Leadership Journal

Coming out of seminary, I mistakenly thought that the purpose of preaching was to convey information. That was before my trip to India. About a year after I planted Jacob's Well, a friend invited me to India to do some preaching, but it wasn't until I arrived that I learned I would be preaching 14 times in 11 days.

At first, I was angry. How could I possibly prepare 14 sermons in such a short time without all the resources I had back home? Though I am not proud to admit it, this situation exposed the way in which preaching had become, for me, about performing, about impressing people with what I knew. Now, there was no way I could prepare enough to do that.

Then, in the midst of my anger, I sensed God inviting me to something more than preaching. This was an opportunity to be discipled by him for the benefit of the people I was among and for my benefit. So I grudgingly agreed to not prepare. Even though the group was never the same, I also had a sense that I wasn't to preach the same message twice.

Instead I would show up and let God provide the words I needed to say, based on the people, their context, and what was happening inside me. So that's what I did for almost two weeks. Every single time for 11 days I wrestled with God on this issue, and every single time I was obedient, and he provided what I needed to say.

I have never felt so alive!

Every time I stood up, God was present. It wasn't as if creation ex nihilo was occurring, however. Snippets from previous messages would come to mind, passages of Scripture I had been meditating on (or had passed over too quickly) would come to life, aspects of my own journey became very relevant. Somehow among these elements and the chaos of the environment, creation occurred.

I simply stood up, read a passage of Scripture, and talked about what God was saying through that passage and how I was trying to live it out. It was totally humbling, and the feeling was unlike anything I had ever experienced in ministry before.

In that part of India, the pull of western culture is strong, and young people are enamored with what America is exporting. So I spoke of Ecclesiastes and the dissatisfaction its author experienced as all his desires were gratified. To a community of widows, I spoke of Abraham and the way that God, after making promises to his servant, often introduced problems that exposed Abraham's lack of trust and that caused him again to rely on God before provision was made.

On my way back from India to Kansas City, I sensed God was issuing me an invitation: "What you just did there in India, I want you to begin to do at home."

That began a journey for me, a process of relocating my preaching from merely out of my head, and into my heart and into my body and into my church community. For me, preaching has become an integrated, intimate behavior, far more than just an exercise of transferring information to other peoples' heads.

I first began to communicate on a weekly basis as a 22-year-old youth worker. Every ...