Thinking Big Picture with Your Sermon Series Ideas
Imagine this: you’re crafting your next sermon series on a topic you believe resonates with the needs of your congregation and community. You’ve worked hard on thinking of a catchy title, a solid format for what you’ll preach each week, and the content within each sermon has the potential to change (or even save) a life!
With so much effort going into the sermon God gave you, why stop at the pulpit? Every church has the opportunity to maximize the reach and impact of its sermon series. In this digital age, creating an eager interest and lasting impact with your sermon series means more than just making a fancy presentation. We want to invite you to think big picture when it comes to your sermon series ideas & church media design!
Here are a few areas you and your team can develop creative resources for your next sermon series. The goal isn’t to create everything on these lists, but it is to do the things that make sense to you, your team, and your community:
Live Services (The Medium for Your Message)
As it pertains to a sermon series, the greatest area in need of creative support is, of course, during your church’s service and your sermon. Many churches stop at a sermon series graphic and a slide template. That’s a solid starting point, but there’s room to expand your impact. A great way to build on this is to consider what helps your audience engage with the sermon. These are some additional creative elements that could help with that:
- Alternative Slides (to create a distinction between scripture, sermon points, and key phrases)
- Lower Thirds (to overlay slides on live video without taking the speaker off-screen; can also be used for video promo)
- Video Thumbnails (to create visual interest on live-streaming platforms)
- Recap Graphic (a small, shareable graphic with key scripture references and points)
All of these elements are tools that can create a lasting impression on your audience and help them connect with the content and message better. The next area of focus will help generate interest in the topic being discussed throughout your sermon series.
Social Media (Your Church’s Modern Evangelism Tool)
You can create compelling hooks for your sermon series before you even hit the stage! Social media is one of the strongest evangelism tools your church has. It’s not just about posting; it’s about sharing what matters to your community and inviting others into what God is doing in your space.
Here are some design entities you can create to get the word out:
- Square/Vertical Social Promo (these can be used not only to introduce the sermon series to your digital community, but also as a digital invite you can encourage your community to share with others)
- Square/Vertical Carousel (these are a series of square/vertical graphics, starting with a hook graphic, that serves as an “elevator pitch” for your sermon)
- i.e, Slide 1: “Feel trapped by your thoughts?”
- i.e, Slide 2: “Wondering how to overcome negativity?”
- i.e, Slide 3: “Find out how to ‘Survive the Mind Field’ this month at [your church]”
- i.e, Slide 4: [A promo card for ‘Survive the Mind Field’ including church logo and service time(s)]
- Vertical Video Promo (an excellent way to invite people to church: just tell them about the new sermon series, what points you’re hitting, where your service is, and when it starts)
- Sermon Clips (if you have the time and means to take a short, but powerful 20-40 seconds of your sermon recording and turn them into vertical videos, they can prove to be a great way to get others to both watch the replay of your sermon or show up for the next installment)
The great thing about these strategies: you can use them well after the sermon has been preached! You can highlight previous sermons anytime with clips, create quote graphics for memorable moments and phrases, and even turn your sermon notes into carousel posts. As social media (and the way we engage with it) evolves, we can find more ways to share the message and invite others to find out more about our church communities (and ultimately, Jesus)! As for our final area of focus, we want to highlight an often-overlooked opportunity we have to create lasting impact with our sermon series.
Personal & Community (Small Group and Discipleship Culture)
What’s the purpose of a sermon? How does it benefit the listener? We’d say it’s to bring greater context, understanding, and knowledge of the Word of God, as well as how it applies to our daily walk. One of the best ways to maximize a sermon series is by extending its life beyond Sunday service. Providing devotional resources helps your people go deeper throughout the week!
The following are three ideas we have that may help provide that devotional support
- Small Group & Ministry Guides (a short instructional doc for small group and ministry leaders with discussion questions, scriptural references, and review of key verses & points derived from each sermon in the series)
- Personal Devotionals (these are guides and lessons for individuals to study scripture and discover how to apply it to their walk, all derived from the sermon series)
- Blog Articles/Summaries (turn your sermon into an article & post it on your website! Not only will it serve as material for others to learn from you through written media, but it will also create more opportunities for others to stumble upon your website through search engines like Google and Bing.
There are probably other great ideas you can think of that we may not have shared in this post. Even so, we hope this has inspired you to get more out of your sermons and sermon series content in a way that serves your community and audience better, as well as gives them more opportunities to strengthen their walk with Christ!
If your church is ready to maximize the impact of your sermon series with strong visuals, social media strategy, and resources that last beyond Sunday, visit getignitd.com and hit the Let’s Talk button on the homepage!