How to Choose a Sermon Series

Preparation

1. Pre-planning is very important. It is not discounting hearing from God. If you don't think it through, it is easy to default back to what you are good at or what your anointing is for.  However, from the teaching of Peter, we are to be teaching the full counsel of God. We are to be taking people through all the scriptures at some point, keeping in mind it is impossible to teach everything all the time in a season. 

2. When we are starting a new campus, we encourage FIRE values (Father heart, Intimacy, Restoration, Empowering in the anointing). Most of our new campuses during the first month will do an overview of the FIRE values, then take the next months to go deeper on each topic.

3. In Toronto we plan our monthly sermon topics for the next year in November. Each campus pastor gets input on the themes, ideas, etc. We whiteboard them, put them in groups and come up with 8 months of topics. Each campus gets 4 months to do individual themes suited to their campus. Sometimes guest speaker can interrupt the scheduling. 

4. The bigger the ship and more parts to lead you need more time in preparing. There are lots of factors that will vary from church to church. We all need to think about the rhythm of the church. The run up to Christmas may have a different feel. It is important to get a sense of the season with the leadership. 

Prophetic Voice

1. It is important to ask the Lord what He is saying to the church. We need to remind them of the prophetic call for the church. What is the Lord saying? Ask the leadership team to come with a verse or topic. We honour one another when we recognize that maybe the Holy Spirit has spoken to someone else about the sermon series.

2. During different times of the year, we need a vision Sunday, where we set out the course for the semester. Having a prophetic voice is important. When apostles and prophets work together, the larger the church becomes. In the beginning you might not have a city shaking prophet in the leadership team. But there will be a time for the church to grow to have that. You’ll know quickly who the prophetic people are for you to trust in your leadership team. You can run the ideas via prophetic people. As your church begins to grow and get in bigger shape, you will have people who are internationally recognized prophetic people and voices. 

3. It is important to have a 5 fold dynamic in leadership. The teaching series includes elements of making sure that we are a soul winning community, we are a missionally minded community,  we have prophetic voices bringing heaven’s mandate down, and that we are bringing the revelatory logos word of God and rhema word of God. No matter how big you get it is important not to appoint people to the office of the five fold because then you will just label them and you put them in a box, and you may end up limiting them. 

Delivering a Sermon

1. We always want to preach hope in whatever we are doing we preach. Sometimes if the meeting is going well, and you only have 15 minutes you can add it in the next week. You do not need to rush it.

2. It is good to do 1 or 2 bible books every year. There are different ways to do this but one way is to teach the bible is verse by verse or with stories. The benefit of teaching the bible: people can’t accuse you of teaching at them when you happen to be talking about what they perceive was their issue. 

3. It is vital to go over values often. We encourage teachers/preachers to talk about fire values even if they are teaching about parenting or marriage. In everything we teach, we want to communicate who we are.  You still want to be preaching the values even if you are talking about something completely different. You want sound biblical teaching. 

4. Be very careful of making the mistake – tailor making the sermon to deal with individuals. That is an example of witchcraft –to lead the congregation as to which one is being corrected. Don't design a sermon series trying to correct individual people in your congregation.

5. There are teachers and preachers for series. A teacher is challenging people's minds to provoke their wills and preachers challenge their emotions to provoke their wills. It is important to get their will to act which is allowing sanctification to take place every week.

6. Building the sermon series around the important events of the year is also key. You don't want a sermon series that brushes over Easter or important national holidays. It is important to build series with significant dates and events in mind. This doesn’t mean you are teaching about every holiday. 

7. Be creative with the titles of your series. The more catchy and intriguing they are to congregation the better.  

Sharing Testimonies

1. Sometimes it is not necessary to be too open with sharing. Be open and transparent, but be aware that you don't have to share everything with everyone.

2. When you can get someone else to tell a life story that can illustrate your point, people get so much more out of that than hearing a whole sermon.

Ministry Time

1. We are looking for an opportunity with preaching that there is time for encounter at the end. How is this relevant for me? How do I respond to this message? How do I enable people's heart to respond to this? We want to bring revelation and freedom. We need to think about where we are going with this message. We need to give people an opportunity to respond.  

2. It is great to think about how you are allowing people to go home after your sermon. The question to ask is: how do I live my Christian life better? It’s very important to have takeaways.

3. Transition to the ministry time- often that is the best part of the sermon. It is the lead up to the ministry time that is a big part of the planning process of an individual sermon. How do you provoke people to want to put their hand up and come to the front? The thinking through of applying the sermon is very important. 

Open Discussion | Sermon Series Examples 

Anderson: Spiritual discipline: fasting, praying, worship, finances, family, core values. 

Diego: Different analogies of the church: The church as a community, as a bride, as the body, as an army etc. This gives context of who we are and how we are able to function as they body of Christ. 

Gerry: Based on the olympics, using language from the new testament: running the race, bolt etc.

Abi: Teaching on symbolism- how do you feed the new christians without using christianese?

John: Being an overcomer, word based teachings, Melchizedek 

Inspiration

A journalist had an opportunity to sit down for dinner with two Prime Ministers from the UK; Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. After some time with William Gladstone, the journalist concluded that he is the greatest man in all of England. The revelation she received after spending time with William Gladstone was that she can become the greatest woman in all of England. 

We need to do the latter and make it our hearts ambition before the Lord that every member of our congregation leaves the room believing they are the best person they could possibly be.

“Spontaneity in the Holy Spirit is truly the fruit of phenomenal preparation.”