At Ministry Pass, we have over 1,000 series on our site, and we continue to produce over 20 series per month. You know that developing a sermon or series requires all kinds of people: the theologian, the researcher, the media person, the video person… It takes a lot of hands and skill sets, and many times you, as the pastor, are wearing all of those hats.
Sermon Series
Step One: Brainstorming
Every month, we sit down and start thinking about what people will need in three months, discussing new ideas with writers and editors. We ask ourselves, “What holidays or topics are people going to be talking about?” We have people in our brainstorming meetings from our team, not on our team, church planters, and ministers talk over ideas. Once we have some themes and ideas picked up, we ask, “What Bible books, passages, and topics do we want to cover ?” We collect all that material together and talk through creative names that will help people remember what the sermon series is about as you’re preaching it.
Then, Wade sends the info to our editor, Rebecca! She weeds through & dialogues with the team until a clear big idea emerges & the title for each sermon series is finalized.
Step Two: Creating & Editing
We then send the ideas off to our writers. All of our writers are amazing- they have Master’s or Doctoral degrees, and years of experience in the church. They’re not here to write you a script. Instead, they create an outline and provide research, illustration, and application help. We have tons of writers, and each provides a unique perspective by which to study the text that they’re exploring. Then, we get it back and begin editing, getting the resources and references right.
We’re communicating with our graphic designers this whole time- where we want the series to go, and what it will look like to help communicate this aspect of God’s Word and the “big idea” of the series.
Step Three: Finishing Touches
After that, it’s all about making the series as easy-to-use and accessible as possible. We “bundle” all the designs, creating spanish translations, graphics for social media, print, and screens. When you get a series from us, you don’t have to edit a single image if you don’t want to.
Then it’s ready to go! We’ll publish it on the site & record a video talking about the vision of each series to help you in the selection process.
Sermon Calendars
With our sermon calendars, it’s a slightly different process. We start with a huge group of people during the brainstorming process. We’re not asking, “Oh, how can we get these cool series into a calendar?” Instead, we start by talking to pastors with years of experience with sermon planning and asking them, “What’s a good twelve-month discipleship plan?”
Then, we start building out our calendars and making series to fill in the gaps whenever necessary. We have a ton of calendars, and each one is the result of our writers and people on our team thinking and praying, “God, what would You have us do to assist churches this year?”
At the end of the day, what we’ve created this year is really special and will help you as you continue to communicate God’s Word.
The Pastor’s Story Workshop
We have something super important coming up at the end of February 26, starting at 8:30 a.m. It’s called The Pastor’s Story Workshop. Josh Taylor, our director of online media marketing, is going to sit down and create a story plan or a story guide for your life and ministry. It’s an all-day seminar, and while there is some cost involved, it’s a great investment in yourself.
Comment with questions on Youtube! See you there!
