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The Spirit and Preaching
Recently I was asked about my practice of putting together a preaching schedule for three or four months at a time. Several times in the year, I will set a few days aside to think through what I should preach on for the next season. The parishioner went on to ask, “How could the Holy Spirit be involved with me organizing things so far in advance?” The question reflects an age old tension that not only preachers, but all Christian leaders have to deal with in their own particular ministries. How do we allow the Holy Spirit to be woven into our organizing practices?
“How do we
allow the Holy
Spirit to be
woven into our
organizing
practices?" |
Let me first give my two reasons for developing a worship schedule, and then I will look at the issue as a whole. The first reason is simple – if there are others involved in worship, they need to know ahead of time what is expected of them. The more people involved, the more time it takes for them to prepare a cooperative service. The music leaders, lay worship leaders, scripture readers, and altar guild all need to know what the theme of each Sunday is, so that each can be prepared accordingly. Secondly, I find that developing a schedule works best for me. It keeps me from hitting on the same issues too frequently. It forces me to look at more scriptures than my favorite top 40. Looking at a sequence of Scriptures leads me to cover a greater variety of issues than I might naturally choose. Sometimes I will use the lectionary (a homiletic tool for covering the entire Bible over three years, by including a Psalm, an Old Testament lesson, a New Testament lesson, and a Gospel reading each Sunday). Sometimes I will cover part of a book of the Bible. Last summer, I looked at the Old Testament character of David, and this summer, I will begin a series on Joshua and the transition of the Israelites from desert wanderers to living in the Promised Land.
But the discussion of how much organization & preparation it takes to restrict the work of the Holy Spirit has been a historical one in the Church. The presence of the Spirit is often linked with spontaneity and heartfelt emotions, which seems to contradict the option of organizing one’s preaching. But is spontaneity the only sign of the Spirit’s presence? One of the best illustrations of how the Spirit of God can be involved in advance planning comes from the Scriptures themselves, especially the Gospels. Look at nearly any chapter of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John and you will see them quoting an Old Testament prophesy. They are seeing scripture being fulfilled in the life and teachings of Jesus. This, of course, also means that the Old Testament writers were including in their works things that would not unfold for 4-8 centuries later. Now that is significant organization and preparation! Of course, we believe that the Spirit of God was guiding the OT authors – “inspiring” them. Is that any different than what we expect of our preachers today?!
Another great example comes from the frontier days of our nation – should preachers be required to go to seminary for training or should you just let those who are “spirit-filled” preach? Ultimately, Methodism sided with the school of thought that training their preachers (though seminary was not the only avenue available) pro-vided the church circuits with better preachers. The idea that one must choose between either trained preachers or spirit-filled preachers ignored the fact that most often, education can hone the gifts and train the tools that a spirit-filled preacher has to offer. Though it is sometimes true that over-organizing and over-training can take (Spirit and Preaching continued from page 1) the life out of a preacher (or church for that matter), it is more often true that the Church has been sorely damaged by “spirit-filled” evangelists who were very charismatic but didn’t know what they were talking about. In truth, the Holy Spirit can lead the brain as well as the heart of a disciple, so there is no real reason to believe that study, organization, and preparation hinders the work of the Holy Spirit.
I happen to have a Doctorate in Ministry and spend about a week preparing my sermon outline every quarter or so. But I also believe that each week when I finish my sermon preparation, that if I haven’t felt the presence of the Holy Spirit during the preparations, I won’t preach it. More often than not, I am amazed at how the Spirit has brought a 2,000-3,000 year old Scripture to speak to my world today, with a charisma I do not possess on my own! I hope this helps answer the question for “inquiring minds” but realize that some may want to continue this conversation further, which I will be happy to do.
In Christ’s love,
Reverend Bob
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