UPDATED FOR 2022: This article has been amended and an additional 30+ sermon series topics have been added at the bottom.
Looking for ideas as you plan your next sermon series? Is your schedule being pulled in all directions and planning ahead has become a bit more difficult among everything else you’re being asked to do?
The Ultimate List of Sermon Topics is a quick snapshot of 115 different topics you can scan through and choose based upon where God has your church, what he wants to say through you, and how he wants to use your congregation now and in the future.
Your job is a difficult one and preaching week in and week out is a task that no other vocation asks of their leaders. Ha, most leaders have speech writers who do all their prep for them!
Our pastoral team has done some of the prep work for you and our hope is that this curated list of sermon topic ideas will make your life exponentially easier to create a plan for this weekend, next weekend, and every weekend from this point forward.
Bookmark this page and come back whenever you find yourself wishing you had an assistant to go out there and do a little research for you.
Sometimes all you’re looking for is an idea or something to spark an idea. When that’s the case, check out this list of sermon topic ideas.
There are other seasons where your life as a pastor is so busy that you’d really appreciate sitting down with other pastors to bounce around ideas and walk away with a real, concrete action plan.
As you use our list below, we have three suggestions for how you can use this list to serve as a pseudo pastor idea session.
Go through the list of sermon topics below and jot down which topics or ideas which are most meaningful or relevant to your church. Once you’ve chosen several topics or ideas you feel good about, order them out over 12 months, 24 months, even 36 months. Don’t overthink it, just put them in an order that makes the most sense.
Empower your team to help move the mission forward, providing everyone a clear picture of the direction God is taking the church.
Take your list and send it to your leaders, let them know that this quick draft sermon calendar outline is on your radar and something you’re thinking about. When you present your list of topics for the upcoming year (or years), ask your leaders to “begin praying through what God would want our church to learn and discover about him in the near and far future.” Include a date that you and the team – whether paid or lay – can sit down and discuss the list and what they sense God saying through their prayer and quiet moments.
During this gathering, don’t feel like you have to nail something down. It’s better to hold your plans loosely. You already know that and during meetings like this, it’s good to be reminded of it. God could change your direction and that’s okay. Your goal should simply be to create a list of Biblical topic ideas that the Holy Spirit can use to lead and guide you and your team of leaders.
However, we know it’s not always possible to have that much of a long-term focus. Sometimes, you just need an immediate, short-term fix to fill upcoming gaps in your sermon series calendar. The list of sermon topics below can help with this too.
Use the list as a canvas to paint on. Go through the topic ideas, make notes in your app or on paper with the topics that seem like the best fit for the coming months. Once you’ve spent some time picking topics, write down a list of angles or possible sermon series titles for each of the sermon topics described below.
Again, don’t overthink it, just let the creative juices flow and have fun with the possibilities of what God could do through the topics he’s allowing you to choose from.
There is a huge difference between a shortcut and efficiency. While shortcuts get a wrap as being a way to ‘cheat the system’, efficiency is a trampoline that provides momentum to things we’re already choosing to do. Pastors live under constant pressure to be original and to create something that’s never been done before or take an angle that’s never been pursued. It’s a noble thought, however, scripture is clear that no matter how hard a pastor works at being original, it’s already been done.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
Everything has been done. Every great sermon idea has already been preached. Every angle has been covered. Every illustration has already been used. What is unique and original is the fact that YOU haven’t done it.
Pay close attention to the sermon series, bundles, resources, frameworks, and sermon topic ideas that already exist, and begin thinking about them as a trampoline to accelerate your ideas. If you find something you really like, reclassify it as an efficient way to work and prepare and put to bed the idea that it’s cheating or it’s a shortcut. Solomon said it’s already been done. Lean on the truth of scripture and stop putting pressure on yourself to do something that is stealing your time and energy.
We’ve added an additional 35 preaching topic ideas. Check them out below:
Prayerfully plan out your future sermon topics and begin to put those topics into sermon series. Not only will you be able to intentionally plan what your congregation will be exposed to, but you’ll get rid of the weekly stress of not only preparing a sermon but figuring out what the sermon will be about.
Need help on how to plan a sermon series? Ministry Pass founder, Justin Trapp talks about his 6-step process for planning a sermon series on the Pro Church Tools Podcast.
If you want to add two teams to your church at the fraction of the cost of adding staff, we can help. We can help you with sermon planning, sermon research, and creative media. Start your free 14-day trial today!
A free spreadsheet template to help you organize your series ideas and preaching calendar.
Brandon Kelley is a pastor at The Crossing on the east side of Cincinnati. He is the managing editor of Ministry Pass, co-founder of RookiePreacher.com, and the author of Preaching Sticky Sermons. You can connect with him on Twitter @BrandonKelley_.
Ministry Pass is a sermon series & church graphics library created by pastors, for pastors.
© Copyright 2024 Ministry Pass Inc. All rights reserved.
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