Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It’s zero dark thirty on Thursday morning, but the dog’s bark or the baby’s cry stirs you from a sterling slumber. Suddenly, in that liminal space between waking and dreaming, the sermon pops out of your head fully-formed like Athena from her father Zeus. It’s a miracle of biblical proportions, almost literally.
Except that your bed is exceptionally cozy, and the thought of getting up in the still-dark night to type at your glowing computer screen is as appealing as a warm beer. And so you roll back over in bed, assuring yourself that the good Lord would never disrupt the best sermon of your life!
Right.
The novelist William Faulkner, asked what the process of writing is like, said, “You grab any board or shingle flying by or loose on the ground and nail it down fast.” That’s a fair description of preparing to preach as well. Alas, too much exceptional exegesis and too many poignant points and dynamic illustrations have escaped the memories of preachers the world over because they didn’t have the right tool at hand to seize them when they came to mind. No, dear preacher, you need to nail down those choice nuggets before they fly away. But how?