Still working on the sermon today?

I'll admit that I am--my evening one at least. At Odyssey this past week, Alan Roxburgh and Chris Erdman posted on preachers waiting till Friday and Saturday to compose their sermons:

Some preachers are quite competent to get done what they need to get done working this way. But most of us aren’t. And I’ll go out on a limb and say that I don’t think any of us should as a course of habit. Some preachers might be able to cram sermon preparation into the last two days of the week and preach well occasionally, but I don’t think they can consistently.

Even when the demands of ministry prevent us from doing the seven-day preparation we'd like, there's still a better way than frantically straining to come up with something on the weekend:

I prefer—instead of anxiously fretting and grinding away trying to get something down on paper fit enough for preaching on Sunday—to pause instead, radically abbreviating my normal exegetical routine and find some solitude and silence . . . and just listen.

In listening the real sermon is born. In the listening the preacher is changed from being a mere reporter of things observed to being a messenger. A sermon is not a poetry reading or a lecture or an exhibition of great oratory skills—it is a living word.

Amen. I appreciate Clark Christian turning me on to Odyssey, and I look forward to visiting it again.