Another Saturday Night

Yup, here it is, another Saturday night, 7:46 PM to be exact, and I'm finishing my sermon. I know, I know, all the preacher-guru types will tell you that this is the height of slackdom and irresponsibility, and that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to bring a great message to God's people when it is finished on Saturday.

But, I've been preaching 14 years and most of my sermons have been printed out on Saturday night (or in the wee hours of Sunday morning). Not had many complaints in those 14 years... not on the quality of my sermons, anyway.

I'm not advocating the "Saturday night special" approach to sermon writing, by any means, especially if by "Saturday night special" you mean a sermon that is thrown together haphazardly with no thought or depth (or, in today's world, a sermon that is downloaded on Saturday night).

For some people, though, Saturday night works, and if it works, how can it be any worse than those who prepare a sermon a month in advance? (Served cold, I like to think of it).

Here are some justifications:

• First, a sermon typed on Saturday night is rarely begun on Saturday night. I generally have my sermon "percolating" in my mind for the whole week. I even wake up with sermon ideas, having dreamed of the scripture that I'm working on.
• Second, some people just work better with a deadline. You can call it a lack of discipline, or whatever, but if I sit down on Monday to work on a sermon I find myself staring at the screen (or playing Breakout) for hours. Either that or I type up some really boring stuff. Come Saturday night, though, and I'm under the gun and the words just fly out. Maybe it's because I KNOW that I can't put it off any longer. I have a feeling that if I were at a church where I had to have the sermon to the secretary by Wednesday that I would be up all night on Tuesday.
• Third, different things work for different people. I've known preachers who have their sermons planned out a year in advance. Some do a little a day. Some get them sent to them from a sermon service. Me, I write my own after a week of thought on Saturday. If the end result is good, so be it.
• Fourth, my sermons are fresher in my mind come Sunday. Sure, I could have it written on Tuesday and go over it on Saturday, but nothing like having it right out of the brain on Saturday.

Granted, there are some downsides:

• There is always the chance that something will come up on Saturday, taking sermon prep time. That's happened before, meaning that I've been up all night on Saturday.
• There is less time to make changes if you are not happy.
• Know it all guys who write sermon books will tell you that you are slack if you do it on Saturday.
• It takes away time from your wife if she works. Mine does, so she gets Saturday off, but I'm preparing my sermon. This is the biggest downside.

But, old habits die hard, and like I've said, I've done things this way for 14 years and it works for me.

The other bad thing: the tendency to procastinate on Saturday night when the sermon is due, doing things like typing an entry for a blog...