Dan Alcantara

Category: Sermon prep

  • barely scratching the surface

    Something I experience regularly is the feeling that I am only barely scratching the surface when it comes to studying the Bible in preparing to preach it.

    The other day, I wrote about how I have been preparing to preach through 1 Peter with the preaching team at Ardgowan. At my last count, I’ve made it through the book around a dozen times. I’ve been able to make some observations from those readings but they still feel like the obvious things. The things that get turned into headings by the publishers of Bible translations.

    When I then go to consult the work of another pastor 1, I am astounded at how well everything seems to come together. He had basically written a 67-page book on it. And then I get discouraged because it feels like I should be able to see those things there on my own.

    But then I had a short chat with him over lunch at a preaching residential and he mentioned that there were still things that he was finding. He’d continued to study even beyond all the work he had put into it before to preach it to his congregation and he was still learning.

    I found that incredibly encouraging. While I am only two years into my pastorate, he has been at it quite a bit longer and is still learning from the things he preached before.

    The other reason to be encouraged is the simple observation that the Bible will never be boring. There will always be something new to learn. What was obscured by ignorance or lack of experience before can become clear as rough edges are smoothed over by age and sanctification.

    And that’s a very good thing indeed.

    1. During my apprenticeship we spent a day at Cornhill in 1 Peter with a pastor who had preached the whole thing. ↩
  • preparing for a new season

    preparing for a new season

    I grew up in a place where September is definitely still the summer. To be fair, it’s always summer in Arizona. But I now live in a place where the autumn definitely starts in September and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and preparing for it.

    At church, we will be starting a new series after spending most of the year in Genesis and the summer looking at The Christian Life. From September through November, we’ll be studying 1 Peter.

    The sermon series graphic that I made in Affinity Photo
    The sermon series graphic that I made in Affinity Photo

    I’m really looking forward to it. Where most of my time preaching at Ardgowan has been covering chapters, we will be spending 13 weeks on a relatively short book.

    While I will only be preaching about half of the sermons, I have been spending the month of August trying to get a handle on the whole book. This started with simply writing out the whole thing by hand. I grabbed a pocket-sized Baron Fig Vanguard and spent a couple of hours slowly copying out the book.

    My Baron Fig Vanguard lives in my passport-size Traveler’s Notebook.
    My Baron Fig Vanguard lives in my passport-size Traveler’s Notebook.

    Since then, I’ve read it almost daily (there was a bit of a break while we were travelling). This practice was heavily inspired (read: stolen) by Fred Sanders post about immersive rereading. To make a simple system even more simple, take a few weeks and read the same book of the Bible in its entirety every day.

    1 Peter takes me about 15 minutes to read, 17-20 if I listen, and it has been my primary means of personal devotion time this month. It’s an incredibly challenging book encouraging the people of God to stand firm in their faith because Jesus stood firm, God knows what is going on, and he cares for us.

    There is much more to be said about it, but for now, that message is the one I am focusing on as I continue to prepare for all that this coming academic year will bring.

  • Preaching on the Christian life and mental health this coming Lord’s Day. While these sermons have been topical/doctrinal, I’ve continued to use an anchor text and this week’s is Psalms 42-43.

  • Some days, it seems like sermon writing just happens. I have the passage clearly in my head, the outline makes sense, words just seem to come.

    Today is not one of those days.

  • my sermon notebook

    For the last three weeks now, I have been preaching from a handwritten manuscript. After trying to work from a detailed outline instead, it is good to be back to writing out everything I intend to say. I am able to think more clearly on paper and I am also able to say things more clearly when I’ve written them out.

    This has helped to bring down my sermon length but also to help me stick to the _what & why_1 of my sermon. I have also found Sunday mornings less stressful as I am able to read through my script focusing on how I will say the things that I have written rather than also trying to figure out the words that I will use.

    But as a stationery geek, my favourite thing about doing this (and the reason why I hope to keep it going) is that I now have a notebook that is filling up with sermons. I love notebooks as objects and this one feels special now as well. I’m able to use the index in a way that will actually help me in the future and I am less relient on technology in the pulpit.

    So that I’m not constantly turning pages while preaching, I opted for the larger B5-sized Leuchtturm1917 with a dot-grid.

    The title and headings are written big in blue. I denote subheadings with a box around it, and the main body of my sermon is written used a green-black ink (Noodlers Zhivago). Scripture references that I intend to read out are noted in either an orange/brown (Diamine Ancient Copper) or a classic blue (Diamine Kensington Blue, one of the most well-behaved inks I have ever used).

    On Sunday mornings when I look over my notes, I mark up my script with a red Uni-ball One 0.38 gel pen. I then write down the passage and title in the index and I’m good to go.

    The script itself has averaged about 7-8 pages and that takes me around 35 minutes to get through. I stick fairly close to it but not as much as before I worked with an outline.

    1. I should write about this at some point. In brief, the what is the main message of the passage while the why is the application or implication for us today. ↩