“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises.” —William Shakespeare
Ten years ago, I became the full-time preaching minister at my congregation. Prior to this, I preached occasionally, maybe a few times a year. I enjoyed the great boon of being novel. No matter how bad a guest preacher is, that person will be granted some hearing simply because of the difference.
When I stepped into the full-time role, it was with part-time speaker expectations. I was carried along by the gale of youthful naivete, believing that I was special. My gift of gab and peculiar perspicacity could transform any congregation from one degree of glory to another. In short time, I would be lauded as one of the greatest preachers my parishioners had ever heard.
I share these expectations in a spirit of playful vulnerability. Now articulating these ideas, I smile in sympathy for my green self. Little did I know that preaching is hard for many reasons, not least of which is that we as preachers seldom see the visible results or benefits of our work other than superficial feedback. We preach sermonic masterpieces only to be greeted afterward in the back of the sanctuary with, “I like that tie.” Or, someone shares enthusiastically about some throw-away anecdote we used in the introduction (“I’ve been to Albuquerque!”), making us wonder, did you hear anything else I said?
What sustains me as a preacher is my belief that God uses preaching. Therefore, I expect him to do something through my efforts. Over the last decade, I have not abandoned my expectations but adjusted them.
I realized that my initial expectations of preaching were killing me: It was unsustainable to hit grand slams every week, and it was doubly crushing when my greatest efforts were met with yawns and glances at wristwatches. If I wanted to stay in preaching—to remain hopeful enough to step into the pulpit week after week—I would need good expectations.
God Will Use Faithful Preaching to Feed the Church
A friend of mine likes to say that good preaching and teaching are like meals: We don’t remember many of them specifically, but we know we have been fed. As a servant of God’s Word, my job is not to serve the greatest meal my congregation has ever had. It is simply to offer daily bread, enough to nourish and strengthen the church for another week of faithful Christian living.
Henry Mitchell says in Celebration and Experience in Preaching that the hope of every preacher is that the sermon “will be used by the Spirit to move Christians to grow from point A to point B, in the direction of the life modeled by Jesus Christ.” By the governance and power of God’s Spirit, preachers can expect just this. The work we do in preaching matters and makes a difference, albeit in ways often imperceptible to us. Faithful preaching will be metabolized by the church and will result in good fruit. As the Lord said through Isaiah, “My word … will not return to me empty” (Isa. 55:11).
Faithful Preaching Will Be Heard Well by Someone
I’d like to imagine that my sermons are heard “everywhere, always, and by all” (to borrow a phrase from Vincent of Lérins). But the fact of the matter is, no sermon is heard equally and by all. Listeners have different capacities to hear, often depending on the day. Each is beset by some degree of static in the communication process, not least of which is our society’s chronic ailment of being “distracted from distraction by distraction,” as T.S. Eliot once bemoaned.
Much is up to me in preaching: to prepare well, to know my people, to be winsome. Much is up to God. But I have also come to believe that much is up to my listeners. I cannot make my listeners hear any more than I can make a horse drink after leading it to water. Sermonic listeners are responsible before God for how they hear.
As I preach, I leave space for my word to work in and among my people. But I also give thanks for those few who I know are listening well. As I write these words, I can see in my mind’s eye those individuals and where they sit in the sanctuary. They take notes and show by their body language that they are listening. When they comment on my sermon, I listen well because I know they were listening well. I thank God for individuals like these, and I have come to expect that they will be in church on Sunday and will reward my weekly labors by working to listen.
Faithful Preaching Is One Way God Shapes Me, the Preacher
Preaching does not tend to appear in lists of spiritual disciplines, but—and I think I speak for a host of preachers here—if preaching is not a spiritual discipline, I don’t know what is.
Whether last Sunday’s sermon went well, poorly, or in between, Sunday is coming, and that means I will be expected by my congregation to arise on the first day of the week and have something to say. Jared Alcántara reminds preachers that our task is not merely “to leave empty” by pouring ourselves out in the sermon; it is also to “return full,” to do what is necessary this week to have something to offer this Sunday.
If nothing else, this is the work of diligence, of keeping my hand to the plow. It is also the work of dependence: waiting through prayer on Christ to give me something to give them, like the disciples must have waited for loaves from Christ to hand the multitude. This is the work of courage and vulnerability: to stand before my people and do my best, both for the glory of God and for the good of the church.
Some Sundays, when I wonder if my sermon did any good, the Lord nudges me to recall that my preaching is not just for my congregation—it is also for me. This means that I must preach my sermons to myself first. But it also means that the practice of preaching (the weekly discipline of work, the waiting, the willingness to stand in the gap) is a crucible through which God conforms preachers into the image of Christ.
Preaching is one of the “light and momentary troubles” through which God is preparing for us “an eternal glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). I have come to expect that, when I preach faithfully, the Lord works in me. Sunday after Sunday, he is making my life more and more worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
- Can't finish right now?
Matthew D. Love teaches preaching and ministry at Harding School of Theology in Searcy, Arkansas.
