Ernest Hemingway hardly could be described as pastoral, but as a writer he managed to make a mark.
He once commented about his craft: “A writer’s problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes, but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and, having found out what is true, to project it in such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it.”
I was struck by how his comment could apply also to the preacher, whose call is to discover God’s truth and present it in such a way that listeners will experience that truth.
While that is the constant, I find that today’s pastors wrestle with widely diverse elements of that task.
During seminary, young preachers are rightly concerned with learning biblical interpretation and sermon preparation and delivery. But once in the pastorate, the focus changes.
Over the past two years, as we’ve planned the book Mastering Contemporary Preaching for the new LEADERSHIP book series, I’ve been asking pastors, “What’s the toughest part of preaching for you? In what area would you like help?”
The responses varied, depending on the preachers’ amount of experience. Here are some of the more frequent responses from working pastors.
1. The interest factor. Many pastors are interested in being interesting. “I want to explain Scripture in a way people will remember,” said one. Conversations with these preachers almost invariably turn to techniques of good communication: How do I grab interest? Where do I find good illustrations and fresh insights? What’s memorable?
2. Learning to be myself. Other preachers want to discover their own style so they can allow God to speak through them. “I want to be effective, and that means building on the unique elements of my personality,” said one.
Ian Pitt-Watson, who teaches preaching at Fuller Seminary, describes this desire to develop a distinctive style as “learning to release the person who is there.”
3. The right wavelength. Then the challenge becomes learning to connect with today’s culture, especially with the particular people in a particular church.
“As preachers, we’re usually better informed about Scripture than about the world,” said another pastor. “It takes a few years in the church to learn how much we really need to learn.” He also pointed out that he felt estranged from lay culture. “Our academic training can create a ‘pastors’ club,’ with our own vocabulary, values, and expectations, which widens the gap between us and our people.”
Many pastors at this stage are focusing on connecting-understanding what their people need and what they’re able to accept.
For pastors who have settled these issues, I heard two other questions that become more important the longer these pastors are in ministry.
What to preach on? This isn’t the seminarian’s dilemma of wondering what to say in a sermon. No, seasoned pastors begin to ask the strategic question: What should I preach on this year?
These pastors recognize that only rarely will one sermon transform a church, but consistently focused sermons over time, will shape the church’s character. Their question: What recurring emphasis does God want this congregation to hear at this particular time?
Even those using the lectionary recognize that a variety of emphases can be extracted from any assigned portion of Scripture. Consciously or unconsciously, pastors tend to play recurring dominant refrains. (See the article on page 40.)
Strategically minded pastors want to make their choices consciously. As one pastor described it: “Part of the discipline of being the undershepherd of the church is to be asking God constantly, ‘What era do you want to lead us into as a congregation? What do you want us to understand and grow through? What emphasis needs to be made during this season of our life together?’ “
For one church, this has meant a year-long focus on becoming “fully devoted followers of Christ,” which led into a year of focus on becoming “fully informed followers.” For others, this means several weeks of looking into “what it means to be the church,” followed by “what it means to be a Christian in the world.” Themes vary widely.
“Part of a leader’s task,” said one strategically minded pastor, “is to help the church see where we’ve been and where we’re going. This kind of ‘leadership preaching’ helps people sense that movement.”
How to apply the message and invite the appropriate response? Virtually every pastor admits that applications are the toughest part of preaching.
“I’ve preached too many sermons that basically ask people to ‘pray more, give more, serve more,’ ” admitted a pastor I interviewed. He was wrestling with how to become more specific and avoid generalizations, without becoming so specific that the applications didn’t apply to everyone.
Another preacher said, “While my sermons tend to stress one biblical principle, I’ve learned each principle has multiple applications. So I try to include two or three examples of people from history or, better, from the congregation, who have applied this principle in some way.
“Positive examples are harder to find than negative. The good is always more difficult to illustrate in an attractive way, but that’s what people want and need.
“Then after showing three different ways the principle has been applied by others, I ask the people in the congregation to consider how each of them can apply it.”
Thus, while different pastors are asking different questions about preaching, this issue of LEADERSHIP tries to address most of them-all in order to help preachers not only find what is true, but present that truth in life-changing ways.
Marshall Shelley is editor of LEADERSHIP.
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