Sustainable Preaching

It was 2 p.m., Thursday afternoon, and Michael, a young church planter, was procrastinating. Michael thought his church would survive but suspected that he might not. He was tired. He had stayed up late Wednesday answering emails and risen early to disciple a group of men. After a cup of coffee with a repeat visitor, he spent the rest of his morning preparing for a lunch focusing on the church's finances. It had gone long and left him drained and tardy with the bulletin data. He had a text and a (dull) title but no outline, no quotations, no points to ponder. He sighed; his worship planner had long abandoned the hope of coordinating his messages with music, prayers, and testimonies. How did he come to this, week after week? His calendar had a block for "sermon planning" every Monday, 8 to 11 a.m. But he slept in a bit on Mondays, then scanned the news, sports, and social media, until he had about an hour to read from the latest "important book." He recalled a moment from his final semester in seminary. He had asked for an extension on a paper, but his prof had declined: "You think you deserve this because you have several deadlines, but in the ministry Sunday mornings arrive with alarming regularity, and your people will not offer an extension, no matter what happened the previous week."

Worst of all, Michael felt dry. Like most seminary grads, he had once been eager to preach. The preachers he followed in college had driven him to seminary. And he had passions—his burden to reach the city, his zeal to engage the culture, and much more. But within two years, he had covered his passions, used his best stories, and re-purposed most of his exegetical notes from seminary. He wondered, Am I delaying sermon preparation because I have nothing much to say?

Most preaching pastors feel dry from time to time. But if the desert stretches on and on, if Michael truly thinks he has run out of things to say, he has a choice. First, he can move to a ministry that doesn't require weekly preaching. Second, he may become a borrower, depending on the studies of others, however he finds them. Third, he can start repeating himself. Week after week, from text after text, his people will hear that they must be holy, faithful, and committed to engage people, study the Bible, support the church, and love their neighbors. If Michael avoids the ultimate crime of propagating falsehood, he commits the penultimate crime of making Christianity seem boring. Or Michael could chart a new path, to sustainable preaching. Keep reading