Effective Structures

One month into my time as the full-time pastor of the Reformed Church, I have had a great experience. The people are wonderful, the community is beautiful, and I am really having a lot of fun being a spiritual leader of God's people. One of the most enjoyable things for me has been preaching on a weekly basis. Before, my preaching was so sporadic that I could never build any momentum, and I often found myself preaching the same theme time after time. Preaching every week, the task has become much more fluid, much more a part of my life as pastor.

For the past three weeks I have been preaching a series on Natural Church Development, and up to this point it has gone well. The quality characteristics have fit well into sermons, and the themes have been easy to preach. So far, I have covered 'empowering leadership,' 'gift-based ministry,' and 'passionate spirituality.' This week, however, could be a different story. The theme is 'effective structures,' and I am having some trouble finding good pericopes to cover it. The NCD "motto" for this one is Mark 2:27, "The sabbath was created for people, and not people for the sabbath." Another thought has been the metaphor of new wine into old wineskins. Something I always enjoy is preaching about the Reformed faith, and this could fit well into a discussion of structures, but I would like to avoid falling back into something that has already been covered in the series.

In the coming weeks are 'inspiring worship services,' 'holistic small groups,' need-oriented evangelism,' and 'loving relationships.' Once again, these lend themselves well to preaching, and my hope is to inspire the congregation to become actively involved in the life of the church as well as in their own walks of faith. How could a sermon on structures accomplish this goal of preaching? Perhaps I need to set another goal of preaching for this week.