For those who may not be familiar, a preaching calendar, in its simplest form is just a calendar in which you’ve written down what you’re preaching about each week for the next year. It’s an incredibly useful tool for pastors, and in this post I’m going to share with you its benefits and how you can create one of your own.

In the early days of the church I serve, my pastor would preach what we would call stand-alone sermons. There was no rhyme or reason from week to week. It was just whatever the Holy Spirit placed on his heart.

We eventually realized stand-alone sermons weren’t the best option for our church, concluded that the Holy Spirit wasn’t limited to week to week, and switched to series based sermons. In my opinion, it was one of the biggest catalysts of our growth.

If you’re still on the fence, you can check out this post I wrote about four reasons sermon series work.

A few years after switching to a sermon series model, we heard about the idea of creating a preaching calendar.

Here are a few reasons why a preaching calendar makes sense.

1. It ensures balance. Most pastors tend to have certain topics or even scriptures that they love to preach on. For my pastor, the topic is evangelism. Without a preaching calendar, there’s a good chance he would preach on evangelism forty weeks out of the year. He wants people talking about Jesus, which is really important, but there are a lot of other topics we need to talk about as well. A preaching calendar helps you see the big picture and helps to maintain balance in your preaching.
2. It helps with planning. Try your best to invite a few others to help you plan your calendar. Getting others involved takes the pressure off you to come up with 52 different sermon ideas. It also creates buy-in from those you involve, and they become more invested. A preaching calendar also gives your creative team time to find or create graphics, plan worship sets, and all those other little things they get frustrated with you about.
3. You preach better sermons. My wife served ribs last night she had been cooking in the crockpot all day. They were fantastic, but how do you think they would’ve tasted if she had just thrown them in the microwave for 15 minutes? Not as good, right? This same concept can be applied to your preaching. The longer you have to think on a message, the better it will be. We’re no longer giving the Holy Spirit just a few hours to work. We’re giving the Holy Spirit days and even months to bring thoughts and ideas to our mind. It’s a better process and creates a better result.

So, when should you start creating that calendar? About six months ago, but since we don’t have a time machine, as soon as possible. Set a date, invite a few others to join you, and don’t leave the room until you have a preaching calendar for the next year. Good luck!

Do you use a preaching calendar? In what ways has it helped you? Let us know by leaving a comment below, and don’t forget to subscribe to the blog to get tips on church growth, leadership, and more delivered to your inbox each week.