Thursday, July 25, 2013

Next Up - 1 Peter



I’m pumped about the next book of the Bible our church will be studying. We’re finishing up a study in the book of Acts, and next up will be 1 Peter.  1 Peter is a great book that teaches how to live for God, even in the midst of difficult circumstances. I thought I would take a moment to share how I put together the plan for going through a book of the Bible. 

1) Picking a Book of the Bible – I will pick a book of the Bible based on a sense of prayer, a sense of what the church needs, a view towards what books we’ve recently covered as a church, and other factors that may lead toward covering a certain part of God’s word.

2) Getting the Big Picture – My first step is to go through the book to become familiar with the overall teaching of the book, and the different topics it covers. The goal is to get an overview of what this portion of God’s word says.

3) Breaking the Book into Bite-Sized Passages - My goal is to divide the book into passages that I can cover during a weekend service. So I will go through the book of the Bible and break it into bite-sized chunks for several months out. In the case of 1 Peter, I broke the book into eleven passages, and hence eleven potential messages. 

4) Grouping the Passages into Series - My next step is to group the passages into series. In the case of 1 Peter I ended with three series. Above is a rough draft of my plan for 1 Peter.

5) Begin Work on the Weekly Messages - Once the overall plan is set, I begin work on the weekly messages. Each message takes shape on a weekly basis, beginning on Monday the  “Week Of”. Meaning… I normally begin work on the message 6 days prior to sharing it.

Hope this gives a quick snapshot of how I put together a series…

In the past, I’ve done a series of blog posts that looks at…
- Why I like to Plan Ahead 
- Why I like going through books of the Bible 
      - Why I Break the Books of the Bible into Smaller Series 
      - Why Guest speakers are scheduled during the year

I’ll try to repost those soon.

 See you Sunday!
 Mike

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