One of the hardest things about preaching is finding your own voice. When I took to the pulpit, I found myself wanting to preach like whomever I had most recently listened to. After listening to Tony Campolo, I decided the secret to great communicating is story telling. After listening to Earl Palmer, I yearned for the informed lucidity of a master teacher. After listening to Lloyd Ogilvie’s basso profoundo, I went on steroids.
In this respect, if no other, I think preaching is more difficult in the day of Christian radio and tape ministries than in previous centuries. At least in the 1520s, pastors didn’t have to listen to: “Pastor, I’m ordering Martin Luther’s tape series–‘Opening the Wittenberg Door of Spiritual Growth: 95 Practical, Biblical Theses You’ve Got to Know’–just for you. I don’t know why we don’t hear stories about the pope like that around here. That’s what I call preaching!”
If we can’t beat this pressure to imitate great communicators, why not join it? In that spirit, I offer the following suggestion.
For many years, Harry’s Bar and American Grill in Century City, California, has sponsored an annual Imitation Hemingway Competition. Hundreds of Papa wannabees send in parodies of broken-down bullfighters drinking too much tequila and wondering if the woman at the other end of the bar is being coy or just has a poppy seed stuck in her teeth. LEADERSHIP could sponsor the same thing, only it should involve imitating prominent Christian authors instead of Hemingway.
A FEW INITIAL ENTRIES:
George Barna–“Sixty-two percent of all American church attenders park noncompact cars in spaces clearly marked COMPACT. Automotive relativism has infiltrated the church to such an extent that there is no longer any discernible difference between parking habits at a mega-church and at a mega-mall.” (From “The Frog in the Parking Lot.” This title is taken from the well-known fact that if you put a frog in the middle of a crowded parking lot, he’ll hop out, but if you put him in an empty lot that fills up one car at a time, he’ll just sit there till someone squishes him flatter than a compact disc.
(By the way, this raises some questions about the old “frog in the kettle” story. Has anyone every actually tried it? What kind of sicko first dreamed up trying two methods for boiling frogs, and what motivated him to do it? How many other animals were sacrificed before it was discovered that frogs were the only ones that would hop out if the heat was immediate but stay if it was gradual? Did he try it with horses?)
John MacArthur–“This (Matt. 14:7; Gal. 2:8; Rev. 23:4) is (Habakkuk 2:12; Scofield 9:8) the (Ps. 1:1; Lev. 3:7; Sodom 111 Gomorrah 109 in Triple Overtime) introduction (Eccl. 6:12; Col. 1:5 from the Greek yeunes; see index for a list of compromise-embracing, ear-tickling, German-reading so-called evangelicals who disagree, and who don’t spank their children either.)”
Robert Schuller–“You think you’ve got problems? I was speaking to my good friend Imelda Marcos recently, at our beautiful Robin Leach Ministry Center, and I asked her, ‘Imelda, you’ve had so many setbacks, and besides, nobody likes you. What keeps you going?’ And she said to me these powerful words that I shall never forget: ‘When I am tempted to get discouraged, I turn my blues into shoes.’ And so can you.”
Chuck Swindoll–I used to try to imitate him till I found out that Chuck Swindoll does not, in fact, actually exist. The whole Swindoll phenomenon started when a homemaker in Oklahoma began writing inspirational books and used a pseudonym (like Soren Kierkegaard and Dr. Seuss used to) to help move the product. However, the books sold so much better than the publishers anticipated that they had to have a person to promote them. So they created the Chuck Swindoll persona, and now there are probably a half dozen Swindoll look-alikes touring the country at any given time. Like Elvis impersonators. This explains why you will often discover Chuck speaking two or three places on the same day. It’s also why he was able in one year to spread his ministry between Fullerton, California; Nashville, Tennessee; and Dallas, Texas. (The “Chuck Swindoll” that preached for years at the First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton was actually a cleverly animated wax figure, much like the “Mr. Lincoln” exhibit at Disneyland.) There is no Chuck Swindoll. Deal with it.
So maybe, uh, once or twice I’ve given in to the temptation to imitate these great communicators. But one thing I never bend on: if I have to copy, I do it in my own unique way.
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
Copyright © 1995 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
