Are Sunday sermons a tool for equipping? Most certainly. Are you equipping through your Sunday sermons? Here are a few questions to check if your preaching is equipping people for ministry.
Are you modeling, by good Bible exposition, the conviction that the Bible is our equipping manual? The process of teaching from the Word rather than from theories of psychology or sociology points people to God’s source of instruction for all sorts of relational, social, ethical, and moral questions.
Is your delivery adult-to-adult or parent-to-child? Preaching equippers respect the adulthood of each believer and do not speak in condescending terms. This does not mean the absence of passion, but it is an educational passion rather than the rantings of a frustrated parent. My seven-year-old son asked me recently after hearing such a tirade, “Daddy, why was that man so mad at us?”
Do you write equipping goals for each sermon? There should be content goals for each sermon and goals to measure response: an attitude change, an action to begin or end, an exhortation to heed, a promise to claim, a sin to acknowledge. But there should also be equipping goals that flow out of the sermon: how to pray with your children, how to relate to people with different personalities, how to obey when you don’t feel like it. I often introduce an equipping section of the sermon like this: “Let me bring this home to where we all live. Tomorrow night when you go into the bedroom, pray with Johnny and Susy. . .” which is then followed by three or four tips on what action could be taken.
Are you modeling for people that you are just a learner in your gifts and in need of more equipping? Where you are today is a result of a lot of hard work by others (and yourself). Talk about those who spent time training you. You want people to know that you have not outgrown your need to be equipped, implying that the same is expected of them. I often allude to a learning opportunity I have had recently and how I was enriched as a person.
Do you remind people of their priestly ministry and promote the value of their calling? These truths must be continually affirmed from the pulpit.
Are you preaching “dialogically”? Are you raising and answering the kind of questions that your fellow priests need to know to function in ministry?
Are you modeling the priesthood concept yourself? In faith, are you giving ministry over to others? For example, when is the last time you sat in the audience and had one of your lay leaders preach?
-George Mallone
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