Editor's note: As preachers develop their signature method of sermon preparation over the years, they often enhance their process by "cherry picking" from the sermon prep schedules and checklists of others. When someone preaches in a way that consistently intrigues and speaks to us, and we wonder how they do it, the answer may well be found in those schedules and checklists.

Kevin Miller

PreachingToday.com: Are there any key questions you normally answer, or paths of thought you typically take, as you study a text and write the sermon?

Miller: The questions I regularly ask are these:

• What are the big ideas in the text?
• Am I preaching from a natural unit of Scripture?
• What is this text about? What is it saying about what it's about?
• Why did the original audience need to hear this message?
• What question is this text answering? And what is its answer?
• What does this text say about Jesus? Have I stayed in this text until I met the Lord of this text?
• What is the good news of this text?
• How is this passage supposed to make me feel?