The Boomerang Sermon

Every week pastors around the world set aside time to prepare sermons. We stare at the blank document on our word processor, watching that terrifying cursor blink, almost in unison with the seconds ticking away. It's a stressful time.

Even though I pick out the topics and Scripture for my sermons months in advance, this moment of blank document anxiety begins every week when I sit down to prepare my message. Since I study at home (a place of endless distraction), I find every excuse not to write anything down or read anything from the stack of resources I've pulled from my shelves. Nevertheless, like all pastors, I am fixed to a deadline and must produce something before I can deliver the message.

For many pastors, Saturday night is not a time of fun and entertainment, but of utter madness. Writing is a frustrating process, and I am not sure there is a single person who really enjoys it. Pastors don't write sermons because we want to, we write sermons because we have to. This burden makes preaching energizing, but it makes our study time stressful. We don't always feel like preparing or preaching or writing, but we know we must. Who else will? Writing is a burden.

Recently, one of our pastors asked each preacher on staff how he goes about preparing his sermons. When he came to me, I shared my process in my typical, scattered way. I said my process started by listening to my audience, identifying what I'm hearing from those I speak to each week. This, of course, is essential in preaching. Listening to your community—with its needs and lies bound together—can lead to God's direction. I explained the importance of good resources such as commentaries, and I recommended reading widely outside of the common theological resources as well (fiction, current events magazines, and more).

But as I sat in my office after he left and looked at my "process" outlined on my whiteboard, I reflected on the actual content from my sermon the week before. Listening to my audience was part of it, but it certainly wasn't the genesis of my sermon. The resources I read certainly guided and structured my exegesis. But more than these things, my sermon started with God's activity in my heart, in my daily life. Much of my actual content came from lessons hidden deep within my character, which Christ is forming. I never expected these things to surface until I sat to write.

Inexperienced

Three weeks ago I was in the middle of a series on biblical justice. I was speaking on the Good Samaritan, and as I prepared the message, I tried to recall an example of simple, on-the-spot generosity like the Samaritan's, a time when God set me up to give by faith, and I followed through. It hit me: I can't remember a time when I've given in a way like this. I could not think of a time when I was as generous as the Good Samaritan. I've been generous, but not that generous.

To be fair to myself, I suppose it could be true that I've never been given an opportunity to give like the Good Samaritan, but this is doubtful. More likely, I have had numerous opportunities to give in radical, unorthodox ways but I never responded as Jesus would have. I rarely pray about these opportunities and probably don't have eyes to see them if they did appear. I was about to present a truth that I had never experienced in my own life.

During my sermon preparation, I had every commentary out and pages of notes on the historical, linguistic, and geographic context. I knew the different scholarly takes on the passage and understood why Jesus chose a Samaritan instead of a Jew. But I had never actually done what Jesus was teaching. I had prepared in all of the ways school had taught me, but I had not prepared in the way that mattered most—experience.

We need to set aside time to study, to pour over books and to write, to pray and mentally agonize over the texts we preach on as pastors. This time is essential. But we cannot confine "sermon preparation" to this block of time; it starts long before we sit in front of that terrifying blank page.

Our preparation occurs in real time throughout life. We prepare our sermons when we discipline our children, when we help our wives with the dishes, and when we converse with people at parties. We prepare our sermons when we walk through our neighborhoods and cheer for our local high school team, when we buy groceries and listen to our grandparents, and when we counsel a married couple and surf the web. We prepare by giving generously to those in need and by freely forgiving those who have wronged us.

Encouragement

While our studies can bring us insight, our obedience brings us courage. So often, as we try to persuade some and teach others, that's exactly what we need. We need faith, not just accuracy. We need confidence that God's word is not just true, but beneficial; not just right, but a blessing. How can that confidence be communicated more clearly than through a man or a woman whose life was changed by it?

Should we preach only the texts that we obey perfectly? No. I preached that sermon on the Good Samaritan. We don't have to wait for perfect obedience to preach a perfect message, but we do need to realize that our sermon doesn't only apply to our audience. I needed to hear my Good Samaritan sermon as much anyone. A good sermon is like a boomerang—it's delivered to an expectant audience, but returns to smack the preacher between the eyes. It is a special experience to feel the weight of God's word hit you while you're preaching it to others. You get to feel his conviction along with them.

When we preach, people can sense if we really care about our subject—and if we really care about them. My true personality can be expressed in a sermon, and above any theological insight I might have, I hope people will see that I trust the Lord Jesus and his word above everything. Only recently has my anxiety to obey overshadowed my anxiety to place words in the correct place. We do not write what we know; rather, we write in order to discover what we know (or don't), no matter how horrifying the results. That blinking cursor is a blessing, an invitation for pastors to discover the next thing we must experience to better follow Jesus.

Chris Nye is a writer and a pastor at Willamette Christian Church in Portland, Oregon. Connect with him on Twitter: @chrisnye.