We are nearing the end of the Church year which means many people have already mentally moved through Thanksgiving and Advent and are in full Christmas preparation. But you know better. You’re potentially preparing for your Harvest Observance and considering your upcoming Advent series. If you are not using the Daily Lectionary or the Lutheran Missal for texts, don’t start flipping the pages of magazines looking for the hottest new series that’s published so that you can avoid the extra work during the seasons of Advent and Lent. Admittedly, some of the series that are published have good ideas and are well thought out, but your people deserve better than for you to stand in the pulpit to read a sermon you did not write or even take the time to edit. In the end, it’s not that much extra work to prepare an additional sermon each week, and we already have all the resources we need for such seasons.

You might think it unimaginative, but if you don’t have ideas yet for your seasonal mid-week preaching, I suggest taking up the three articles of the Creed during Advent and going through the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer during Lent. While I will use the historic Propers for Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday, I will still draw from the next petition in line. “Lead us not into temptation” “But deliver us from evil” fit nicely into the Maundy Thursday/Good Friday focus.

You might be thinking: “I’ve gone through the Catechism plenty of times with my people. I need to do something else.” Luther himself said he could not master the Catechism, so why should we think we or our people ever will? Read it again (Both Small and Large) and preach it with joy!