How Long Does It Take to Write a Sermon? A Realistic Weekly Plan for Expository Preachers

There is no standard number, but the pattern is clear: a sermon takes hours spread across the week, and most of them come before the writing starts. In a 2008 Lifeway Research survey of Protestant pastors, half said they spend five to 14 hours a week on sermon preparation, and 9 percent said 25 hours or more. For an expository sermon, the larger share of that time belongs to the text: reading, exegesis and finding the main idea. The writing comes last, and it goes better when the study was done well.

What does the survey actually say?

Lifeway Research asked 1,002 Protestant pastors by phone, in October 2008, how they spend their time. Sermon preparation came out as the ministry task that takes the most hours:

• Half of the pastors reported five to 14 hours a week.
• 9 percent reported 25 hours or more.
• 7 percent reported less than five hours.
• 30 percent of evangelical pastors reported 20 hours or more, compared with 20 percent of mainline pastors.

Read those numbers with care. They are self-reported, they are from 2008, and they cover all Protestant pastors, not only those who preach through books of the Bible. They also do not say how the hours divide between study and writing, which is the more useful question when you plan your own week.

Is study time the same as writing time?

No. When pastors ask how long it takes to write a sermon, they usually mean two different kinds of work.

Study time is the work of understanding the passage: reading it many times, following the grammar and the flow of the argument, placing it in its book and in the whole of Scripture, testing your reading against good commentaries and the confession of your church, and seeing how it points to Christ.

Writing time is the work of bringing what you understood to a particular congregation: the main idea in one sentence, an outline that comes out of the text, application, illustration, transitions, an introduction and a conclusion.

Both take real hours. Study without writing tends to produce a lecture that never reaches the people. Writing without study produces something that sounds like a sermon but says what the preacher already thought. The Westminster Larger Catechism asks ministers to preach faithfully, "making known the whole counsel of God," and wisely, "applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers" (WLC Q. 159). The first phrase describes the work of study. The second describes the work of writing.

What does a realistic week of expository preparation look like?

Here is one way to arrange the week for a pastor who preaches on Sunday morning and takes Monday off. It is a sample, not a rule. Sermon work shares each day with visits, meetings and everything else, so think of these as the hours you protect, often in the morning, rather than whole days.

Tuesday: read and pray before you consult anyone

Read the passage several times, in more than one translation, and in Greek or Hebrew if you work in them. Read the chapters around it. Write down what you notice and what puzzles you. Pray through the text for your own soul before you pray about the sermon. This day is slow on purpose: the questions you write now become the backbone of your study.

Wednesday: do the exegesis

Trace the structure of the passage: where the argument turns, which words carry the weight, what the author is doing with his readers. Ask where the text sits in the history of redemption and how it points to Christ. Then open the commentaries, to test your reading rather than replace it. Check your conclusions against the rest of Scripture and against your confession.

Thursday: find the main idea and build the structure

This is the hinge of the week. Write the main idea of the passage in one sentence. Then write the main idea of the sermon for your people. Build an outline whose points come out of the text, following its order where that serves. Decide on the main application. If you cannot yet state the main idea plainly, you are not ready to write, and an extra hour here is better spent than an extra hour polishing sentences on Friday.

Friday: write

Some preachers write a full manuscript, some preach from detailed notes and some from a brief outline. Each approach has able defenders, and each takes a different amount of time. Whatever form you use, it often helps to write the body first and the introduction last, once you know where the sermon is going.

Saturday: review and pray for the hearers

Read the sermon aloud. Cut what does not serve the main idea. Check every reference, every quotation and every claim about the original languages. Time it. Then pray for the people who will hear it, by name where you can. Keep Saturday evening light if possible, so you come to the pulpit rested.

Where the hours go

In a week like this, study takes the largest share of the sermon time, roughly half. Main idea and structure take a smaller share, writing takes one protected block, and review takes the least. Prayer is not a sixth step at the end. It runs through every day.

What can be shortened, and what cannot?

Some parts of the week shrink with planning and practice:

• Choosing the text. Preaching through a book, with the passages planned weeks ahead, removes the weekly question of what to preach.
• Background study. The introduction to a book (its author, setting and structure) is studied once for the whole series, not every week.
• Writing. As you learn your own voice, the writing tends to come more easily. Moving from a full manuscript to full notes is a legitimate choice, not a shortcut, if you preach as clearly from notes.
• Formatting and logistics. Slides, bulletin notes and printing can often be handed to someone else.

Other parts cannot be shortened without loss:

• Time in the text itself. Commentaries and tools can test your reading. They cannot do the reading for you.
• Prayer. The apostles set their priorities in one sentence: "we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4, ESV). The 1689 London Baptist Confession describes the work of pastors with the same pairing, "the ministry of the word and prayer" (LBCF 26.10).
• Wrestling with the main idea. Until you can say what the text says, the sermon is not ready.
• Thinking about your people. No one else knows what your congregation is carrying this week.
• Checking what you will say. A wrong reference or a misattributed quotation costs more than the minutes it takes to verify it.

What changes for a bivocational pastor?

The same Lifeway survey found that the bivocational and part-time pastors who took part worked a median of 30 hours a week for their churches. Sermon preparation has to fit inside those hours along with everything else, usually in shorter pieces scattered across the week.

The work does not change. Its shape does.

• Start earlier. Read next Sunday's passage on Sunday evening or Monday morning, so it stays in your mind through the workweek.
• Study in short daily sittings. Reading and exegesis can happen before or after work. Keep one notebook or file so nothing is lost between sittings.
• Protect one longer block for structure and writing. The main idea and the outline need unbroken attention. That might be one evening or Saturday morning.
• Plan the series further ahead. Knowing the passages months in advance lets you read ahead whenever you have a spare moment.
• Choose passages you can handle well. A shorter unit preached with clarity serves the church better than a long one covered thinly.
• Ask your elders for help. Visits, meetings and administration can be shared, so the hours you have go to the word and prayer.

How long does a first sermon take?

A first sermon usually takes far longer than any later one, and that is normal. You are learning the whole process at once: how to study a passage for preaching, how to find its main idea, how to write for the ear and how long a page takes to say aloud.

• Start weeks ahead, not days.
• Choose a short, clear passage with a single main thought.
• Do not try to say everything you learned. Most of your study will not appear in the sermon, and it should not.
• Write it out in full, even if you later preach from notes, so you can see the whole argument.
• Preach it aloud more than once before Sunday, and time it.
• Ask your pastor or an elder to read it and tell you plainly where it is unclear.

Do not measure what your weekly ministry will require by your first sermon. The study habits stay, and the process becomes familiar with practice.

What to do this week

• Track your hours by kind of work. Note how much time goes to study, structure, writing, review and prayer. Your own totals will tell you more than any survey.
• Set a deadline for the main idea. Pick the day by which you must be able to state it in one sentence.
• Plan your next series now, at least the passages, so next week starts with the text already chosen.
• Name one task to hand off, and ask an elder or deacon about it this week.

If you want help organizing the study and the structure, the sermon preparation path in Hokmah Expositor starts with an exegetical study of the passage, extracts a structure you review and edit, and develops the sermon in three stages. It drafts material for you to examine against the text. The reading, the praying and the wrestling remain yours.

Sources

• Lifeway Research, "Pastors' Long Work Hours Come at Expense of People, Ministry," January 5, 2010 (telephone survey of 1,002 Protestant pastors, October 13 to 29, 2008). https://research.lifeway.com/2010/01/05/pastors-long-work-hours-come-at-expense-of-people-ministry/
• The Westminster Larger Catechism, Orthodox Presbyterian Church. https://opc.org/lc.html
• The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 26, The Reformed Reader. https://reformedreader.org/ccc/1689lbc/english/Chapter26.htm