A few years ago (2003) I went to Rob Bell's Poets//Prophets//Preachers conference about the art of writing a sermon. The core idea of the conference was, "becoming the kind of person who has something to say."
Before attending, I was terrified of preaching, despite doing it for nearly 3 years prior. The idea of not scripting out every word of a sermon, lesson, or teaching intimidated me so much because I came from an acting background. I thought somehow the words mystically came to the preacher during the teaching moment.
I learned that isn't true and in one of the last sessions we talked about the concept of 'radar.' This concept simply put is collecting ideas in a reliable format that is easily accessible and reviewable. Just think, if you have/find/see one idea a day and capture it, you have 30 ideas! After a while those ideas start to connect with each other. I have tons of files from conversations I've had, movies I've watched, ideas that came to me in the shower, and so on and so forth. This discipline helps my creative rhythm so much. Sitting down on Saturday night to write a sermon for Sunday morning is no way to live. I'm just not wired like that.
What sort of process do you use for collecting teaching ideas? Once you get good ideas, what sort of organization method do you use in preparing the material you are going to teach on?
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