MUSIC ICON MADONNA VERBALIZED the cultureâs sentiment toward preaching when she sang the indelible lyrics âPapa donât preach!â in her 1986 True Blue album. British homiletician Jolyon Mitchell observes: âMadonnaâs hit song Papa Donât Preach shows how the verb âpreachâ often now reverberates with negative associations. The words âpreachâ and âpreachingâ have come to mean âto give unwelcome or unnecessary moral or religious advice.ââ1 Madonna and Mitchell were ahead of the curve in understanding our post-Christian culture. Preaching has fallen on hard times. First, society and culture at large do not seem to have high esteem for preaching. Such pejorative attitudes toward preaching have only exacerbated the problem in the years ensuing. Skeptics have an allergy or even an aversion to the very word preaching.
Second, the title of this opening chapter reflects how preaching often is not highly regarded in theological education. I can still feel the jolt of patronizing jabs during my doctoral studies at the University of Edinburgh. Fellow students would hear âIâm doing a PhD in homileticsâ and snidely ask, âIs that really an academic discipline?â Whether in the United Kingdom, United States, or elsewhere, an illusory hierarchy permeates across theological education. Biblical scholars represent a top tier or upper echelon of seminary academicians. They do âreal research.â Biblical and systematic theologians also represent esteemed theological educators whose work is taken seriously.
Practical theologians, however, like homileticians, counselors, Christian educators, Christian ethicists, and others fall under their own lowly classification, and their disciplines are becoming forgotten in seminary. A homiletician who teaches in the divinity school of a well-known research university once shared with me how homileticiansâ offices resided in the basement of the office building because âsermonizersâ were kept separate from the rest of the schoolâs faculty.
In light of such disparaging times, some seminaries are capitulating to the culture and even decreasing their preaching course requirements. I have witnessed that a growing number of seminarians are not taking their preaching classes seriously and their institutions are increasingly requiring only one preaching class, thus giving the appearance that it is not that difficult or significant. Sometimes professors who teach the Bible and theology make snarky comments directly or indirectly about preaching and practical ministry courses as being inferior subjects. A common unspoken attitude is that âanyone can teach preaching.â2
Third, even in certain church contexts, time for Scripture reading and the spoken Word have been reduced in the corporate worship service. Greater worship time is allocated for announcements, singing, liturgies, testimonies, interviews, dramas and skits, multimedia, and other elements of worship. The traditional sermon seems increasingly antiquated in our ADHD, media-saturated church culture. Listenersâ limited attention spans have resulted in shrinking time for the sermon. As Lori Carrell observes, âTo many pastors, it doesnât look like the church honors the centrality of preaching. Itâs a system that can keep pastors from knowing that preaching matters.â3
Curbing these attitudinal trends, I want to make a case in this opening chapter for the importance of preaching in theological education and in the life of the church. The spoken Word remains a critical component to congregational vitality. However, exegetically sloppy, underprepared, and applicationally irrelevant sermons have produced a spiritual malaise across many North American congregations and abroad. At the same time, preaching is often a polarizing discipline, which either excites or petrifies preachers. Since I have gone through my share of struggles and identity crises as a preacher and teacher of preachers, I want to encourage seminarians, new pastors, and experienced ones as they consider their calling to preach and to inject them with a vision for effectively preaching Godâs Wordâand why that matters. I will begin by addressing two common fears that potential preachers and even veteran communicators associate with the task of preaching.
THE FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING
Standing in front of others to communicateâin any contextâis a deep-seated fear in our society. Speech anxiety or glossophobia literally means âtongueâ and âfear or dreadâ and is the phobia of speaking or speaking in public.4 Surveys suggest that approximately 75 percent of all people experience this fear, which means we fear speaking in public more than we even fear death.5
Why do we fear public speaking so much? Much of glossophobia stems from our own feelings of inadequacy. Here are six common insecurities of preachers and communicators.
Knowledge. Perhaps we are afraid to expose our lack of knowledge about a given subject or about the Bible. We may also fear peopleâs pushback and wonder if we have the intellectual chops to respond intelligently to their questions and challenges.
Appearance. We might be anxious about what we look like in front of others and their perceptions about our physical appearance, skin color and countenance (especially for ethnic minorities), birthmarks, hair color and hair styles, clothing and fashion sense, accessories, height, weight, and the like.
Voice. People often dislike the timbre or tone of their own speaking voice. We wish that we could all sound like Hollywood actors such as Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep, and James Earl Jones or well-known preachers like Joel Gregory, Barbara Brown Taylor, and the late Haddon Robinson, whose rich voices made for excellent radio or television broadcasting.
Forgetfulness. Perhaps we are terrified that we will forget what we are going to say and stare blankly into the crowd with unspeakable shame. Forgetting our sermon causes particularly acute anxiety for those who use no notes or minimal notes in the pulpit.
Rejection. Some fear that our communication or inability to communicate will lead to a form of rejectionâwhether it is the rejection of our ideas or the outright rejection of our personhood. We do not want to be told directly or behind our backs that we are boring, uninteresting, confusing, lacking creativity, and more.
Past experience. We might fear the replication of demoralizing past experiences in school and other social settings such as speaking in front of others at science fairs, debate clubs, student government, poetry slams, church Sunday school classes, and other life moments where we experienced humiliation in some way. Maybe you vowed never to put yourself in situations to relive such torture again.
Over the years, I have had a number of seminary students tell me that they switched degree programs because they dreaded taking our two required preaching courses at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The fear of public speaking forces many to prematurely abandon a preaching ministry in order to pursue ministry positions that are less public and more behind-the-scenes.
TAKING CRITICISM PERSONALLY
For most if not all preachers, feelings about our preaching bear resemblance to our feelings about our child. We crave affirmation and thrive on the praises of others about the positive characteristics of our offspring, such as her beautiful countenance, intelligence, creativity, and musical or athletic abilities. However, we despise anyone who dares to utter anything negative about our childâthat she is somehow deficient or fails to measure up. Just as children are a direct reflection of Mom and Dad, sermons are our homiletical babies and reflect the preacher. Congregants leaving the worship sanctuary on Sunday morning conjure up a nice parting phrase for the preacher whether the sermon hit home or not. At least, many pastors feel that way.
Constructive comments are difficult to hear, especially when it comes to our sermons. Now that I make a living by telling students the strengths and weaknesses of their preaching, I find myself reliving the first sermons I ever preached. Even as a novice preacher, fumbling and bumbling my way to write down something sermon-esque, I still found it excruciating to hear anything constructive about my preaching. Just ask my wife! We had frequent spats during the car ride home from Sunday services due to my insecurity and incessant need to fish for compliments. But it is a true blessing to have trusted people who can speak the truth into our lives. Like anything, we rarely become better at a particular skill without receiving constructive criticism.
The struggle is that many beginners think that they are innately good preachersâI am thinking here of my novice preaching students. A neophyte golfer would never see himself or herself as being a pro, especially after exhausting eighteen strokes on the very first hole, but preachers are a different species. When it comes to our preaching, our egos cannot handle the criticism. For this reason, I try to be extra gracious in my word choice when I evaluate studentsâ sermons.
The fear of criticism in preaching can lead to several responses. First, we may choose to preserve our dignity and cling to our self-importance so we leave the pulpit in favor of other types of ministry positions. Second, we can get defensive about our preaching and dismiss othersâ viewpoints. Third, we only ask for feedback from people who respond well to our sermons. Think of the doting grandmother or grandfather type in the second pew. But, fourth, we can listen to and grow from constructive comments, recognizing that they are not personal attacks but rather encouragements to improve our homiletical craftsmanship.
I tell my preaching students to start pinching themselves on the wrist from day one. To learn how to preach effectively requires thick skin. If we allow ourselves to ride the homiletical roller coaster every Sunday in experiencing the highs and lows based on listenersâ praiseworthy or critical comments, our preaching ministry will fizzle out quickly. We will ultimately give less glory to God even though we believe our preaching is an act of obed...
