On Preaching

In Preaching in the Small Membership Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), Lewis A. Parks writes:

It would be nice if every preacher who stood before a small membership church to preach had the advantages of a formal theological education…It would further be nice if once those persons received a college degree, they were able to continue on to do a demanding Master of Divinity program in a seminary…It would be nice if, upon receiving a foundation in systematic theology, these future preachers of the church had the leisure to go deeper into particular schools of thought or subjects that spoke to their minds and hearts when they were introduced to them in earlier study: some version of liberation, feminist…or postmodern theology…As we will see, it would be especially nice if any of these persons headed to the small membership church were to receive a strong dose of the theology of the church itself (ecclesiology).

And then it would be nice if these years of formal education were to be topped off with two to five years of preparation for ordination where the new preachers of the church received mentoring in the art of connecting the theology of their education and the everyday practice of ministry as they move from readiness for ministry to effectiveness.

It would be nice if this were the typical scenario of every preacher who stood before a small membership church to preach, but it is not (pp. 55-56).

Nowadays, the church pulpit is occupied by people who have no formal theological training. Even if they do, they may not be trained to become pastors of the church. People who think that they are called to preach can preach. The sad thing is that the church allows them to preach. Last Sunday, a layman delivered a sermon. He used and read a lot of passages during the sermon. Basically, he didn’t expound and preach the Bible. He just read the Bible. Literally, he read the Bible without exposition for thirty minutes.

It would be nice if…

We try our best to be God’s stewards. We are stewards of his Word, especially preaching it in front of the people of God. Not only are we responsible for the Word, but also for the people of God listening to the Word. It may seem that people don’t seem to listen. But the preached Word is the ordained means of grace through which God reaches down to us in the Word—the logos. It is not nice to read the Bible in preaching. Preaching the Word must involve exposition of the Word. We don’t have to be first-rated exegetes. I am not. But we have to expound it to a certain extent that the congregation can grasp the meaning of it and apply. “They read from the Book of the Law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people understand each passage” (Neh. 8:8, NLT). We read the Word, give meaning to it, and help the people to understand it so that they can apply it.

We may be good Christians. But if we are not well equipped to preach and preach badly, we are not very nice.