Preaching and Beyond

One of the crying needs of the hour in the church are for those who will shepherd God's people. As important as biblical exposition is, I'm afraid that in some circles it casts too large a shadow over pastoral ministry. I know that some will think that this is impossible. Can we ever get enough of God's word? On one level, of course not! We never know all that we should and we don't come close to putting the little we do know into practice. But for all that, some are so enamoured with big name preachers that they think that all they have to do is excel at preaching and their churches will grow and they can gain national prominence as the celebrated star of the latest evangelical fad - the multiple campus church! To that I say: dream on! There is much more to pastoral ministry than standing behind a pulpit or walking back and forth on a stage and waxing eloquent. In fact, if the truth were told, for anyone genuinely called to preach, this is the easiest part of Christian ministry.

Now when I talk about "shepherding God's people" I do not mean pushing them around like a frustrated dictator. Nor do I mean sticking your nose in every one's business, or trying to control everything they do and think under the guise of exercising pastoral oversight. Just as too many find their way into counselling who need counselling themselves, too many find their way into pastoral ministry who use the church to meet their own psychological needs. To shepherd the people of God is to patiently get to know them. It is to instruct them carefully but not in such as way so as to replace the ministry of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Like wise parents a wise shepherd will want to move the congregation toward maturity which means less reliance on human leaders and more dependence on God. Leaders have to earn the right to be heard and they must be willing to humble themselves and do whatever needs to be done to move the work forward.

If shepherding, and ironically preaching, is to be truly effective, pastors must know their people. This means that they must spend time with them. They must enter their homes, learn about their lives and listen before they speak. They must be more concerned about people as people and not as workers in an organization, or clogs in an ecclesiastical machine. They should not be concerned about gaining and keeping the loyalty of the people as much as they should their loyal attachment to Jesus Christ. In the long run this is all that matters. Forget the nonsense about someone spending 40 or 50 hours a week to prepare a message. If it takes that long as a general rule you are in the wrong job. And besides, there is not an infallible connection between preparation time and sermon excellence no matter what anyone says. Mega-church pastors who claim to take that long to prepare a single sermon have other staff members who can do what they should probably do more of themselves and so they can afford to be locked away. But most Christian ministers cannot hide themselves away for that length of time on a consistent basis without harming the work. And that is a good thing. If they are wise and observant there is much they can learn by getting out of the study and interacting with their people that would help them accurately and appropriately apply the word which is usually the biggest weakness of most preaching.

And so I come back to where I started. Should we preach the word? Absolutely, we are commanded to preach it in season and out of season with great patience and careful instruction (2 Timothy 4:2). But that is not all we are called to do and if we are going to fulfill that calling we must not only study and know the text but we must study and know the lives of the people we are called to serve. That knowledge cannot be adequately attained in a library, but requires real, personal interaction with the people we are called to instruct in the things of God. May God be pleased to give us pastors who learn how to keep these important responsibilities in balance.