Counsel for Discouraged, Average Preachers

<< Rob Bell, the Pastor’s Task of Discernment, and My Heart | Memoirs of An Ordinary Pastor >>

Counsel for Discouraged, Average Preachers

February 14, 2008 by Tony Reinke Categories: Conferences | Pastoral ministry | Preaching

This week Sovereign Grace Ministries is hosting about 100 pastors for the Pastors College preaching conference. Sessions have been presented by C.J., Jeff Purswell (dean of the Pastors College), and Mike Bullmore (pastor and former professor of homiletics at Trinity Evangelical School of Theology).

A highlight has been the informal question-and-answer sessions, with the speakers covering a range of questions on preaching (and a few sports-related inquiries for C.J.). It was during one of these sessions, one brave pastor stood and asked for counsel in his struggle with the discouragement he experiences when listening to prominent and more-educated preachers.

All three panelists, C.J., Jeff Purswell and Mike Bullmore, responded in the following answers.

C.J. Mahaney:

The book A God-Entranced Vision of All Things contains a chapter by Donald Whitney on Jonathan Edwards and his practice of the spiritual disciplines. It’s worth reading and re-reading. At the end of that chapter he talks about how we cannot emulate Edwards’s example in gifting, capacity, and intelligence. What we can emulate is his disciplined use of time.

Whitney argues that given Edwards’s gifting and intelligence, it’s no less than amazing that he was so disciplined in his use of time. Edwards had every excuse to avoid being disciplined in his use of time. I’m familiar with interacting with other preachers clearly smarter than myself.

Here’s what I know. I must do my best. My best will not be as effective as their best. But that would be a false comparison and the fruit of pride in my life. I need to isolate myself from comparing myself to them, and apply 2 Timothy 2:15 to my life and go through a given week saying, “By the grace of God I want to do my best.” My best involves devoting time to preparation, and by the grace of God my best involves serving the Lord with gladness in the preparation process.

On Sunday, at the conclusion of my preparation—and by God’s grace—I want to say I did my best. And where I didn’t, ask forgiveness for my laziness or procrastination.

But this preaching isn’t solely dependent upon my limitations of gifting and intelligence. The text of Scripture and the Spirit of God and the work of the Spirit in and through this text can transcend all of my limitations and find its way into the heart of my hearers. I can proceed with confidence because I am called to preach here.

Calling makes all the difference. Mike Bullmore isn’t called to preach here consistently. Jeff isn’t called to be the senior pastor at the Knoxville church. Mark Dever isn’t called to be the senior pastor at your church. As a preacher in a local church, you are uniquely called. In the mystery of God’s mercy I am called to my church. Therefore God will not disappoint. He’s going to fulfill his promises and has a fixed purpose.

My calling will ultimately serve my church. Therefore I could argue that you are the most important individual to be addressing your church. Yes, you might not be able to deliver the message with the technical skill of Mark Dever or the illustrative skill of Josh Harris. That’s not the point. You shouldn’t be evaluating yourself or comparing yourself to those individuals. Learn all you can and be provoked by them. But the point is that God has called you to be the senior pastor of that church, and the people in your church are built into you and they will hear you in a way they will not hear any of those speakers. Sure, those guys come in and they may preach an effective message, but that’s very different from what you are doing over the course of weeks and months and years to build and serve and lead that church.

Mike Bullmore:

I’m a little reluctant to add to that. I would want to say a few things. Nobody is exempt from what’s been asked. Nobody.

It’s awkward because I don’t consider myself in this elevated way. Obviously, we all have different experiences and opportunities (these are realities). But there are guys I think about in the same way you’ve mentioned. I hear certain preachers and I have this mixed reaction when I listen to them preach. There’s a part of me that says, “I can never preach again. I’m done.” And there’s another part of me that says, “I cannot wait until Sunday.” Because there’s a fire in the preacher’s bones that God has given you and it reaches down to your calling.

And we must take larger biblical realities and apply them here. Psalm 103:14 applies to all of us the same: “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (ESV). That applies to every one of us. So the difference between (you name the guy) and you is minutia on the larger scale. It is God who is at work.

And so your theological conviction about who’s really getting the work done, I think, really sustains you and pulls you up during those times. This is not about my gifts or skills.

Also, I was just thinking about a reference from J.I. Packer’s chapter in Preach the Word. Listen as a past Archbishop of Canterbury expresses his estimation of Charles Simeon (1759–1836).

The quality of his preaching was but a reflection of the quality of the man himself. And there can be little doubt that the man himself was largely made in the early morning hours which he devoted to private prayer and devotional study of the Scriptures. … Such costly self-discipline made the preacher. That was primary. The making of the sermon was secondary and derivative. (p. 152)

What’s being described there is available to every one of us in this same degree.

Jeff Purswell:

We should all be encouraged. That is the most important thing in preaching, is it not? It’s not detailed, exhaustive, knowledge of the original language.

The most important is your engagement with God, which finds expression in his call upon you to care for these people, you delivering God’s Word out of a heart that cares—a heart that loves these people and seeks to serve them out of a responsibility to be their shepherd. All this rests on the only One who can change them, the only One who can illuminate them, the only One who can transform them, the One who promises to do this by his Word. Those are the most important realities in preaching, and they are accomplished by God and not by us.

How Expositional Preaching Protects PreachersAn excerpt from the second panel discussion at T4G2010.A Narrated Bibliography with David Powlison (audio interview)CJ’s in-studio interview with the biblical counselor.Shifting Ground: Finding Joy in AdversityC.J. shares a lesson on counseling in light of his care for a friend who's enduring trials.