Planning Your Preaching: A Step-by-Step Guide for Developing a One-Year Preaching Calendar [Paperback]

Stephen Nelson Rummage (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 3, 2002

A pastor-created and field-tested, easily adaptable method for planning a comprehensive preaching ministry.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

“I have discovered that there is only one thing worse than sitting at your desk on Monday not knowing what to preach Sunday, and that’s sitting at your desk on Saturday not knowing what to preach Sunday!”

This practical book by an experienced pastor and preaching professor provides the solution to this all-too-common pastoral dilemma—and clearly shows the busy pastor how to move beyond week-to-week sermon preparation into long-term planning for a truly effective pulpit ministry. Planning Your Preaching helps every pastor address areas of special need within the congregation, ensure regular preaching on key doctrines, incorporate holidays, and integrate biblical themes into the ongoing education of the congregation. An indispensable resource, Planning Your Preaching offers a field-tested, easily adaptable method for developing a comprehensive preaching ministry.

“Rummage’s work . . . addresses one of the more neglected areas in the field of homiletics. In addition to its practical value for preaching practitioners, homileticians will welcome such a resource for use in the classroom.”

—Dr. Jim Shaddix
Associate Professor of Preaching
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

“Rummage is the perfect person to write this book. He is a gifted preacher and by virtue of his pastoral experience he understands the struggles of pastors. He has produced a work that will be practical and helpful because his system of developing a plan works in the real world.”

—Drs. Bobby H. Welch and David W. Fleming
Co-pastors, First Baptist Church
Daytona Beach, Florida

Stephen Nelson Rummage is associate professor of preaching and director of the doctor of ministry program at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. A member of the Evangelical Homiletics Society, he has served for ten years as a pastor and an interim pastor.

About the Author

Stephen Nelson Rummage is Preaching Pastor at Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is the author of Planning Your Preaching and a contributor to The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching.

Product Details

• Paperback: 234 pages
• Publisher: Kregel Academic & Professional (December 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0825436486
• ISBN-13: 978-0825436482
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Solid Pastoral Resource, June 19, 2005

By 

Mark Jones (Watkinsville, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Planning Your Preaching: A Step-by-Step Guide for Developing a One-Year Preaching Calendar (Paperback)

The book is a solid addition to the new or veteran pastor's library. Rummage goes through the various types of sermons and their applications, along with some nuts and bolts of how to incorporate special days, holidays and the ordinances/sacraments into your preaching calendar. He even includes some very good skeletal outlines and suggested passages of scripture for occasions. Rummage gives a lot of attention to the expository message, and how it can be incorporated into the various facets of preaching. He gives a very good overview-review of the exegetical process as well.

It's an easy and quick read, and a book to refer to over years. Most everyone who has ever preached with any regularity knows the pressure of Sunday morning looming large. Rummage makes the case that a good portion of the battle is deciding what to preach, and if you give some careful attention to your master calendar up-front, sermon preparation can be joyful work rather than a constant attempt to beat deadlines.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Have Book for Preachers, September 17, 2006

By 

Marc Axelrod (Potter, Wi USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Planning Your Preaching: A Step-by-Step Guide for Developing a One-Year Preaching Calendar (Paperback)

This book is so practical and so helpful that it is destined to be a godsend for busy pastors. Stephen Rummage is a professor of preaching as well as a practitioner of preaching, and he writes about how pastors can stop stressing over what to preach and plan their sermon schedules a year in advance. He recommends taking a week long retreat and bringing along your personal and business calendars as well as some basic Bible tools (a topical Bible, a Concordance, a Bible Dictionary, a one volume commentary, etc).

He suggests a balanced preaching planner that takes into account holidays and special days in the life of the church. He strongly encourages expository preaching as a way of feeding the people of God the whole counsel of God. The pastor should plan to preach a doctrinal series, a series through a Bible book, and a series that ministers to the problems people are wrestling with. He also suggests annual sermons explaining baptism and the Lord's Supper.

He also gives suggestions for which scriptures to preach from on certain holidays as well as series ideas. I liked his pastoral series "Peace in the Valley" where he has sermons with titles like Peace in the Valley of Despair, Peace in the Valley of Grief, etc.

I give this well written primer for pastors my highest recommendation.

Rev. Marc Axelrod

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Preaching Book That's Actually Helpful, August 4, 2009

By 

Josh Crain (Carlisle, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Planning Your Preaching: A Step-by-Step Guide for Developing a One-Year Preaching Calendar (Paperback)

I'm a little late to the party on reviewing this book, but hopefully what I have to say can add to the already excellent reviews gathered here.

A little background information so you'll know where I'm coming from: I'm 27 years old and I'm the lead pastor of a new church plant in Springfield, Missouri (Milestone Church). Though I have an extensive preaching background, this last year was the first time I've had to preach week in and week out for 12 consecutive months (a couple of weeks off notwithstanding). Here's what I learned: it's difficult and it's hard work, even for those of us who have been gifted for it and called to it.

I've read a shelf full of preaching, exegetical, and homiletical books in the last 10 years. Though I have a solid understanding of these underlying principles, that knowledge alone didn't fortify my weakest area: organization. I am dreadfully inept at organizing, planning, and managing my time effectively.

Enter Stephen Nelson Rummage's book, "Planning Your Preaching." I purchased the book last week hoping it would give me a better game plan for sermon preparation than the one I had cobbled together over the past year, and it did not disappoint.

Rummage's chapters on determining what you need to preach on and the mechanics of planning are worth the price of admission alone. Chapter 2 presents helpful guidances and a worksheet for those who are wrestling with what to cover over the course of the next year in their preaching and can be tailored for any congregational size, makeup, or spiritual maturity level. Chapter 3 gets down to the actual nuts and bolts of planning out the preaching calendar once your strategy has been outlined: taking a retreat to plan, what to bring along with you in order to plan most effectively, reviewing your preaching from previous years, determining this year's series, creating your calendar, and leaving room to review and modify occasionally throughout the course of the year. His detailed analysis of this process is invaluable and something I plan on revisiting annually.

Another indispensable piece of wisdom in "Planning Your Preaching" comes in the final chapter in the form of Rummage's recommended weekly schedule for sermon preparation. It's likely that most who read this book won't use his schedule precisely; Rummage doesn't necessarily intend for you to and it can easily be modified to fit your individual time tables and office schedules. What is truly helpful about the schedule are the principles that undergird it.

That being said, the book isn't perfect. Rummage isn't the most engaging writer and you may find his illustrations and examples to be a bit hackneyed and even irrelevant at times. Also, Rummage spends a fair amount of space defending the one-year preaching calendar, a questionable task to take on given the likely readership of his book. Finally, for anyone who has read their fair share of preaching books, much of "Planning Your Preaching" will be recapitulation of what you've already read and digested from other authors (Chapell, Robinson, Eswine, etc.) who give much more in-depth and penetrating looks at the topic than space will allow Rummage to do here.

If, however, you're looking for a solid book on the organizational side of preaching, there's much to be gleaned from this "Planning Your Preaching." Highly recommended.