Newsletter #73

On What You Can Learn about Preaching in a Classroom

Some reflections this week on some cliches run amok.

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Some Bold Assertions

This past week I was at a meeting of pastors, church staff members, women’s ministry leaders, and a reasonably broad assortment of Christian leaders and volunteers. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, worship, encouragement, exhortation, and discernment. However, even a distinguished group of friends and colleagues aren’t above the occasional error in thought, action, or speech. Of course, errors in speech reflect and reinforce errors in thought and action.

I was particularly piqued by a sentiment that was repeated or restated several times. As best as I can recall, here are a few versions:

“A book can’t teach you how to preach.”

“Even if you went to Bible college, you might be preaching without the anointing of God.”

“You can’t learn how to preach in a classroom.”

At this point, Homiletics professors everywhere, as well as authors of books on preaching, are recoiling in disgust. But should they? Are those making the assertions above onto something, even if they aren’t making their point as precisely or carefully as they should be?

What Are We Actually Talking About?

In prior newsletters I've argued for clarity, precision, and proper nuance. Too often Christians find themselves amid disagreements that likely would be thirty percent less severe (and probably less frequent) were they to define their terms properly.

I want to ask those who assert the statements above a few questions:

Do you mean that one cannot be taught to preach effectively if they aren’t gifted to by God first?

Do you mean that preaching is best learned in a local church setting?

Do you mean that sterile, institutional settings can stifle one’s passion in and for the pulpit?

Do you mean that young preachers especially need many preaching opportunities to improve?

Redirecting or reframing a claim has a way of illuminating a conversation. What’s ironic about the examples I’ve provided is that one could push back vehemently against the initial three assertions above but concur with the four variations of those. In fact, if the latter four are the actual claims being made, I think I agree with all of them!

It's difficult to know where the fault lines truly lie apart from a larger, more open conversation about the nature of biblical preaching. For our purposes, it’s the last of the three initial claims that I want to bring into focus in this: “You can’t learn how to preach in a classroom.”

First, a suggestion for those making bold claims about preaching.

One may want to be cautious about making such claims if they have never personally received formal instruction in Homiletics. They might not be best positioned to know what could or couldn’t be learned that way. By extension, for reasons of decorum and winning over your audience, one might want to be slow to make such a claim in settings populated partly by people who received training at Bible colleges and/or seminaries. One is at least implying, “You guys wasted your time.” Ironically, such claims (and ones like them) violate the ancient, time-tested tools of rhetoric.

Aristotle taught that someone’s ability to persuade their audience is based on appealing to hearers through logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos refers to the quality of one’s argument as it appeals to people’s reason. Ethos refers to the credibility of the one making an argument. Pathos refers to appeals to the emotions and sympathies of the audience.

Simply put, people making strong claims about preaching should carefully weigh how they make such claims. But hey, I went to college. I just referenced Aristotle. (You don’t have to go to college to learn about him.) Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Second, what probably underlies many concerns about education and the preaching task is a desire to ensure that people remember that communicating the Word is spiritual work. That is to say, pulpit communication isn’t just standard-fare public speaking. Fair enough. But shouldn’t we simply say that, instead of some of the other things we often say? Moreover, wouldn’t it be more profitable to have an open discussion about the differences between pulpit communication and public speaking—as well as the similarities? Even if one emphasizes the differences, they’d likely acknowledge there are some similarities.

Third, if the claim that one cannot learn preaching in a classroom is accepted, can someone at least attempt to offer how one might learn? I know no one who would say that the gift of preaching is given at the moment of conversion and at that moment it has reached its fullest maturity. In other words, most Christians don’t believe a spiritual gift cannot be improved or sharpened. This inevitably forces people to consider what means God might be pleased to use, under normal circumstances, to grow people in their preaching.

Preaching consists of two main parts: sermon construction and sermon delivery. (Let me hasten to note that perhaps some people making bold claims about preaching may be thinking exclusively about one half of the equation, and not the whole. Such would explain some, though not all, of the controversy.) What then are the component parts of sermon construction and sermon delivery? Study, biblical interpretation, meditation, composition, vocalization, pacing, volume, tone, and probably a half dozen other elements. Now, how would one individually improve upon these such that a reasonably normal listener would perceive a preacher to be communicating Scripture with power, clarity, and helpfulness?

On the individual level, you need someone with good judgment about these various elements providing feedback and instruction. Unless you’re judging everything based on how many people flood the altars in a service, or how loud the amening is, you are at the mercy of discerning, credible Christian people interacting with your messages (and their component parts).

More generally, someone could improve their ability to handle Scripture by listening to sermons (in person, through audio, or through video), reading sermons, and simply having more and more opportunities to speak. Presumably, they would gradually take onboard what they’ve seen and heard, whether it be negative or positive.

As an aside, it’s not altogether clear that listening to sermons during the mp3/podcast explosion has always yielded positive results. I remember preaching monthly during my first few years of being on staff as an associate pastor. I found that preaching to a normal group of people yielded different sermons than the kind one would hear a well-known preacher give at a conference attended by mostly pastors and aspiring pastors. It’s a merciful thing that I didn’t begin ordained ministry any later than I did, or my worldview on preaching would have been even more warped than it probably was!

Most of what I’ve said so far is on the delivery side of the coin. What about the other side?

Being better equipped with biblical, theological, and linguistic knowledge and tools can help one know how to interpret, process, and distill the truths of Scripture. As important as it is to say things well, more fundamental is to know what to say at all! Once again, how would one acquire such biblical, theological, and linguistic knowledge and tools?

By now I hope it’s clear: we need people to help impart to us what we need. We need reasonably wise, honest, and patient people to walk with us through both the proper components of good communication, as well as the means by which we discern what to say at all.

The question is, where can such reasonably wise, honest, and patient people be found? There are many in pews across the land, but there are also many in classrooms across the land, too.

What Can Be Learned (and Has Often Been Learned) in Preaching Classes

Let me just come out and say it: while I do worry about people who think because they got an ‘A’ in Homiletics they are going to be (or are) effective preachers, I find myself more concerned about the people who don’t actively, even in latter years of ministry, try to improve their preaching.  

Let me put it another way: do the people who actively criticize formal instruction in Homiletics actually know what happens in a preaching classroom?

It has been well over a decade (and closer to two) since I took my first preaching class. I may have been at an advantage due to my background in drama and public speaking, but I found myself quickly humbled by having to prepare multiple sermons over the course of a semester and deliver them in front of peers and a professor. Just as important as the exercise was the instantaneous feedback loop. On the spot, I heard feedback from peers about what went well, and what didn’t. This criticism could include both aspects of interpretation as well as delivery. I still remember much of it.

Not only did I have my sermons critiqued, but I was required to do the same for my peers. I had to listen carefully, charitably, and critically, then respond. What did they do well that I needed to imitate (within reason), and what did they do poorly that I needed to take note of?

Perhaps the trickest part of all was being on the clock. Yes, sermons were timed!

How would preaching in our churches change if men literally knew that everyone would officially tune them out after 35, 40, or 45 minutes? I imagine we’d hear much less repetition, extraneous exegetical notes, and long stories that fail to deliver a strong illustrative point.

For the Road

As an old professor (not of preaching) used to say, “I’m full of this subject.” Nevertheless, let me conclude with a couple of handles.

I think of a lay preacher in a neighboring district association. He has a habit of ending every other sentence with, “and stuff.” Think here about the person who frequently says “and things like that” at the end of every sentence. Pretty annoying right? My question is, who is going to point that out to him finally, and hold him accountable on it over a period of time until he breaks that distracting habit? Maybe not a Homiletics professor, but someone who knows enough about preaching and who cares enough about him to help him.

If any of us are to improve our preaching, we’re going to have to seek feedback actively and humbly. If that means more listening, reading, study, or practice, then so be it.

After nearly 150 years in print, Charles Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students is still my top recommendation for men trying to communicate Scripture more effectively. You don’t even need a Homiletics professor to assign it. But it would benefit you to read it with someone who will try to apply it alongside you, then keep discussing it until you’ve both seen improvement.

Finally, perhaps it would benefit all of us to more explicitly express what we think constitutes good preaching. We’re all judging others (and ourselves) based on standards which are seldom spoken, but frequently assumed. Before we can discuss preaching in a serious way, we’re going to have to revisit some basic premises and presuppositions that are leading us to say some of the things we’re saying—including some of the silly things.

God, help us preachers to be more studious, diligent, and humble.

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Follow-Up:

I attended the Missouri State Association of Free Will Baptists last week. I was honored to be elected State Moderator on Wednesday. No, I don’t intend to let my one-year-old touch the gavel. That would not end well for him or for me.

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Currently Reading:

Sam Allberry, Is God Anti-Gay?

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Quote of the Week:

I may have my reservations about progressivism as a quasi-religion, but that does not mean that I welcome the prospect of sliding back towards the poverty, parochialism, and authoritarianism that characterised most of our species’ history – which is exactly what will happen, if we cannot find some way of marrying modernity with a culture that promotes and supports parenthood.

A feminism that prioritises freedom above all other values will never be able to achieve this goal, which is why we need to be fashioning a feminism orientated towards care and interdependency. And if we are going to attempt this, then we will need to look at people of other times and places with new eyes and, rather than assuming that they were all bad and stupid – as the progress narrative does – instead thinking carefully about which norms and institutions actually serve the interests of women.

Louise Perry, “Modernity is Making You Sterile.”

(She’s British, which explains the spelling of a few of words in the quote.)