The Risk of Preaching
May 9th, 2006 | by Scott |Back in the day, when I was a youth minister, we found ourselves without a preacher. We proceeded through a long, arduous process of gathering resumes and interviewing candidates. I think we phone interviewed over 60 individuals (I told you it was long.)
I remember having a “congregational meeting” to interview one of the finalists. One of our members made the statement that “we don’t want a preacher that will make us feel bad. His job is to make us feel good.” The candidate handled the statement well.
But I remember thinking at the time how poorly conceived that thought was.
When I transitioned to full-time preaching I wrestled with what my role would be. The need to be liked and well-received was overwhelming. I wanted people to love every one of my sermons. I wanted them to be impressed with my preaching ability.
Working too hard to be a good preacher is a sure-fire way to become a very bad one. Ineffective at best, relying on emotional ploys to garner response. Dangerous at worst, forcing others to rely on the messenger for insight rather than the message.
I needed to relearn a lesson that I had been taught back in 1991. I had been interning as a youth minister for about a year at my congregation. It was time to take our kids to the annual Uplift camp at Harding University.
As I walked through Benson Auditorium that first day, I was grabbed by the director of the camp and told that I was needed to teach a class that week. I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified.
I had never taught at a youth rally before. I was not a Harding student. I was a philosophy major at a state school.
I spent all that night preparing to the best of my ability. My first class? 6 kids showed up.
I was discouraged.
But, apparently, they liked it and told other kids about it. Through the week my class grew. I was elated. Maybe I had a future in this Youth Ministry thing after all.
At one point in the week one of my mentors, Mike Harris, pulled me aside and asked me how it was going. In my excitement I began to tell him how great the class was.
He then gave me a bit of wisdom that I have never forgotten. He said, “Right now, you are doing this for yourself. Keep at it and you will eventually start doing it for the kids, and that’s good. But if you commit to this in prayer you will eventually start doing this for God, and that is when your ministry will really mean something.”
I was angry at the time. Over the years, however, I have learned how right Mike was. I was doing it for myself.
15 years later, I still battle that. Am I preaching for myself? To make people like me? So they can say how great a preacher I am? To become known in the “brotherhood?”
Or am I preaching for the people? That their ears will be tickled? That they will feel fulfilled with another decent Sunday service?
Or am I preaching for God? If so, I must preach truth. No matter how difficult it might be.
No matter how hard it is to understand, I must be faithful to where God is leading me.
I have had some suggest that maybe I say too much. That there is risk in saying all that I do. Yet if I follow the leading of God, don’t I preach my (imperfect) understanding of Scripture?
Is my job just to make people feel better? Is it to be safe? I can preach (and blog) competely innocuous sermons (and posts). But is it truly to the glory of God?
The gospel is not safe. It is not always an easy message. To be the inbreaking of the Kingdom we must live sacrificial lives. We must seek to embody the message of Jesus in our daily affairs.
My job is to proclaim Jesus and His Kingdom come. To be honest, it does make me nervous. It is unsettling at times to encourage people to delve deeper into their understanding of the Christ. Every week, I tremble with the full import and impact of the message.
This calling is both a burden and a blessing.
It’s scary to teach a message that got the original messenger killed.
But if I am preaching for God, don’t I preach the totality of the Word, no matter how uncomfortable it might make us?
Picking up our crosses, dying to ourselves is not a message that you can preach if you are preaching merely for yourself or your audience. You must be preaching for the glory of God to reach that level.
I’m not there yet, but I am striving for it.