I saw this post linked to on Tim Challies A La Carte feature yesterday. Before I say anymore, I think it was essentially a good post with some good counsel. The post opens with this short paragraph:

Every preacher knows the terror of a blank screen. It is Tuesday morning—or even worse, Saturday afternoon—and the preacher sits and stares at his laptop. He has opened a new document in his word processor, and now the cursor stands idling on the page, patiently blinking. And the words aren’t coming.

The post goes on to say, ‘My counsel to the uneasy preacher is to begin writing, one paragraph at a time. Before you dismiss this as unhelpfully obvious, allow me to explain.’ And the writer does, indeed, go on to explain. And, for the record, I pretty much agree. It’s just I would go a little bit further.

I, too, know the horror of staring at a blank screen when words will not come. But I have developed a helpful way of getting something down on paper that feels like I am making progress. Where I (slightly) depart from the counsel of the post above is that I have found a way of getting something down on paper before I have done the exegetical work that the article assumes we’ve already done (though I have sort of done it) and that serves the exegetical work I will do. But perhaps I also need to explain.

I find there is nothing worse than staring at that blank screen. To avoid it, I find there is something I can do very quickly. The first thing I write in any sermon (admittedly, this only works when I am preaching a series) is to write the “context” part of my sermon introduction.

Every sermon I write begins with a short introduction, some context on where we are in this particular book and the the key headlines that will take us through the passage, that I then preach each heading with the exposition of the text for that heading followed by the application of that same heading. Rinse and repeat for however many points one is making. But the first thing on paper is always the context.

This is usually possible if I am preaching through a series. I am able to very quickly look at my last sermon (or few sermons) and summarise the main thoughts and ideas and jot down the context. This is work I have already done, I have done the exegesis (but on another sermon) and I can now simply recap it and lump it down as my first thing on that blank screen. I find it is a helpful way to get some thoughts down, to stop the blank page staring at me and to get thoughts moving.

My next step, which is harder, is to sit in the passage until I have picked up the main idea and can work them into preachable points. These are then the next things to become actual words. This gives me 2/3 of my sermon introduction: I have the context and I have the key points, headlines, ‘things we are going to learn’ from the passage.

Once I have the headlines down, the sermon begins to flow a bit more easily. I now know what the main thought is, what the points are that I am going to make, so I set about explaining where each point comes from in the text and then move on to applying that point made from the text. This, I think, is where the paragraph by paragraph advice from the original article comes into its own. But with the main idea in mind, and the headline points in our head already, some of this will flow more easily. And it flows more easily in our writing simply because we already got the context and headings down on paper. At least, that’s how I find it works for me.

Sometimes I think we are defeated by the blank screen. No words makes us panic. Just having something down on paper often helps us get thoughts flowing. The simplest thing to get down first is the context of the passage, especially when you have been preaching systematically through whole books. Once we have this, we can move on to our headings and once we have our headings, the rest should begin to come, one paragraph at a time.