Issue 22 Voices of JusticeBlog | How I prepare by Clare Masters
How I prepare by Clare Masters
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 10.03.20
Many decades ago, my school teachers impressed upon me the importance of writing essay plans – introduction, bullet points for main topics, areas to develop, and conclusion. Confession time: I ignored their advice. A few essays went off-piste, but on the whole I got away with it, even though this was back in the age of paper and ink, without the convenience of copy/cut/paste options on a screen.
This early strategy has carried forward into my sermon-writing. Some people neatly line up their thoughts like a row of bricks, then carefully build a well-constructed sermon. I’m no potter, but my method is more like throwing a lump of clay onto a spinning wheel, then gradually drawing the whole thing into shape. It’s a slippery combination of juggling, probing, squishing and advancing… somehow keeping the whole thing spinning in my mind, even though early in the process some parts are invisibly out of reach.
Our church will typically follow a series through a book of the Bible, or sometimes we use the Anglican lectionary. Occasionally we’ll have a theme series, requiring the extra step of choosing a Bible passage – I usually bounce ideas around for several days before I settle on a synergy of Scripture and theme.
