How to Write Your State of the Church Message

Written by Calvin Wittman

Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples

The New Year is approaching and you may be considering a sermon on "making resolutions" or on "fresh starts." I want to encourage you to consider using the first Sunday of January to preach an annual "State of the Church" message.

• Consider that the New Year is a natural time for new ideas, new directions, and new approaches to old ideas.
• Many of your people are thinking about making changes as they look to 2009.
• Your annual State of the Church message can serve as an effective way to restate your vision to your congregation.

If you have never done this before allow me to make several practical suggestions.

1. Make your message biblical.
Whenever you preach, you should begin with, stay with, and finish with the text. That does not mean you cannot address the issues surrounding your situation, it just means you have to find what God’s word has to say about your particular situation.

• Consider 2 Kings 7 where the four lepers say, “Why just sit here until we die?” vs. 3 (HCSB)
• Philippians 3:13-14 would also be appropriate, “Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” (HCSB)

The scripture is full of passages that speak about the need to move forward.

2. Tell the story of your church with a view toward its future.
While you need to talk about where you have been and where you are, these should be the launching pad for a word about where God wants you to go.

Some in your church family may be more concerned about recreating the past than they are about seizing today or reaching for tomorrow. Your annual State of the Church Address can help you articulate where your church should and could be. It is a chance for you to tell the people what you sense God wants to accomplish among them in the coming year.

3. Draw a map of how to get there.
As you paint a picture of what tomorrow could be, draw a map. Using the past as a backdrop and the present as a starting point, tell your folks how God would have you get to the next step. This type of message takes prayer and careful thought (if you do not know where you are going or how to get there, no one else in your church will either). Before you can draw a map you need to have a heart to heart chat with the great Cartographer (mapmaker).

4. Make your message positive.
You may be frustrated with your church’s lack of vision, motivation, and progress. If you are, this type of message could easily turn into a “blame game.” That would be a mistake. While you should not ignore the realities of where your church may be, a vision-casting message should be positive. It should tell about the possibilities of victories in the future and not merely rehash the pain of failures in the past.

God has great things in store for your church and He has chosen you to tell about it. What better time than the New Year.

Editor's note: I asked Calvin whether he does an exposition of the biblical text followed by a discussion of where we've been, where we are today, and vision casting; or whether he intersperses the exposition with dealing with each (i.e. exposition of the biblical text then discuss where we've been, exposition of the biblical text then discuss where we are, exposition of the biblical text then cast vision). This was Calvin's response:

I allow the text to drive the outline of the message and then make application to the church as the points allow. Both dealing with the text and addressing the needs of my church are possible in the same message, but one of them must be in the driver's seat. For me it would almost always be the text in the driver's seat.

Dr. Calvin Wittman is pastor of Applewood Baptist Church in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. He is a former missionary to Spain, and holds degrees from Baylor University, Southwestern Seminary (MDiv), and Southern Seminary (DMin). He is also a veteran of the United States Navy and has worked as a news anchor on both television and radio stations in Texas.