Almost instantaneously, sermon series have taken the preaching world by storm. Visit a handful of church websites and you're bound to find a majority promoting their hot, new sermon series.

Despite the popularity of sermon series, many ministers still view them with suspicious glances. Are sermon series really that important?

Over the years, I've found sermon series to be an indispensable tool for both spiritual and numerical growth in the church. If you're not utilizing sermon series, you could be missing out on an incredible way to teach others about the Bible.

Here are four reasons why:

1. Sermon series function as mental reminders for your church. Last year, I preached through a series called, "I Work Out." Because my messages explored spiritual disciplines like prayer and Bible study, I flooded our congregation with images of bodybuilders and exercise equipment. The whole point behind subjecting my group to biceps and back muscles was so I could create in their minds a mental, relatable reminder of my messages. Essentially, a sermon series is the creation of a metaphor by which your audience can relate to, group together and recall your messages.

Psychologists tell us that the key to moving information from short-term storage to long-term memory is, in fact, association. The human brain has to know where to file new ideas and concepts. With a sermon series, you are taking a number of abstract ideas and communicating them in a picture or phrase that everyone can understand.

2. Sermon series allow you to go deeper into God's Word. For pastors who don't preach through sermon series, every standalone message can quickly become an exhaustive concordance on one particular topic. For example, one sermon on biblical worship can morph into something like this:

Point 1: Worship is Thanking God for Who He Is and What He's Done

Point 2: Worship is Singing

Point 3: Worship is Giving

Because of time constraints, Pastors have approximately 30-40 minutes to hit all three of these points. This often results in a wide, but shallow exploration of worship. By working through a sermon series, however, your messages have an opportunity to dig much deeper. Within a series, your original message might now look something like this:

Week 1: Worship is Thanking God for Who He Is and What He's Done

Week 2: Worship is Singing

Week 3: Worship is Giving

Deep and wide.

3. Sermon series help pastors be better prepared. Whenever I preach a standalone message, I find myself grappling with one big, unshakeable question each time, "What am I going to talk about this Sunday?" Choosing a big idea and passage seems to be half the battle.

Preachers have a greater chance of helping others understand God's Word if they've taken time to chew on it themselves. By knowing what you're going to preach in advance, you'll be better prepared to communicate God's Word more effectively.

4. Sermon series create momentum that can lead to growth. Over the years I've seen firsthand how a well-branded sermon series can produce momentum that, in turn, leads to numerical growth. Two years ago, my church walked through a series called "Outer Space." For a whole month, every message dealt with a passage in the Bible that seemed out of this world. During this time we hit a new attendance goal for our congregation.

Part of that growth can be attributed to our attention-grabbing sermon series.

A well branded, interesting sermon series can create momentum that will lead to more people visiting your church.

I created a FREE tool to help you plan your sermon series and sermons so you can communicate the gospel with absolute effectiveness and efficiency. The Sermon Organizer is a free download. Click Here to learn more.

Justin Trapp serves as associate pastor at Northwood Church and is the founder of Ministry Pass™. Justin blogs about church leadership, creativity, productivity and marketing at justintrapp.com.

For the original article, visit pastors.com.

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