For those who lead churches, an invigorating practice can be to switch pulpits with another minister, giving both congregations a chance to hear a different voice of proclamation. I've been doing this for the last year with my congregation, St. David's Episcopal Church in Southfield, MI and it's really helped us learn, grow, and appreciate.
Here are some tips...
1) Pray and see if this would be appropriate for you to do so and ask leadership what their thoughts and concerns may be.
2) Determine which Sundays in the upcoming calendar year work. For example, I found 8 Sundays that worked in 2018.
3) Get a list of people, along with their emails (or phones, they still work...) with whom you'd like to switch. Do consider other local clergy from other faith traditions - like the Rabbi, the Lutheran pastor, or someone else in your community.
4) Issue the invitation, either by email, phone, or in person and keep track. An Excel spreadsheet can be helpful as it can be helpful to note contact information, time and dates of communications, and the gist of them.
5) Keep an overall log of who's coming when, and make sure others in your church are appropriately informed.
6) As the date of the switch approaches, make sure you both have copies of each other's bulletins and nail down the Scripture readings and themes of the day so your sermons can be appropriate.
7) On the day of the switch, assign someone from your congregation to greet, accompany, and show the new preacher the ropes. It's always the same soup, but recipes vary widely...
8) Follow up with the person with whom you switched passing along any pastoral care information or helpful observations.
Let me know if I can be of any other assistance!
