Ah, the weekend. For most it is their time away from work. For me, it is the busiest workdays of the week – but I wouldn’t trade the weekend for anything.
I keep Saturday mornings reserved for nothing but final preparations for Sunday. I take my role preaching on Sunday mornings very seriously. I want to be sure that I truly have a grasp on the heart of the passage and am communicating it in such a way that people keep interested, understand it, and are motivated to change because of it. That happens primarily by practicing. I am the type of person that does everything out-loud. Yes, I talk to myself. I like to say that I talk to myself because I need “expert advice.”
So on Saturday mornings I head down to another room in the church – usually the back room in the library – and I practice preaching my sermon just as if it were Sunday morning. Actually throughout the week I practice going through my sermon multiple times until I know it like the back of my hand. I don’t just think through what I am saying but also how I am saying it. I usually try to end my Saturday’s in the office by 1pm and use the afternoon as one of those “half-days” I get off. To be honest, it is very rare that I actually take the second half-day off that I am allotted. Saturday afternoons are usually for personal tasks like mowing the lawn and what have you. Saturday evenings are very similar to how I described Friday evenings in yesterday’s posting.
Sunday is the ultimate day. For me, that means getting up at 5:45am so that I am leaving the house by 6:15am. This gives me time to stop by the Hess gas station on 501 to get a cup of Dunkin Donuts Coffee and get things settled in my office prior to our 6:45 pre-service meeting. At 6:45 I meet with our Worship Arts Director along with our audio and media producers to go through the details of the morning’s services one final time. At 7am, it is time for my sound check which I also use to go through all of the overhead slides to make sure they are right and to give our technician an idea where I am going in the morning’s message.
While the worship band does their rehearsal beginning at 7:15, I use that hour to practice my sermon one more time and to spend some time alone with the Lord in worship. At 8:15am I head out to the auditorium to greet a few people before the first service begins at 8:30. In between each of our three worship services, I take time to shake as many hands as possible in the lobby for a few minutes before meeting again with the Worship Arts Director and producers again for 5 minutes to discuss if we need to change anything and to have prayer again for the upcoming service. I then try to spend about 10 minutes by myself back in my office while the next service starts, regrouping and having a light snack for energy.
After the third service I wrap things up in the office and I am usually ready to head out between 1pm-1:30pm. Typically we go grab some lunch and then head home where I shower and nap for the afternoon. Every once in a while I am part of “Lunch with Pastor Scott” where I spend some time with newer folks to the church telling them more about me and about Grace Church.
I keep Saturday mornings reserved for nothing but final preparations for Sunday. I take my role preaching on Sunday mornings very seriously. I want to be sure that I truly have a grasp on the heart of the passage and am communicating it in such a way that people keep interested, understand it, and are motivated to change because of it. That happens primarily by practicing. I am the type of person that does everything out-loud. Yes, I talk to myself. I like to say that I talk to myself because I need “expert advice.”
So on Saturday mornings I head down to another room in the church – usually the back room in the library – and I practice preaching my sermon just as if it were Sunday morning. Actually throughout the week I practice going through my sermon multiple times until I know it like the back of my hand. I don’t just think through what I am saying but also how I am saying it. I usually try to end my Saturday’s in the office by 1pm and use the afternoon as one of those “half-days” I get off. To be honest, it is very rare that I actually take the second half-day off that I am allotted. Saturday afternoons are usually for personal tasks like mowing the lawn and what have you. Saturday evenings are very similar to how I described Friday evenings in yesterday’s posting.
Sunday is the ultimate day. For me, that means getting up at 5:45am so that I am leaving the house by 6:15am. This gives me time to stop by the Hess gas station on 501 to get a cup of Dunkin Donuts Coffee and get things settled in my office prior to our 6:45 pre-service meeting. At 6:45 I meet with our Worship Arts Director along with our audio and media producers to go through the details of the morning’s services one final time. At 7am, it is time for my sound check which I also use to go through all of the overhead slides to make sure they are right and to give our technician an idea where I am going in the morning’s message.
While the worship band does their rehearsal beginning at 7:15, I use that hour to practice my sermon one more time and to spend some time alone with the Lord in worship. At 8:15am I head out to the auditorium to greet a few people before the first service begins at 8:30. In between each of our three worship services, I take time to shake as many hands as possible in the lobby for a few minutes before meeting again with the Worship Arts Director and producers again for 5 minutes to discuss if we need to change anything and to have prayer again for the upcoming service. I then try to spend about 10 minutes by myself back in my office while the next service starts, regrouping and having a light snack for energy.
After the third service I wrap things up in the office and I am usually ready to head out between 1pm-1:30pm. Typically we go grab some lunch and then head home where I shower and nap for the afternoon. Every once in a while I am part of “Lunch with Pastor Scott” where I spend some time with newer folks to the church telling them more about me and about Grace Church.
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