As many of you know, I graduated from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO: a school historically known for producing good preachers. The class that almost every man at BBC inevitably goes through is the class called “Homiletics” which is an overly complicated way to say, “How to preach.” I took this class my junior year, and loved it. I’m still grateful for the things I learned from my experience in Bible college. I developed the talent of preparing and delivering messages. Some people get a little weirded-out by statements like “talent” when it comes to preaching. Some would suggest that the preacher should make little to no preparation before preaching and just speak “as the Lord lays on his heart.” For one, that doesn’t fit in very well with 2 Tim. 2:15. Secondly, there is a legitimate skill in preparing and delivering messages. I’ve by no means “arrived” when it comes to my preaching. Which is the reason for this post: I want to constantly learn how to be better at fulfilling my calling.
One of the greatest things I’ve learned since my time in Homiletics 311, is that the process of preparing a message is unpredictable. I’ve had messages that seem to have been sent straight from Heaven riding on a lightning bolt directly into my heart. They are powerful, exciting, and seemed to have struck me out of nowhere. Often, these kind come when I’m least expecting it: disciplining my kids, driving in traffic, even sleeping. Other messages are less intense, but seem to “flow.” I sit down at my desk, pray, open my bible, and the words and thoughts and passages just keep coming. And then there are the messages that are more like panning in a creek for gold: long, backbreaking, tiresome, and slow-going. But eventually you find a few nuggets that have some weight to them.
Earlier in my ministry, I confused the later of the three for the thought that “God didn’t really speak to me this week.” I’ve learned since that some of the most life-impacting messages I’ve delivered required more out of me to get them presentable to my church. Sometimes God strikes me with a message and I know it was from Him. Other times the process is smooth and productive. And yet there are times that it consumes me, requires more blood, sweat, and tears than others. In any of the above, God is at work in the process. If every message I preached was hand-delivered from Heaven, I would take it for granted and the miraculous would become mundane. If every message just flowed out of me, I might begin to think that I was inspired, and rely less on God’s direction. If I had to mine every message with long, back-breaking effort, it could become unbearable, and lonely as if God was not with me in the process at all.
If you’re preparing a message this week, feel free to share with us what God is teaching you through the process of preparing to preach.
If you’re the recipient of such messages, pray for your church leaders and God’s hand of favor on us as we go through the process of speaking His Word over you this week. We are humbled by your faithfulness.
John
The goal of preaching is not information but transformation. Every preacher in the sermon process must ask, “What is my goal in this message?” For me, that answer is always life change. Because of that, I have altered my approach to preparation. Instead of coming up with 3 points nice alliterated, I seek to convey one point. As I’m reading the passage and my notes, I constantly ask myself 2 questions: So what?, Now what? What should they know? What should they do? Also, what keeps me preparation sharp is to remember the goal is not information but transformation. Right before I preach, I imagine there is a couple on the brink of divorce in the audience. They will tell the kids tonight. Talk to the lawyers tomorrow. But today, they have come to give God and church one last shot at saving their marriage. What does the message mean to that married couple, teenager considering sleeping with their boyfriend, the overworked and overwhelmed, the man who heard the word cancer this week? That is why we preach. Gods truth changes people!
@Jason: I love how you imagine the people you are going to be preaching to in order to stay focused on “transformation”. That’s good stuff, thanks!
I like it, “So what?, Now what?” Without practical application we are just giving information.
I definitely agree with Jason. What I love most about my church is that I am not being fed a bunch of “information” through Bible stories that most people have already heard repeatedly. Instead, the focus is on how I should change (or “transform”) my everyday life, using Biblical examples and stories to show me why/how I should do that. I love that every Sunday I levae wanting to become a better person and feeling as if I know some REAL steps that can help get me there.
Interesting post John! Homiletics is one class I have yet to take (and still wish to take). That’s a drawback of getting a seminary degree online.