Since I have a number of Pastors who read this blog, I have a question. Is there any evidence that Pastors, Elders, Deacons, Bishops and any other ministers in the early church were charged with preparing a sermon?
Or is that a holdover from church tradition? I have recently reread the new testament and see no example that anyone ever prepared a sermon. Thought about it as Paul was at Mars Hill. But written down, studied out? I don't see it. The letters of Paul were read. But not sermonized. Scripture was read, devotion to the teachings of the disciples. But Sermons? Nope.
What brings this up is I have several Pastor friends who spend hours and hours and hours preparing their sermons for Sunday. One friend told me this week he spent 12 hours putting together a video presentation and another 9 getting his sermon ready. In Gene calculation that's 21 hours. In my opinion that was a waste of time. He hasn't had time to visit visitors but has time to mess with that. Bad investment of his time.
We as ministers are to be prepared, we are to be studied, we are to be ready, we are to be grounded, we are to be able to discern needs and speak into them. None of that is sermon prep. If you can't be poked with a stick at 3AM and be ready to give a sound teaching on a Biblical principle you are not prepared or grounded well enough to be in the ministry.
I think much of what is happening in rehearsed and carefully scripted sermons is a waste of time for the hearer and the preparer.
I have another pastor friend of 40+ years of pulpit experience. He is a Bible scholar. He preaches 3 times every Sunday. I happen to know that his prep for the evening sermons is seldom done before 3PM in the afternoon of the same day. He just asks the Lord, "What do you want me to say tonight". He gets something and says it. His sermons are powerful, fresh and anointed. He's my favorite preacher.
Maybe I'm just on a bent. Someone straighten me out. WHERE IN THE WORD OF GOD IS THE IDEA THAT MINISTERS ARE TO PREPARE A SERMON.
Or is our idea of a church service basically theotainment which means, let me do my dog and pony show sermon I prepared and you can tell me how good I did. I know because I have been there.
I'm going to give what the Lord tells me to say tomorrow. I have notes. But I'm not going to try to rehearse it. I prepare, not words but concepts. I'm careful to keep it spontaneous. Study allows for that. But I don't think I have EVER EVER prepared more than 3 or 4 hours for any sermon or teaching I have ever given. I have never been unprepared. I'm not for tomorrow either.
3 comments:
Gene,
Great post. I'm convinced that the doctrine of the pulpit, a stronghold of Protestantism, is mere tradition. Preaching is biblical, but the "pulpit" is often an object of idolatrous worship. If the preacher goes ten minutes over, sometimes other necessarily biblical inclusions in the assembly are spontaneously cut. "Well, since I went over, we won't sing or pray today." The pulpit rules over every other thing.
I wouldn't go so far as to say prep is unbiblical, because it's certainly not prohibited by Scripture, but it's not mandated either. But you'd never know it. A friend of mine that goes to another church (they hold a very high view of teaching and preaching) recently told me he spent 60 hours in prep to substitute for a one hour adult Sunday school class.
I like the guys who spend 2 hrs on the actual sermon, and about 40 hrs. combing the internet to find 50 illustrations to make 3 points...waste not, want less
Preparation is done in many, many ways. Do not underestimate time thinking and talking subjects out with friends or reading or mulling it over on an exercise bike, or sharing bits and pieces of an upcoming message with a shut-in or writing a blog or off-handed conversations or overheard conversations, etc. Let all things be done decently and in order...be prepared in season and out of season...all of this challenges us to be ready...and being ready is being prepared.
I have too many friends who say...I depend solely on the Spirit to give me words when I step up to preach. Sorry...I do not want to blame bad messages on the Spirit simply because I was too lazy to exercise the brain and other gifts given to me by God.
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