Preaching a Pre-Packaged Series

We just finished up the 4-week evangelism series from Willow Creek called Just Walk Across the Room. I thought the material was well-thought out, well-written, and supported by just the right amount of video and graphics. What really drew me to this series was the conversational approach to evangelism. Just simply sharing faith in the context of relationships. And it challenges everyone to take those walks across the room in order to reach out to others.

I thought that during this series I would be able to get caught up and do some long range planning. The sermons were already outlined and transcribed for each week, so I didn’t think it would take a long time for preparation. I was wrong, big time. I think it actually took me longer to prepare. I ended up pretty much rewriting it and then trying to adapt it to our church. It is extremely hard to passionately preach someone else’s sermon. I can’t understand how some people just download sermons and preach read them on Sunday mornings. I think that would actually be harder! Yeah it wouldn’t take as much time, but you cannot be effective without internalizing the message.

I’m glad we did the series but I’m looking forward to getting back to studying and preparing the old-fashioned way. By seeking God’s direction, by studying and reading the Bible, and by applying the Biblical truth in a way that will cause life transformation.