Creating a Preaching Calendar

Preaching is the exciting ministry and responsibility we have as pastors. We have the great privilege of studying, teaching, and preaching the Word of God.  Some of Jesus’s final words to Peter were, “Feed my lambs” and “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15,17). And that is what we do as pastors each Sunday.

 

Paul reminds young Timothy, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). That reminds us that we are to feed the sheep a healthy diet of all the scriptures. In our planning of preaching the Word, we need to touch upon the whole counsel of God. In the general planning, think of the Old Testament as Narrative (Genesis-Esther), Poetry (Job-Song of Solomon), and Prophecy (Isaiah-Malachi), the New Testament as Narrative (Matthew-Acts), Paul’s Epistles (Romans-Philemon), Other Letters (Hebrews-Jude), and Revelation. Out of these different genres, the sheep need a balanced diet. So, as the shepherd, plan your sermon series from various forms of writings of the scriptures.

 

We have different kinds of sheep in our flocks. There are those who are “like newborn babes longing for the milk of the word” (1 Peter 2:2), and those who are mature who need “solid food, having their senses trained to discern good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14). And then there are those who come from different circumstances, and we need to “admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). All in all, they need the whole counsel of God.

 

To do this, our planning calendar will have several series throughout the year. A long series may go for 12 weeks. Being committed to the exposition of the scriptures may mean we will preach part of a book this year and the next part next year. For example, Genesis could be a series on Creation, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. Acts could be The Early Church, The 1^st Missionary Journey, and The 2^nd Missionary Journey.

 

So, our planning begins with prayer – prayer for our sheep, our church, our community, our government, and our world. We are looking for the Spirit to lead us, teach us, and illuminate the Word so that we can feed the sheep. For all that we all are facing, we want that Word to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:12-14).

 

A final note in your planning – you have a Church Ministry Cycle/Rhythm that follows the trimesters: Fall & Christmas (September–December), Winter & Spring (January–May) and Summer (June–August). So, where do we begin our calendar?

Before picking texts, look at the upcoming year’s natural rhythms and holidays.

• Identify major holidays: Advent/Christmas, New Year’s, Lent/Easter, Thanksgiving, Mother’s/Father’s Day, and others you may celebrate.
• Analyze attendance patterns: Plan high-momentum series for the Fall (September) and New Year (January).
• Budget buffer weeks: Deduct 4-8 weeks for guest speakers, missions updates, church conferences, and times you are away for continuing education/conferences and your own vacation.
• Calculate total weeks: A standard year yields roughly 44-46 preaching slots for the pastor to preach.

• Momentum Series: Identify the larger series for ministry momentum and Big Rocks in September and January. These are probably your 12-week series. This is when most of the people are there most of the time.
• Advent/Lenten Series: Decide if you are doing an Advent series or Lenten series. This is most helpful for your worship team to know early on, as well as for you to be thinking and collecting thoughts and ideas around these seasons of ministry.
• Summer Series: For your summer ministry, do a topical series or study from Psalms or Proverbs. These are series that people may miss a week or two but they can connect with the topic for the week.  They don’t need the previous context.
• Smaller Chunks: For the smaller chunks and weeks that are left, plan a two- or three-week series on a topic that your folks need to hear what the Bible teaches about that topic. You might do a short series on technology and AI, sexual identity, social justice, parenting, marriage, adoption/foster care, aging, or discipleship.

A 2027 preaching calendar template is provided in three formats. Choose whichever works best for you:

• Word document: An editable template for typing in your passages, sermon titles, and notes.
• PDF: A printable version for filling out by hand.
• Excel spreadsheet: An editable template for planning and updating your schedule in Excel.

 

The date cells are shaded to reflect the church’s ministry seasons:

• Winter/Spring (January–May): Blue
• Summer (June–August): Green
• Fall (September–November): Orange
• Advent/Christmas (December): Red

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Mike Boyle is the Rural Resource Developer at RHMA. For more rural resources from Mike, please click here.