Learn How To Preach
A young man asked me a very good question yesterday. He feels called by God into some sort of ministry and is not sure exactly what that might mean in regards to his future, education, marriage, and employment. He wanted my advice. I am not sure what he expected, but he didn’t get any response from me concerning seminary, networking, or mentoring. Rather, I decided to keep my advice short and sweet.
“Learn how to preach.”
He looked at me like I was kidding, or like he expected more practical, serious advice. But this was it. I explained that if he was going to follow God’s call on his life and felt like that may include student ministry, evangelism, missions, or pastoring, he could learn all the other skills over time, like administration or hiring and firing, weddings and funerals and hospital visits, planning events, and the like. The one thing that is lacking most, in my opinion, is a generation of young men who know how to preach; and by that I mean who know how to rightly divide the word of truth in the right context keeping it simple, deep, relevant, and inspired. There are lot of story tellers and speakers in pulpits today. But preaching is the method God has ordained to edify the church and win converts to Christ.
A former professor, Dr. Wayne Stacy, says it much better than I ever could.
Preaching these days has been reduced to a bit of banal blather for the benefit of the bored. At least part of the reason, I suspect, is that a shift has taken place in the last fifty years or so about wherein lies the essential meaning of the Word of God. Back in the 50’s my late mentor and teacher, Frank Stagg, wrote a book titled Understanding the Bible. He begins the book by noting the diversity of perspectives and opinions among biblical scholars, “but,” he says, “there is virtual unanimity about one thing; namely, the meaning of the text is the author’smeaning.” My, how things have changed in fifty years!
Today, virtually no one believes that the meaning of the inspired biblical author is the meaning of the text. Rather, the text is an inkblot meaning whatever I want it to mean. Practically speaking, that means that most Sundays, when you listen to your pastor preach, you’re not hearing him interpret the text at all; rather, you’re hearing him interpret himself! The text is a mirror in which the preacher finds whatever he wants to find.
Part of the reason for that, I think, is laziness. It’s just plain hard work to live yourself into the world of the inspired biblical writer so as to hear the Word of God as he heard it. It’s both more fun, and a whole lot easier, just to play “free association” with the text and find in it a word or an idea or a concept that you can exploit in behalf of a slogan or a sound byte. People just don’t want to think that hard anymore.
Or do they? When the preacher takes the time and the effort to live himself into the world of the original inspired author, an amazing thing happens. He no longer hears in the text his own little voice, or even the voice of the original inspired author; rather, he hears The Voice the original inspired author was listening to – a Voice that haunts him and hunts him and hounds him into submission; a Voice that claims him and captures him and consumes him. It’s called preaching, and for want of it the church languishes and, alas, perishes!
And so, for all you forty-somethings out there looking for a Word for Sunday, I’ve got a word for you. Save the sound bytes for Dr. Phil and Oprah and the church sign. I’ve waited all week for a Word from God, so for God’s sake, spare me the sound bytes! Give me a Word with some SIZE. Please!
AMEN! I am one of those forty-somethings and crave a real sermon with meat that makes me think. They are rare. We heard you at the Beta Convention in Orlando on Tuesday and you did an awesome job. Our daughter laughed at your three points because she has heard every one of them at home. Thank you for the inspirational words!
Comment by Dana T — June 18, 2009 @ 12:04 am
Great words of wisdom! Can second that about learning how to be a pastor is different than learning how to preach. Most of my classes at NGU were how to manage people, perform tasks, etc. The best ones though were the ones that taught us how to dig in God’s Word. And the ones that gave practice in doing so. Thanks for sharing.
Comment by Tory — June 19, 2009 @ 12:02 am
i noticed that too.
Comment by charlie rice — June 22, 2009 @ 8:43 pm