Proclaimer Blog
The importance of how we preach
It is easy to forget that it is not only important to say the right thing when we preach, but also to say it in the right way. By that I mean not so much choosing our words carefully and structuring our sermon well (although those things are important), but rather speaking and behaving in the pulpit in a Christ-like way.
Sinclair Ferguson recently reflected on the sobering fact that, on some level, over time, the members of his congregation would come to identify him with the person of Jesus. That is, because he stood before them week-after-week and year-after-year as a speaker of the word of Jesus and as an under-shepherd of Jesus, their impression of what Jesus is like would inevitably be shaped to some degree by their impression of him, their pastor.
For those in pastoral ministry, that is a sobering thought indeed. And I’m quite sure that Dr Ferguson is right.
There are lots of implications for our preaching that we could draw from that observation, but let me just highlight one for the moment: we need to make sure that in our preaching ministry – and particularly in our demeanour in the pulpit – we reflect the love of Jesus. It is a particular disease, I think, of younger Reformed pastors (and I write as a younger preacher myself) to be so concerned about drumming the truth into the people under our care and so concerned to spur them on in godliness and fruitfulness that we lose sight of the love and patience that the Lord Jesus shows to us, his slow-to-learn and slow-to-grow people. We see that extraordinary patience and grace time and time again in Jesus’ interactions with the disciples throughout the gospels. And we so need to learn the art of pastoring from him, the great Shepherd of the sheep.
As I reflect on one or two preaching ministries that I know and that have been particularly well received and fruitful over time, I am struck by the way in which the preachers in question have made it clear to their people that they love them – that they are for them and not against them.
If you are a preacher, do you reckon that your congregation sense that you are for them and not against them? And what kind of impression of Jesus are they forming as they sit under your preaching ministry?