On Preachers and Preaching

Vernon Towne

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781643505077
• eBook ISBN: 9781643505084
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Attention, all preachers. This book is for you. Especially if you are not content with your preaching style or with the results you are getting now. I recommend an extemporaneous and conversational style. It doubled the membership in the last church I served.Read it, try it, be willing to be challenged and changed. Let it make your preaching new. Let it bring your preaching the pizazz and zest it will need to fascinate your listeners and bring them back to be mesmerized again and again.

The Preacher

The most important factor in the whole process of preaching is the preacher. It is easy to think that the message is the most important aspect of the preacher’s craft. Some may even think the presentation of the message itself is more important, but they would be mistaken. Of much more importance is the messenger.

Preachers are, first and foremost, people. While we have all the thoughts, emotions, and tendencies toward good and evil as anyone else, we need to strive above all else to be good people. We must “aim at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:11). We must be willing, as Jesus said to Paul on the Damascus road, as reported in Paul’s defense before King Agrippa in Acts 26:15–18, to be “appointed to serve and bear witness … To whom I send you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” The act of preaching does not sanctify the preacher; the preacher sanctifies the act of preaching.

Every preacher needs a sense of vocation. Without the compulsion that God has called us to preach and the conviction that no matter what else we may do in life we must preach, we should choose some other occupation. No one should enter the field of preaching unless called to it and compelled to do it. Is the preacher in this vocation because it is their passion and lifeblood, or are they just going through the motions? “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:16).

Having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ before beginning to preach is, in my view, indispensable. I gave my life to Jesus Christ at the Billy Graham crusade in Seattle when I was eleven years old. That act began a lifelong relationship with Christ, who called me to preach in his name for over fifty years. How can you expect to be a blessing to others unless you have been blessed by God through a life given, dedicated, and devoted to Jesus Christ? To study scripture, to pray fervently and frequently, to develop your own personal religion, to nourish the inward spiritual life is essential if you desire the blessing of God. The deeper the search for an overwhelming sense of the presence of God and a heightened awareness of the grace of Jesus Christ will bring a powerful spiritual blessing in every sermon preached and to every listener present.

If we are to be blessings to others as preachers, we must continually receive the grace of God. Like Peter, James, and John, we need mountaintop experiences. Only one experience of the presence of God may not sustain a ministry of forty or more years. Peter, James, and John, in addition to the Transfiguration, experienced many other grace blessings as they followed Jesus. Like them, preachers will need multiple experiences of God’s grace to keep spiritual fires burning brightly and enthusiasm for preaching high. Being transmitters of truth means that God’s grace must pass through our hearts, minds, and souls often before it is passed on to others. Preachers traffic in holy things, and it is our job to communicate these holy mysteries to our congregations.

Like anyone else, preachers can backslide, lose their zeal, become less than effective, handle holy things with a dull familiarity. We can lose the glow as the excitement of those early years can begin to wane as ministry becomes routine and preaching a Sunday-by-Sunday drudgery. Somehow the joy of preaching and the love of sharing the eternal Gospel with eager listeners loses its attraction, even if only a little. We can be tempted to do less than our best when little return is seen for all our effort expended or when a challenge is hurled by the critical who seems to make sport of such work. Then it is not easy to be a voice for God, and some may quit or surrender to such feelings of negativity.

How do we recover our zeal? The first step is to get back in touch with God. We do this by admitting we have done wrong. To admit “I have sinned” is the beginning of healing. Like Pharaoh in Exodus 9:27, Balaam in Numbers 22:34, Achan in Joshua 7:20, Saul in 1 Samuel 15:24, David in 2 Samuel 12:13, Judas Iscariot in Matthew 27:4, and the prodigal son in Luke 15:18, a preacher must admit to making a mistake and seek God’s forgiveness.

Forgiveness is God’s gift to sinners. Can a more wonderful grace from God be found? To know that when sin is confessed with the sincere resolve that it will not be done again, with a contrite heart and deeply felt conviction of regret, with hope for a new beginning—no feeling is better than this feeling. Moreover, God grants forgiveness as often as it is sought, removing sin as far away as the other side of the universe and remembering it no more. The sinner’s gratitude overflows with thanksgiving to God.

Before the preacher can heal others, the preacher must be healed. Sin must be confessed, sin must be forgiven, sin must be no more. Bless the Lord for his mercy, grace, and forgiveness. Made righteous again, the preacher is ready to be a willing messenger of the infinite goodness of God.

Knowledge of forgiveness is now firsthand again, and the eagerness to tell others about this amazing gift of God has returned. The inner drive and compulsion to preach has returned burning like a fierce fire in the heart. It cannot be quenched. The zeal is back.

What I have written in the three paragraphs above comes from my own experience. It was what happened to me. I believe forgiveness is one of God’s greatest gifts. When I failed to live up to what I knew God expected of me and I expected of myself, I knew I desperately needed forgiveness. Then to realize God will forgive when I sincerely confess my sin was amazing grace beyond all expectation. It was unmerited favor extended to me beyond all deserving. And it is given to all sinners who contritely repent of wrongdoing.

But what about doubt? What if the preacher is troubled by doubt? It is not inconceivable that a preacher might become skeptical concerning the principles of faith. Surely, there have been preachers who have known this kind of temptation and may have been led by doubt to question their own Christian commitment. Doubts can challenge even those whom others would believe are the most sincere and devout. This is the questioning of truth that lies in the way of finding the truth and preaching the truth.

Some people may think that doubt is wrong at best and a sin at worst. I do not agree. They could point to the story of Thomas in John 20:24–28. There, it records when Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection, and Thomas was not present. When the other disciples tell Thomas that they have seen Jesus alive after his crucifixion, Thomas replies, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Because of this remark, history has nicknamed Thomas the one who doubted. He has been known ever since as “Doubting Thomas.” I do not think this as an accurate description. I think Thomas just wanted to see with his own eyes what the other disciples have seen with their own eyes. I think Thomas never doubted the testimony of the other disciples. If my view is correct, Thomas has been labeled wrongly.

Nevertheless, the story remains in the Bible as an example of a disciple who doubted. And if a disciple of Jesus can doubt, so can you and me.

While at the seminary, one of my professors challenged me to doubt the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I was asked to write a paper researching all the pros and cons and present the conclusion I have reached at the climax of the project. It was fascinating, engaging, challenging, and a faith-strengthening and growing experience. For me, if doubts came, in seminary and after, they led almost always to deeper faith and stronger convictions. Doubts are seldom wrong or a sin.

The preacher’s deliverance from doubt lies in digging to the foundations of faith and seriously examining the claims of Jesus Christ in light of all that can be laid against them. In this manner, each principle of faith will again be made the preacher’s own through the grace of analysis and conviction. When the preacher rises to firm belief again, nothing will be so firmly accepted as that which was in doubt in the spiritual and intellectual struggle for truth.

In this struggle, the preacher could benefit from the support offered by other preachers. The daily discipline of prayer and Bible reading can also help the preacher weather the storm of doubt.

Developing a support group and making time for daily devotions can help sustain the preacher in the trials of faith. Private communion with God and personal commitment to Christ are the foundations of the preacher’s ministry. Faith based on these foundations will triumph over the temptation of doubt.

Preachers may not like it, but every congregation places its preacher on a pedestal and views them as an example of how to live a “good Christian life.” Preachers may not consider themselves sufficient for the task of being examples. Yet preachers know that being faithful to God in their personal lives and church work guarantees divine grace to enable them to keep their motives pure, their aspirations under control, and their hearts sanctified. They can be all their congregation requires because they do not do this work alone. They do it for God, with God, and in God.

That no fault may be found with our ministry.

—2 Corinthians 6:3

The Preacher and Preaching

There are two different types of preaching: There is what I want to call conventional preaching, where a clergyperson stands in a pulpit, dressed in simple or elaborate ecclesiastical garments, to read a well-prepared religious lecture or deliver an inspirational message to a congregation of people who have assembled precisely to hear this presentation. Then there is what I want to call nonconventional preaching, where a clergyperson may stand on an empty stage, dressed in casual attire or a dark suit, white shirt, and tie, and deliver a well-prepared message with or without notes.

Both of these types of preaching are perfectly acceptable in today’s churches, although it seems the nonconventional style is gaining in popularity. Churches that grab the news headlines today by their phenomenal growth in membership and their often unique style of outreach (offering worship experiences for nonchurch people seeking religious spirituality) seem to follow this nonconventional style of preaching. Little or no clerical attire is worn, no pulpit hides the preacher from the congregation, sermons are preached from memory, allowing the preacher to look directly at the congregation. What an amazing difference this is from the conventional style of preaching. This nonconventional style of preaching demands confidence. Can the preacher stand before the congregation and expound the sermon from memory without the use of a single note? I can personally testify that it can be done. I did it every Sunday for nearly ten years.

Regardless of the style of sermon delivery, perhaps the most important element boils down to what the preacher believes. If you don’t believe what you’re preaching, why bother preaching it, and why would you expect anyone listening to believe it? So first and foremost, you must believe in what you are proclaiming. Preaching is about conviction. Preaching is witness. Preaching is sharing your beliefs with others. In Hebrews 11:1, we are told that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Preaching has to do with “assurance and conviction.” Your faith. Your testimony.

Preaching is constantly evolving. The preaching of our grandparents’ era looks very different from modern preaching, which will look different from preaching in the future. In the past, sermons were much longer, often approaching an hour or more. This worked at the time as life moved at a slower pace, and people were more receptive to sitting for long periods of time. When you think about the pace of the society in which we live today, we are often impatient if we have to wait more than a few minutes in a fast-food drive-through or on hold waiting for a customer service representative.

In the past, entertainment options were more limited. Today, with advances in digital media, the Internet, and personal electronics, there is no shortage of things to occupy the time and attention of congregants. Many preachers of days past were marvelous storytellers who were able to bring the rich stories of the Bible to life for their congregations. Can a book be found that has more wonderful stories than the ...

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22