Message Series

when I preach on a series, I have no set time. I rely on the leading of the Holy Spirit.

When I could see clearly, I would watch the congregation while preaching. After seeing parishoners beginning to get fidgety, I would close a service within a few minutes. A wise minister once told me, 'Cut it short at that time. The mind can only take in as much as the seat can endure.'

 

I generally always preach in a series through a book or a section of a book of the Bible. Currently I am preaching through important passages in the book of Acts under the heading of the "The Victorious Church".

I do not have a set length. I would say generally it is between 6-12 weeks.

I think the most was a 17 week series through the Sermon on the Mount.

No. I keep my series in one service. I have never preached through the same series in ever service and I do not forsee me ever doing that.

Personally I do not think a series or the length of series makes a congregation lose interest or get bored. If it is focused on the Word of God and seeks to provide applicable truth to the lives of the people then it is going to work.

The pastors I have sat under that bored me were ones that were not passionate about the truth they were preaching, and had no structure at all to their message.

 

Preach through NT books pericope by periocpe and OT story by story. Have been in Mark for about 18 months. Have broken it up with 4-6 week topical studies twice a year.
Ephesians and James each took about 6 months.
Esther and Nehemiah each took a couple of months.
Ten commandments took, um...ten weeks.

 

I have technically been in one series for a little over a year and a half. It is a series in which we are chronologically covering the gospels. However, this is broken up by covering sections, such as Jesus presented at the temple, which took two weeks. We have been on justification and righteousness, and studying how they are processes, not events. This is an offshoot of our five week study on baptism.

BTW, this brings to mind a story about a preacher in the town where I used to live. He taught on baptism every Sunday. He taught it very well, but he taught nothing else. (I don't even know if he knew much else, but that's simply speculation.)

When there was a Baptist gathering, he had to be invited, as his church was one of the bigger ones in the area. But, those who were putting it together didn't want him to preach the same old sermon, yet one more time. So, they decided that every speaker would be assigned a passage from which to preach. They assigned this man Genesis 1.

When he got up to preach, he began, "Today's passage is Genesis 1. 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...' And, as we all know, the earth is 3/4 covered with water, which brings us to today's lesson: Baptism..."

 

I think a preacher needs to be sensitive to his congregation's attention span. When I do series preaching I try to mix it up as far as when I teach it. I may go for three or four weeks in the AM service then tell the crowd I will speak the next Sunday in the evening service on the series. That way I can mix in certain topics in the AM service for those who do not come in the evening. A preacher can get stale himself. If he gets stale what does that do to the congreagtion?

And yes, PASTORSBC, a preacher should be passionate about his message. If it does not thrill his soul, it will never move the congregation.

 

For me that old theological truth of "it depends" comes into play.
The length of each series i preach...and i tend to preach in series, depends on what i'm preaching on.
My Sunday morning series have been as short as 3 weeks and as long as 8 weeks...sometimes with a filler sermon between them.
I did preach through the gospel of John over about 18 months on Sunday nights...but i did take breaks on occassion for mission studies or other things.

 

Series? 3-6 weeks

 

I once did a three week series leading up to Easter. As far as Sundays go, I do not usually preach a series. The scripture may have certain related issues and I will draw attention to this, but a series is not something I have done on Sundays.

On Wednesday nights we go through one book of the Bible verse by verse (or passage by passage). We finished a study on Romans that took 13 months to finish. I don't know if you wouls count this as a series, but teaching through a book does take time if you do it right.

 

As staff, I have been handed a series and told to teach through it in Sunday School on several occassions and the people knew that was the case. We made the best of it. Generally I would go through a series of book studies in verse by verse format on Wednesday nights. I generally spend Sunday evenings on a type of discipleship series. I reserve Sunday mornings for general evangelistic type sermons/edification type sermons.

 

I am in a series now on Bible doctrine. Covered church discipline, the Trinity now Theology *current sub set is Attributes of God, Easter is a good chance to get to Christiology. Then Pneumatology.

 

In preaching series, I've found it handy (no matter the length) to tie the messages together. When I first started, I just moved from one message to the next, week to week. I found that although I knew each message was related, the folks hadn't made the connection.

Now, I intentionally tie the messages together, and I'm finding that people are really starting to get it. This is working both for series (Sunday AM) and exposition (Sunday PM).

Just a little growth on my part, I hope!

 

I really enjoy it when my pastor preaches a series of messages on a given subject. He often does this in Sunday School--he is currently teaching a series on the lies of Satan.

He also, quite often, does series preaching for the Sunday evening service. I learned so much when he went throught the book of Job this way. It doesn't matter to me how long the series lasts. Personally, I tend to get a lot our of series preaching. It depends, also, on the topic. Some things just can't be put into one sermon or you lose so much.

 

I like preaching in series. Somehow my mind embraces an entire book or a large theme and breaks it down into presentable portions more readily than starting from the small unit. Normally my series -- and there were many of them -- would run 2 to 6 or even 8 weeks. Largely that depended on the liturgical year .. I almost always did an Advent series, a Lenten series, an Easter series. Typically in January and August I would do a series focused on one book of the Bible.

 

W.A. Criswell preached through the whole Bible as many of you know. Now that is a series.

Hopefully all of us believe the Bible from "cover to cover"

But not to many could say they have preached it from cover to cover, "literally".

Maybe that would be a good name for what he did. You could call it "From Cover to Cover".

Funny ain't it . These new fangled fellers spend more time gettin video clips and lining up their powerpoint stuff to go along with their drama team lighting crew and blah blah blah on we could go. Ole W. A. just preached through the Bible.
Built up that little ole church while he was at it.
I'm just saying my my my how times have changed.
Preachin just ain't enough. Its gotta be
"lights,camera, action!".

I wonder if during that 18 years or so that it took pastor Criswell to preach through the Bible , I wonder if anybody found their "purpose"?

 

Hey shannonL, I haven't yet preached the Bible from cover to cover, but I've only been at this for just under three years. But God willing, I'll get there.

And being a "new fangled feller," I will use a video clip and PowerPoint when it's appropriate to do so. The fact that I'm willing to use these tools as appropriate does not - in any way - mean that I will water down the proclamation of God's Word.

Here in rural Missouri, I got a little trouble last Sunday night for covering the subject of racial prejudice...I used a video intro and I put a passage of scripture up for all to see on PowerPoint. I didn't water it down at all. I hit the subject hard, just as the Word does. So no matter what "method" I use - PowerPoint or the proclamation of the written Word - I find that I am on solid ground when the Word of God is the foundation for the message.

Now I know you didn't mean to imply that those who use computer technology during worship services were any kind of "Caspar Milquetoaste."

 

My Disclaimer: I'm not a Pastor yet but do teach in Sunday School, AWANA JV meetings, Friday Teen Bible Study and once a month usually Sunday Evening.

Anyways, when I teach I tend to teach in series. Sunday School we are going thru the book of Philipians in 13 wks and our Bible Study is another 13 wk series on "What Every Christian Should Know". But in AWANA meetings I tend to preach on current teen issues and/or current events. Whereas when I preach the closest I come to a series is if my sermon is longer than one service and needs to be a "series".

My Pastor does do a number of series in nearly every service and while I can learn a lot from the scriptures it narrows his preaching down to one style...when I would prefer him preaching some topical, some narrative, some in-depth, some textual, etc...

I plan to be one of those Pastors who have a longer term series in Sunday School and Wednesday Evening Bible Study. But to keep the Sunday services to individual sermons or short 2-4 week series at the most. (Now I'll of course be open to the Lord's leading and know this is not written in stone! )

 

usn2pulpit,

Overkill would be the word I was looking for when concerning technology. I don't think it is a bad thing altogether. I just don't see how some think you can't have a service without it yet many people in the world don't even have a preacher.

I'm simply saying it is not a necessity. That is the use of technology to make a sermon affective. It is simpy a additive that at times can do more harm than good. For some sermon prep means more about putting the sermon together with the powerpoint,video etc... that is not sermon prep.
I'm not saying right or wrong I'm just saying maybe more time needs to be spent in the word instead of shooting video footage to go with the sermon. The Word of God is sufficent without video or audio props.
Frankly, what people need today is to stop and be still and listen. People are bombarded every blessed second of the day with media. Wonder what would happen if they spent a couple of hours a week at church without some piece of technology in their ears or in front of their face?
Media is an inhancement to a sermon (I suppose?) not for me. but I'll give that one up.
At the most it is a tool. At the worst media takes people's minds off the message or worse yet the message gets cut in half, shortened etc... because of all the extras thrown in with the use of media etc....
I wonder what would happen if churches quit spending so much money on media equipment, media pastors blah blaah blah and started using that money to give to lottie moon or if independent to give to faith missions?
I must admit it makes me want to puke when here in the states a church or pastor or what have you thinks they can't be effective without all this media bologna when on the other side of the world some persecuted christians meeting underground just wish they had enough Bibles to pass around to everyone present.
The American church is SELF ABSORBED if you don't think so just look at all the junk we think we just have to have in order to meet with the Lord on a given Sunday.
If churches quit building gymnasiums, cafes, bookstores, and quit spending money on media that would rival that of a hollywood movie set maybe, just maybe missions giving would increase.
American christians are so weak kneed. We have more resources than any other group of believers around the world and in the last 20 years more of those resources have been horded than they have been shared.
Guys in america talk about the pressure of the pastorate. I guess it is so bad that it is common place now to download sermons for money because it is just so stressful to try to carry on the ministry.
You know what pressure or stress is? It is preaching the Word of God one Sunday in some little shack then having to find another place next Sunday because Muslim rebels burned your church down.
Lets see can't make it without my laptop versus can't make it because they cut my leg off for preaching? Which is tougher?
I'm nothing special by know means I just have an opinion like everybodyelse. I just think we american christians have become lukewarm and apathetic. All this sissy, positive knock kneed preaching hasn't helped our situation.

 

I'm not sure where you stand on the issue. (Just joking.)

Alright, I can take it. And I actually agree with much of what you are saying. But I don't think I overuse technology. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure of it.

But I hear what you're saying. I've actually experienced the persecuted church, so I know where you're coming from there, too.

 

Sermons series should vary in length depending on their topic/passage/book.

When preaching a long series it may be helpful to break away every now and again. We just had 24 studies in the first 3 chapters of Ephesians (Wednesday night Bible studies). But with the summer coming and our outreach escalating I want to do a series on Evangelism. That will probably be in 10 parts. Then we will return to the last 3 chapters of Ephesians.

Series are fine but they cannot dominate the preacher. Each sermon must be the one God has determined, not out series outline.

As for technology, it has its place. If I had a projector I probably would use it. Not all the time, but when it helped.

We live in a media rich world that has conditioned people in how they learn. To a degree, we need to accomadate that.