The evolution of a preacher

Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee discuss how their preaching preparation and process have changed over time.

1:00 Danny talks about his sermon preparation and delivery in the beginning.

2:16 Danny says a major shift came when his church went multisite and started prerecording services. He began having people give input before he delivered the sermon.

2:55 Danny says the preaching evaluation was part of his church’s leadership pipeline development. There were usually about five to eight people in the room, including pastoral staff and young leaders who were residents or interns.

4:16 He tried to have diversity culturally and gender-wise in the room.

4:47 Danny says preaching got more difficult the bigger the church got.

6:38 Danny discusses how many hours he spent on sermon prep.

8:20 Danny talks about why he loved having a preaching team.

10:13 Lee says you need to realize that your relational capacity is more important than your preaching in the first couple of years as a church plant.

10:20 Lee talks about how he devoted more prep time to his sermons as his church grew.

12:12 Lee says that as the church grew, he took more time to figure out how to communicate so that everyone took something away that would be meaningful to them.

14:00 Danny says if you’re building relational equity with people, then what you say, and because it lines up with your life, will have an impact, even if you’re not the most eloquent speaker with the best illustrations. 

14:27 The ministry that you do Monday through Friday and Saturday will enhance your preaching on Sunday. 

15:00 Lee encourages pastors who are working another job either part time or even full time. You can still do it, even if you aren’t able to put in as much time as you hope to.