We rented a lake house in the woods of Mississippi to spend a week in prayer and planning for the year ahead. Me, Rachel and Hatch and what a week it was! Here’s what we have been working on the last few days…
What is the Word of the Lord to our church? That is the question that is foremost on my heart every day. The leaders of the first church devoted themselves to the Word of God and prayer and it seems good to me to follow that example. After all, the church belongs to Jesus and as the pastor its my primary responsibility to lead us according to His Word. That is a tall order to follow and one that keeps me on my knees and in prayer. So, where is the Lord leading us as a church? Where should we be this time next year? The sermons we preach each Sunday will determine the answers to those questions.
In October of each year we pause and spend time in prayer to ask the Lord this question, “What is the Word of the Lord to Journey?”. The answer to that question determines the sermon series that we will develop for the next calendar year. Often we pick sermon series based on ‘spiritual common sense’ mixed with a deep unction in the spirit. Its not a guaranteed system because I am human and prone to error but we trust in the grace of God to make up the difference. I am made of dust but the Spirit is eternal. So we trust in Him and remain humble in prayer.
We write a 12 month plan for sermon series based on 4 rotating elements of our Mission Statement. We cycle through these four elements three times in a year.
Here are the four elements: Worship, Relationships, Evangelism and Discipleship. Each series we present is based on one of these topics. At Journey we give each month a Mission focus and use this terminology:
We Reach Up - Worship
We Reach Over - Relationships
We Reach Out - Evangelism
We Reach In - Discipleship
This system is based on Jesus’ teaching on the Great Commission in Matthew 28 and serves as a navigator to keep us on course as a local church connected to a world-wide movement. Its a challenging undertaking and a humbling experience and a thrill ride all rolled into one. The 12 month sermon series plan becomes a road map through the year and as each month approaches we begin to work on the details of each weekly sermon. We stay true to Biblical doctrine, program music to support and inspire, create art to illustrate, build online content, help in real life application and plan church wide events to respond. That all happens by asking a single question; What is the Word of the Lord for Journey?
If you are curious about how we start the process of writing 12 months of sermon series it begins with a blank page with this format:
Month:
Mission Focus:
House Habit:
Series Title:
Scripture:
Description:
Dates:
Big Events:
Creating effective sermon series that guides the vision of the church is a team effort involving many Journey people, and among them are the teaching team, the Weekend team, the Generations team, the Worship band, the Media crew as well as in-depth research, music, art, online content and finally real life application.
This week has been amazing and we are grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord and His church through preparing for the year ahead. Ms Rachel and I and of course Hatch enjoyed our week of prayer and planning for the months ahead. May the Grace of Jesus be on the vision of Journey and the Journey people as we become fully devoted followers of Jesus.