Beyond Candles & Icons: 5 Items to Inspire Your Sermon Prep
Preachers often seek sources of inspiration.
We want to remember why we preach and invite the Holy Spirit into our midst to see new insights in familiar texts and glean new messages from the Spirit that our people need to hear.
Towards this end, many of us keep religious icons on our desks or light candles as we begin our prep.
However, if you want to find continuous inspiration and creativity, there are additional objects you may want to add.
These items help us to be more mindful of the Spirit’s presence, remind us that our preaching really does make a difference, widen our creative pipelines, speed our sermon prep, and add considerably to the fun and joy of our vocation.
1) An Inspiration Jar or Deck
Collections of inspiration can be added to self-made decks (using file cards) or jars.
Add items like quotes, images, found objects, scripture, turns of phrase, or ideas that captivate you.
Anything that inspires your preaching, preparation, spirituality, or productivity can go in.
When you’re beginning your sermon prep or if you reach a stage where you feel stuck, pull one from the deck or jar at random to find new inspiration!
Create separate decks or jars based on subjects or themes, or mix them together for randomized fun!
After you pull a card or scrap, sit with it for a minute or two.
Let yourself relax into appreciation of this item.
You can ask the Spirit whether the item might be included in the sermon you’re working on—and it might,—but more often, this exercise will open the spigot a little more on your creative flow.
2) Coffee Table Books
Many of us have large-format coffee table books of landscapes, architecture, travel destinations, and art that receive no more attention from us than to get dusted periodically!
Keep some of these books in view near your sermon prep location.
When you begin your prep, pull one out at random, let the book fall open, and feel wonder, awe, and gratitude for what you see—again, opening your creative flow.
Don’t have any? Or want to add to your collection?
Head to your nearest thrift store or second-hand bookstore to find new-to-you books for a small fraction of retail.
3) Messages of Appreciation
May of us keep a file of cards and letters of appreciation we’ve received during our ministries.
From what preachers tell me, it’s most common that we pull these letters out when we’re having a tough day in ministry and need to be reminded why we do this work!
However, keeping a file specifically for words of encouragement about our sermons can offer a boost each time we start our sermon prep.
Rather than reserving words of appreciation for the hard days, pull out a letter at random as you begin work on each sermon.
This affirmation will help us remember that what we say matters and goes farther than we realize every time we preach.
4) Colorful pens and papers
What color do The Beatitudes feel like to you?
What colors are “justice,” “reconciliation,” and “compassion?”
How about the color of a confrontation between Jesus and the religious authorities?
When we’re capturing our thoughts about a Scripture text, we can be inspired by the color the text makes us feel and the emotion that color suggests.
As you read the Scripture text, ask yourself what color the text feels like.
Copy that text (or the most important portion of it) with a pen or on paper that color.
Sit with it for a few breaths, and then name the emotion that the text and the color you chose are raising in you.
Sit again for a few breaths, and then free-write about why it evokes that color and emotion.
See how that influences your interpretation of the text and the sermon message that may result.
A variation on this is to go to a craft store to buy “photo real” stacks of 12 x 12 paper.
These contain photos of random items and landscapes, like a pile of keys, balls of yarn, or a summer field of wildflowers.
Choose the photo that feels like the text, and write your sermon draft by hand on it.
5) “It’s Impossible!” Game
“It’s Impossible!” is a fun game that can be played solo or with others.
The exercise expands our creativity by fostering divergent thinking (and requires only a few minutes to play).
Instructions
Gather a container and a stack of file cards, scraps of paper, or popsicle sticks.
Look around the room you’re in and write down as many objects as possible—one object per card, scrap, or stick.
Stack the cards and shuffle, or put the scraps or sticks in a jar and mix them up. (In the future you can add to the collection by adding objects you see in a different room, looking at a photo in a magazine, or from memory.)
Pull two cards/scraps/sticks at random.
Combine the two items to create a new, hybrid, “impossible” object.
Describe the new object in detail: What it would be made of? How would it be used? What is its color and shape? Feel free to draw it or write a story about it!
For example, here is a pair of two random items I see from where I sit: bookshelf + blanket.
I imagine a bookshelf that is wide enough to let me lay down on it while holding books and a reading lamp to one side. It’s made of a new kind of foam that molds to me so that I am comfortable yet alert, while also being hard enough where it needs to be so that the books don’t fall over.
In addition, there’s a plush blanket built into a compartment at the end of the shelf that, with the push of a button, unfolds over me like the retractable roof of a convertible car. The shelf is a deep and serene ocean blue, and the blanket a soft robin’s egg blue. If libraries had bookshelf blankets, I’d never want to leave!
Add any or all five of these items next to your icons and candles, and you’ll give the Spirit more than enough to work with to inspire your next sermon—and have fun at the same time!
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