I just finished writing the hardest sermon I’ve ever had to write. I still don’t know what it was so difficult. There wasn’t one moment when the ideas flowed, it was like slogging through wet snow to put together the final 2000 words. The text, Hosea 1:2-10 was a challenge for me and though my final interpretation is interesting, I’m still not sure if it will fly tomorrow morning. You think with preparing a manuscript ahead of time one would know if the thing was good, but the pulpit changes everything. I just never know what will happen.
I’ve been meaning to put a plug in for my favorite sermon writing help – Oblique Strategies I’ve rarely written a sermon without their help and this time around they were indispensable. The Oblique Strategies were first put together in card form by Peter Schmidt and Brian Eno in 1975. There were a number of hard card editions, but I use a freeware set put together by Curvedspace software for Mac OS X.
I can’t exactly explain how they work, but the Strategies are these creative unstuckers that get things moving again when all I’m seeing is a nice big wall. I usually pull out the cards when I catch myself leaning back in my chair and saying, “I have no idea where to go next.” Usually it only takes one or two cards to find the next direction, but sometimes, like in this sermon, I used at least five at various different points. The ones that synched the deal for this Hosea text were, “Retrace your steps” and “Which parts can be grouped?”
There is something really sweet about using a tool made by Brian Eno to help craft better sermons.
