Pastoral Use of Saturdays and Sermon Preparation

On Saturdays, I ordinarily take roughly three-quarters of the day off from formal ministry work. Saturday mornings are relaxed and centered around home and local life. I do the kinds of things many people do on a day off: work with plants, paint the deck, walk or hike in the surrounding mountains, or simply walk the neighborhood. I typically stay close to home rather than going out shopping or engaging in crowded weekend activities.

Saturday is, for me, a day of physical and mental unwinding in a beautiful setting, enjoying the mountains and trails where I live. Sometimes we go out to eat, but often we cook and eat at home. There is nothing particularly dramatic about the day; it is quiet, ordinary, and restorative.

By mid-afternoon—often somewhere between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m.—I shift back into pastoral work. Depending on the week, that may be at home or at the office. I want the sermon and Bible study for Sunday to be fresh in my mind. Frequently, Saturday evening becomes an extended study and preparation time, sometimes lasting until 10:00, 11:00, or even midnight, when I finally feel the material is ready and clear enough in my mind to preach the next morning.

On “Saturday Night Study”

In seminary culture there is an old derisive phrase, “Saturday night special,” implying that if a pastor works seriously on the sermon on Saturday evening, the sermon is somehow spiritually inferior to one completed earlier in the week. I do not accept that assumption. My mind works best in the “now”: if I finish a sermon on Tuesday and lay it aside until Sunday, it tends to fall out of the forefront of my thinking. Working on it late in the week allows it to be alive and present when I stand to preach.

I generally know my preaching texts and themes well in advance. What happens on Saturday afternoon and evening is the fine-tuning and internalization necessary so that the sermon is not merely read but truly preached. I used to be embarrassed that so much of this work came late in the week. I now see it as a wise pattern and would encourage other pastors to discover when they actually think and internalize best, rather than conforming to a rigid schedule inherited from previous generations.

I typically wake early on Sunday—around 6:00 a.m.—partly by habit, partly because of the early sunrise, and partly because, at my age, early rising is almost automatic. That early morning is then used to settle my mind and heart for the Lord’s Day, coming out of a Saturday that was both restful and productively focused on the upcoming ministry.

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