plan it. Do it.

Additionally, I use Mondays for meetings with key leaders. For us, that’s campus pastors and our larger staff meeting.

Tuesday

Tuesday is the day you’re going to spend writing your sermon. My goal is to end the day with a sermon I “could” preach on Sunday, but I know it will evolve over the rest of the week. Here’s a sneak peek at what my Tuesday looks like.

• 8-8:30am | Prayer directed towards the teaching and our church families
• 8:30-9am | A personal, devotional study of the teaching passage
• 9:00-11:00am | A deeper, technical study of the teaching passage
• 11-12pm | Identify the big idea for the sermon & study our people/church
• 12-12:30pm | Break for lunch
• 12:30-1pm | Identify clear application and next steps from the passage
• 1-2pm | Outline the sermon
• 2-3:30pm | Write the sermon
• 3:30-4pm | Review and revise

There are two things I do that have helped me stay on task. 1) Brain.fm. I am a big fan of this resource. Check it out here. 2) Timers. I set timers for the phases of sermon development. It’s artificial, but I find the pressure helps me to keep moving and resist bogging down on one thing.

When your sermon is pretty much complete on Tuesday, you will find yourself leading the rest of the week differently. You’ll find your stress levels drop dramatically the rest of the week. People will enjoy being around you more and you’ll enjoy them, too!

How To Protect Your Tuesday

To protect my Tuesdays, I consistently remind my team that Tuesdays are writing days for me and I’m unavailable. I don’t schedule meetings, doctor’s appointments, or really anything on Tuesdays. I don’t respond to texts or phone calls on Tuesdays (unless it’s a legitimate emergency or my wife). If I write at the office, I have a sign on my door that says: “PREPARING FOR SUNDAY’S MESSAGE. Thank you for your discretion.” Lately, I have been writing at home, so I don’t need the sign.

I genuinely enjoy learning, reading, and discovering truth from the Bible. Because of that, Tuesdays are a real highlight and fun for me. I step into my strengths and joy. At first, it may take some discipline on your part, but once you experience the results, you won’t want to go back.

Wednesday

For me, Wednesdays are for two things: future big idea planning and meetings. My peak hours are from 6-11am, so I tend to spend those hours working on the things that only I can do: thinking how to communicate our vision more clearly, developing future sermons, reflecting on previous decisions, etc.

For the rest of the afternoon, I am in multiple meetings. Currently, we’re building our new building so that team meets weekly at 11am. Next is our weekly Teaching Team meeting from 12-1pm. Our staff does a very brief check-in to see how prepared everyone is for Sundays. From 1:15-2:15pm is our weekly Worship Planning Meeting. With the rest of my time, I schedule ad hoc meetings with staff and ministry leaders.

Thursday

This is the finish line for Sunday. For our team to end a Thursday well, everything for Sunday must be complete. I actually mean everything. The sermon is complete. Volunteers arrive to print, fold, and stuff bulletins with connection cards and pens. Our team creates and proofs teaching slides. We complete any videos and test them in ProPresenter. The band rehearses. Each ministry leader confirms their volunteer teams for Sunday. We finish everything.

The reason we do this is because we want our team to enter into Sunday fully prepared, enjoying their time worshiping with the family, and leading their teams. Being finished by Thursday allows our team to have bandwidth on Sunday for real emergencies, as opposed to those we created for ourselves because we decided, “Oh…I’ll just do that Sunday morning.”

The Sermon Run-Through

For me, I spend Thursday morning doing edits to my sermon because at 10am, we have a sermon run-through. Whoever is preaching on Sunday comes in at 10am to preach their sermon for our staff and any volunteers who want to participate. We turn on the stage lights. The timer is on and we all pretend it’s Sunday morning.

When the teacher is done, we gather our chairs together and provide feedback. We identify the top 20% content that should definitely be shared and strengthened. Sometimes, there are moments in the sermon that seem unclear or unnecessary so we talk about those. Everyone gives a number between 0-100 on how complete we think the sermon is today. Finally, we spend time praying together.

Every person who has done the Thursday run-through finds it both incredibly awkward AND incredibly helpful. We encourage the teacher and help them discover gaps that they overlooked. This is one best practice I want to pass on to you: don’t preach your sermon for the first time on Sunday. Preach your sermon to a team. Ask your spouse to listen as you practice. At the very least, send your notes to another thoughtful believer. The best time to get feedback is BEFORE you preach your sermon on Sunday morning.

Friday

This is my Sabbath. To put it bluntly, I don’t work.

Saturday

Saturday is a flex day for me. If I can take it off, I will. But this is also when most weddings are. I might schedule a meeting with a leader that we couldn’t make happen during the week. Or I just try to get ahead on projects.

One thing I do engage in every Saturday is a 60-minute review on my sermon. For more about this, check out this post called Let Your Sermon Rest.

Sunday

It’s go time! Our team meets at 7:45am for a quick check-in. We spend that time updating each other on any unexpected challenges we might be facing that morning. At 8am, our entire Sunday morning team does a run-through on the service. All of our volunteers meet for prayer in the Welcome Area at 8:35am. Then, everyone heads to their area, preparing to receive guests and begin ministry time.

I cannot express how prepared I feel on Sunday mornings. That preparation doesn’t take away my desires and ability to rely on the Holy Spirit in real time. In fact, it increases my desires and ability to rely on the Holy Spirit. Because I’m not overwhelmed with all these last minute challenges or stressing over a poorly, last-minute prepared sermon, I can truly focus on the people I’m with.

I listen to the people I’m looking at. I take the time to pray with them. We share stories with each other and laugh about them.

At times in my sermon, I’ll skip over portions of content in real time because I just don’t think it’s going to connect right now. I might add content I had previously decided to remove. The preparation helps me to be increasingly sensitive to the Holy Spirit in real time.

Let me encourage you: finish your sermon by Thursday.