I preached a great sermon once. Afterward, a visitor approached me and asked, “May I ask you a question? Did you get that sermon off the internet?” 

No ma’am. I mined my sermon honestly out of the bedrock.

In his pastoral letter, the apostle Peter wrote: “Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God” (1 Peter 4:11). Peter’s is an awe-full charge and warning to those of us who dare to scale the sheer cliff face of the pulpit. When we stand before a congregation each week, we’re trafficking in the very words of God. So just how long should it take us to prepare those words?

I spend a lot of time studying and reading and writing my sermons — easily 15 to 20 hours a week. It’s what a conference leader once described to me as the “luxuriousness” of ministry. I like it. Taking the time to craft sermons with care suits my inclinations and gifts. 

There’s some ancient warrant for getting the words right. Gregory the Great wrote in the sixth century that if a preacher “rushes hastily into speaking without the proper preparation, the hearts of his audience may be struck with the wounds of error.” 

In the 18th century, John Wesley upbraided a fellow pastor: “I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase.” 

And in modern times, Ed Stetzer’s study of 400 “comeback churches” noted that 40% of the pastors of those churches reported spending “more time in sermon preparation, not less.” 

But all this time devoted to study also embarrasses me a little. After all, I aspire to ministry in the cut of the Good Shepherd, and he seems to have spent the bulk of his time with the people — on the mount, in the towns, by the seashore. 

I don’t suppose Jesus wrote out his sermons. But did Peter? What about Paul? Maybe sticking to a manuscript would have saved Eutychus (see Acts 20:9). 

I worry that all my time perched in the swivel chair chiseling words means I’m missing out on possibilities for connecting with people. My seashore might be volunteering as a crossing guard.

The campus pastor of a local multi-site church told me his congregation projected the main-site pastor’s sermon on a big screen. The campus pastor rarely preached. Instead, he deployed his time to lead a Bible study at an apartment complex and volunteer in the school. 

I admired his freedom, even as I knew I would miss the weekly spelunking in the Word. His was a different sort of luxuriousness.

I suppose the time question is -really an origin question: Where do sermons come from? 

Study is one aspect of the process, but any AI chatbot off the internet can string together 1,500 words of Bible commentary synthesis. (Not that I’d know.) Something deeper happens in sermon prep.

I think preachers write sermons the way all of us are called to walk with God. It’s living and listening — not in a dictational way, but like what I imagine reading braille would be — fingertips touching something subtle and stubbly, God’s grace all over our stuff. We preach what we listen to and what we live.

That’s why, in reality, sermons take far longer than 15 to 20 hours to create. Each fall, I plot out my sermons for the year. The act of selecting themes, Scripture passages and general direction begins the gestational period for individual sermons. Over the ensuing months, I’ll log stories and bright ideas that come to me. 

But even that extended period doesn’t capture the actual lead time for my sermons. 

Not to sound cute, but sermons come from a lifetime with the Word. I find that my preparation work is more about being quiet with the Scripture than scouting all its historical and literary ins and outs. 

Crafting a sermon often feels like what author Annie Dillard describes in The Writing Life: “I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.” 

Oh yes, I hold my sermon’s hand. I pray with it like a chaplain. Maybe a soul can be found in there somewhere. Those words and I are all so much clay chipped from the bedrock, trembling that God might breathe into us.

It takes time to write a sermon like that. How long it should take to preach the sermon is another matter entirely.