December is a month I really do enjoy. It has very little to do with Christmas. All the flash and dazzle of the holiday depresses me. Where does the Birth of our Lord fit in with tinsel and our exchange of gifts? But I do love this time, specifically December.

          I went into the ministry in 1975. I was a Youth Pastor and then an Associate Pastor and then, in 1983, I became a Pastor. That boggles my mind! That means…..I am getting old! Never mind, enough of that. Back to point. By 1989 I was a grizzled pulpit veteran of six years. I found myself becoming more and more upset with the way Christmas was being celebrated by the world as well as the folks in the church. I didn’t like all the commercialization and misdirection. So, the Sunday before Christmas that year, I boldly went where no pastor had gone before. I preached on Hell. Let it rip, too. HAH! I showed them!

          The closing song was “Silent Night.” I stood and greeted people as they went out. The words I got from the people stunned me. Have a Merry Christmas, Pastor. Looks like we will get some Christmas Eve snow! You folks going up to see the parents? What time do you folks get up for Christmas? My mind was jumbled. Were these people nuts? I had just preached a barn burner message on Hell, and it’s like they didn’t even notice.

          There was a good reason for that. They didn’t notice. Probably because they didn’t listen. I was really crushed that our people could be so sucked into worldliness!

          Fortunately, the Lord whacked me in the back of the head with a Yule log and got my attention.

          Christmas time is a time when people focus on Christmas things, just like Easter is a time people focus on Easter things. As much as I would like those things to all be sacred things, we do live in this world. The things of the world will come through and, if we watch ourselves, that is not always bad. I really enjoy seeing kids in their new Easter clothes. I like to hear the stories of what loved ones got their wives or husbands or kids for Christmas. It is OK so long as our focus is right…….

          So, the Lord took me to the woodshed a little. But, He also inspired me.

          In terms of preaching, December is a limited month. You have to spend four Sundays on the birth of Jesus and one Sunday on the coming New Year. It is just the way it is today. If you are looking for a church, don’t bother looking in December. The birth of Christ only takes a few chapters in the New Testament, although there is much in Old Testament prophecy. In December, the preacher is going to preach on the Birth. I have done so since 1983 (I have to quit saying that year. I can’t really be that old.) with the exception of the ill-fated message on Hell. There is a challenge in preaching on the same topic and still making it interesting. But it is still the same topic.

          Because of this, however, I came to a wonderful discovery.

          The Lord called me to pastor. What most people do not consider is that pastoring and preaching are two different callings. There are many wonderful preachers who are sad pastors, and many really good pastors who are poor preachers. I recognized this early on. Preaching was a struggle for me. Consequently, I struggled for years to be a better preacher. In seminary, I pursued a degree in ministry, but I read everything I could that was in the reading list for a preaching, or homiletics, degree. By the time I had my master’s in ministry I had done all the reading for a doctorate in homiletics. Marsha was the one who pushed me to go ahead and go for the doctorate, since I had done all the work already, except for some field work and the dissertation. You would think I would be a better preacher, but I am what I am.

          In all of that preparation, I came across an chapter in a book concerning something called a Planned Program of Preaching. The PPP involves sitting down and planning your preaching for a month or even three months. Scripture passage, sermon topic and maybe some thoughts. You are not preparing the sermon in advance, just putting ideas together. Then, when you get to that week, you have the Scripture and topic, all you have to do is prepare (which is the fun part). At the time I first read the chapter, I dismissed if. How can you let the Spirit lead if you program it? Never thought about it again.

          Until the week between Christmas and New Years of 1989.

          The Lord brought it to my mind while I was in prayer one morning. I resisted, He insisted, so I thought I would give it a month. I spent a lot of time in prayer that week about messages for January. By the end of the week I had a basic outline for the month. You pray about it and the Lord leads and there were four weeks of topics. Pretty cool! One of the hard things about preaching is coming up with a topic. That January there was no feeling of rush during those weeks that were heavy with pastoral duties. I already had the topics. The amazing thing was, we did have something suddenly come up that January in the church that needed to be addressed from the pulpit. The sermon that was on the PPP was exactly what was needed. What? You mean to tell me that the Holy Spirit knows what is coming and can direct my paths a month away? Un-stinking-real! As January drew to a close I looked to February and March. Again, the Lord didn’t disappoint. Having sought out the Lord and having prayed over everything, I found my messages were always on topic. It was unreal! As March wound down, I went for three months. Everything was perfect. There were weeks when I was at hospitals for various needs, when others had other kinds of problems, when I had to leave town suddenly for four or five days. In those cases, I was ready.

          When December 1990 rolled around, I was excited. I found I was already putting those messages for the first three months together in my mind. Easter was coming, and I love to preach during the Easter season. Not only that, but I had been invited to speak at Kent State University on the topic of Resurrection, so I needed to prepare for that. There would be ridicule and questions from ‘educated’ young people. I began to prepare at the beginning of December.

          One sermon led to another. The Lord was really moving! By the end of December I took stock of what the Lord had accomplished during the month. I was actually quite surprised that every Sunday during year had a topic and Scripture. No, no, no, that can’t be right, I thought. And what is this, starting in June? I had two topics and two sets of Scripture for each Sunday through the end of the year. I remembered doing that, but why? Did the Lord want me to preach two messages on those Sundays? That wouldn’t go over well at the church. Now I was a little worried. How could I prepare for a whole year in advance, and why the double messages for more than half a year? I was doing something wrong, for sure.

          But the messages were right on the money.

          When we got to May there was a small, struggling church in the community where we lived (we didn’t live in the same community as the church I pastored) that was coming into some real problems. Knowing some of the folks, because we were neighbors, I was asked to come on Wednesday evening to talk things over from a Biblical perspective. My church’s weekly Bible study was Thursday evening, so that worked well. It would only be a couple of weeks, anyway. After a couple of weeks the little church asked if I might fill the pulpit for a couple of Sundays. Of course, I was pastoring, but they offered to change their times to accommodate my Sunday schedule. From that, I was there every Sunday for the next 80 weeks. The very first Sunday of preaching that dual situation was the first Sunday I had two messages listed for a Sunday on my Planned Program of Preaching.

          Last year I didn’t do this for the first time in a long time. If you recall, last year at this time I had resigned effective in February. Marsha had left and I really didn’t think I could pastor anymore. But the Lord wouldn’t let me go and you folks wouldn’t let me go, and here I am. I have been looking forward to December so much I actually got started in November! It is like the coming year is revealed to me, at least as far as sermons go. I also can pick out the Liturgist Scripture reading for each week to go along with the messages. From that I can select the congregational songs, which will also enhance the ‘theme’ for each Sunday. A fellow pastor once told me that the PPP was stupid. It completely took the Spirit out of it. I told him that we obviously had two different S/spirits at work in our lives. His spirit was only strong enough to cover him for a week at a time. My Spirit is strong enough to give me a year! 

          Well, you might say, God has blessed you. But here is the secret. I have access to the same Spirit you have access too. Incredible things can be done, if we just let Him have His way. Not just day to day, but week to week, month to month, year to year. What a Mighty God we serve!

          I do love this month!

          Blessings.