Have you ever preached only to hear a member say, “Great sermon, Pastor. It was even better than last month when you preached the same thing”? Preachers can easily become creatures of habit.

The best preachers often go back to the same text, theme or topic for a sermon. But if we aren’t careful, our sermons can be set to repeat instead of providing a fresh word to our congregation each time.

If you want to avoid the rut of repetition, here are four tips to keep your sermons fresh.

Get the Big Picture
In order to stay fresh week after week you need to take the long view. That means you’re preparing and planning months ahead of time instead of a week at a time. Keeping a consistent preaching plan not only helps you stay ahead, it can keep your messages from getting stale.

Long-term sermon prep can give pastors a migraine. The thought of taking an entire day out of your week to sit and plan the year’s messages can be daunting. It can also feel restrictive, keeping you tied down to a particular set of messages instead of going with the flow.

But long-term sermon planning can be freeing and keep you fresh. If you have a plan for the months ahead, it frees you up to focus a week at a time without worrying about repeating a topic too often. It can also help you get a feel for the flow of your congregation, what they need to hear and when they need to hear it. Planning is crucial to keeping your sermons fresh.

Keep a Checklist
Along with keeping a long-term sermon calendar, start making a checklist of topics that you want to cover that year. As you enter each topic into the sermon calendar or preach it on a weekend service, check it off the list so you know that you’ve got it covered.

Your list of topics should be unique to you and your church, but it can include such things as missions, prayer, finances, community, marriage and parenting, witnessing, discipleship, and service.

Planning is crucial to keeping your sermons fresh.

You can also include specific texts you’d like to cover. Maybe you’ve recently read something that you want to share with your congregation. Keep a list so you can be sure to go back to it when it’s appropriate or you’ve had enough time to study it.

This checklist can work for any type of sermon you choose, from topical to expository. Even if you plan on taking a book of the Bible and preaching verse by verse for the next year, you should still keep a list of topics handy to make sure your sermons are providing a balanced diet for your audience’s needs.

Check and Recheck
Now that you’ve got your calendar and list of topics, you can jump right into sermon prep. But after you’ve preached a message make sure to hold onto your notes. That way you can go back and review what you’ve preached.

Did you say what you meant to say? Or did that sermon about serving stray into yet another sermon on finances? Did you stay fresh with your content, or did you get into a rut again with the same familiar texts? Have you said this already? Or does it bear repeating?

Keeping track of what you’ve preached can be just as important as keeping a plan for what you will preach.

Repeat Themes, Not Topics
Repetition is a great tool for spiritual growth, but only when it’s used correctly. So make sure you repeat themes but not topics. Here’s what I mean by that. Themes are the overarching ideas you want to get across. Topics are individual areas that your theme can apply to.

A theme can be “Growing in God,” while a topic can be “Giving.” If you’re repeating a theme but not a topic, it means that this week you preach about “Growing in God in your giving,” while next week you preach “Growing in God through witnessing.” You’ve repeated ideas that are important for your audience’s maturity without giving them the same message over and over again.

Some pastors choose a yearly theme, and I think that’s a great idea. They pick a word, phrase or sentence to guide every aspect of their ministry throughout the year, including their weekly teaching. Each week feels like it’s connected to the previous. But if your yearly theme is too restrictive you can get into a rut. Keeping in mind the difference between a theme and topic will keep you fresh each week.

Don’t think of these tips as rules that must be obeyed no matter what. Take them and adapt them to your own sermon preparation plan. But above all do keep in mind that your audience is paying attention to what you say week after week. They’ll know — and they’ll let you know — if your sermons start to get into a rut. Balancing your sermons can be tricky, but it’s well worth it if it produces balanced believers.