Overcoming Sermon Writer's Block

The first thing to know about Writer’s Block is that it isn’t real. It isn’t solid or measurable. It exists only as that which we have invented so that we have something to blame for our failure to produce other than laziness or lack of insight and creativity. That being said, we have all felt lazy and have also sat before blank screens with the dread that there is nothing more to say or that we have nothing of interest or value to say and Sunday morning is drawing near. Fortunately for us, all writers, not just sermon writers, face this problem and there are many ideas and strategies out there to help us get to work. Here, for example, is a website full of ideas that a preacher can easily adapt to his own purpose: 101 techniques for Writer’s Block.

I don’t remember where I learned this, and I’ve written about this before, but my own favorite technique is called “vomiting on the page.” The technique is to simply begin typing anything at all that comes to mind about the text in front of you. It can be incredibly simple or obvious or overly emotional and sappy. It can be vulgar and immature. It can even be heretical! The goal is to get something on the page to edit, to respond to, or that needs to be corrected. The editing, correcting, clarifying, and so forth, leads to an actual sermon. The technique recognizes that real writing is editing and revising and that it is a process that occurs over time and doesn’t come out in a single session or finished the first time.

What are some of your techniques to get the job done?