A two hour movie screenplay is about 120 pages, but a writer may spend several months working on it. Unless it’s a larger church with more than one speaker, a pastor may have to write an outline for a forty-five minute sermon every week. And there is great responsibility involved, because the pastor isn’t just offering an opinion, he’s preaching the Word of God. He doesn’t answer to an editor for his words, he answers to the Lord Jesus Christ.

A pastor visits patients in hospitals, chairs board meetings, leads counselling sessions, officiates at weddings and funerals, attends church functions and, of course, answers countless emails and text messages from members of the congregation. And somewhere in that demanding schedule a pastor has to find time to spend with his own family, and write a sermon before Sunday morning. It’s no wonder that burnout is a constant threat.

Once a pastor finds time to write his sermon, he has to consider the constantly changing makeup of the congregation, as people move from one church to another. I’ve met people who were raised Roman Catholic in Pentecostal churches, and people who were raised Pentecostal in Baptist churches. A pastor also has to think about the level of biblical knowledge in the congregation, because there will new converts, as well as eighty-year-old Christians, who have been reading and studying the bible for over sixty years. The sermon has be understandable by new converts, yet still provide the mature Christians with useful information.

Because many sermons are now available over the internet, a pastor has to accept that members of the public may be offended by what he says. In John 21 Jesus, was referring to leading and instructing Christians while he was speaking to Peter. Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” He didn’t say it would be easy.

Copyright © 2021 by J. Paul Cooper