Dr. Dave Comm 1 Lecture

1. You probably won’t have the time to prep that you think you will.

I remember reading a lot of preaching books and blog articles that talk about what sermon prep should look like in the pastors life. I forget who counseled this – it may have been Spurgeon, but I know a lot of other books say something similar – but the advice was something to the effect of, for every minute you plan to speak in the pulpit you should’ve spent an hour in sermon prep that week. So, if you want to preach a 35 minute sermon, you should spend 35 hours in preparation.

Let me just tell you right now, that isn’t realistic. At least not for me. It’s just not. Get whatever novel ideas you have about something like that out of your head now. Not that spending 35 hours on a sermon is bad. But most of you – many of you – are never going to be in a context where that becomes possible. Unless you end up in the position of someone like a Mark Dever, David Platt, Matt Chandler, Tim Keller – it’s not going to happen. These guys get paid just to preach. And they have interns and research assistants who help them research and make edits on their sermons so each week they’re A+, book-worthy sermons. And that’s great for them, and they serve the church well in their efforts

But for the rest of us, we’ve got a lot of shepherding to do. In your average week, you’re going to be doing a wide variety of shepherding and counseling meetings – everything from drug abuse to families falling apart – administrative meetings, elder meetings, everything. And that’s going to take a ton of your time. But you know what? It’s also going to give you a feel for the heartbeat of your church. It’s going to help you know whats going on. And you need to use that in your preaching. That’s how God allows us to preach sermons that our people need to hear – even if they won’t end up being NYT best selling books. Since coming to Shady Grove, I think I’ve maybe had 10 hours the weeks I preach to do my sermon prep.

2. Take the time to figure out who you are.

Master the basics yes, but figure out who you are. Take the feedback you get in this class seriously. Learn how to preach a good Bryan Chapell style sermon, but also use your various preaching opportunities now to try something different each time to see what works for you. Try a manuscript sermon, try an outline, try going no notes. Try varying up the places in your sermon where you drop an illustration or application point. Play with your voice and your gestures.

I think it’s really easy early on in ministry to end up becoming a chameleon and just adapting to whoever we listen to or read a lot. And of course there’s nothing wrong with being influenced, but we don’t want to be copycats.

There were two pieces of advice that Dr. Silvernail gave me in this course which pushed me to start trying to discover who I was in preaching. The first comment he gave me was, “You preach everything like it’s an epistle.” Of course there’s a homiletical point in there, and he was trying to tell me I need to be able to preach different genre’s in a way that best suits it. But I also realized that my only “style” for preaching was the verse by verse, very expositional, very exegetical style sermon. I think that’s because it is how both my pastors preached at the time, as well as all my seminary influence. The reality is, I’m very boring when I do verse by verse, “exegetical” sermons. It’s just not my thing.

The second thing Dr. Silvernail said was he pointed out that I was a much better speaker when I gave illustrations than I was when I was explaining the text. He said I came alive when I gave illustrations. Basically, he was again trying to find a nice way of saying I was boring. But what he said was that I may be a better outline preacher than a manuscript preacher. So I tried it – and he was right.

One way I try and take the time to figure out “who I am” in preaching is I take time to read the text and write out my sermon and my thoughts and my structure for the text first, then I consult commentaries, books, and sermons from other pastors. Look, with a seminary education like this one, it’s rare that you’re going to have a heretical interpretation of a passage ok? Don’t be afraid of working through a text yourself and then checking your work. Don’t think you always need to rely on the commentaries. If you do really need help figuring out a passage, of course check some commentaries. I’m just trying to suggest not being reliant on these resources first, because they’ll end up restraining you. You’ll end up feeling like you need to preach the same points that Keller or Piper preached on this text, rather than taking the time to meditate on what God might have you say to your people. I still use commentaries and sermons, but since I use them last in my sermon prep, it’s often to check my work - and maybe I’ll pull out a good quote or two that I can add into my sermon.

3. Be who you are!

You’re not the next Matt Chandler or Tim Keller. Discover who you are, then be it. Submit yourself to the Word of God, and then be yourself. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Jesus is our righteousness, he is the declaration of God’s love for us, he is not ashamed of us. So there’s nothing left to prove. Be who God made you to be.

4. Take words seriously.

If you’re a preacher, then you need to understand the gravity that God has given to us in the words that we say. Our words – each and every one of them have the capacity to bring life or death to our people. As preachers, words are our job. Recognize the power to influence that God has given you, and don’t take that lightly.

5. Be a student of words. Never stop learning.

This is why we need to take our studies seriously. Not only in seminary, but even after seminary. Never stop learning. Broaden your horizons. Read broadly. One of our life’s works needs to be to study words. When asked why he reads so much, Tim Keller responded “I read all these things because I’m desperate for people to believe the gospel – aren’t you?” Reading and studying is going to make you a better communicator.

6. Do the work of an evangelist.

There are a lot of reasons pastors need to do the work of an evangelist. But one of them is because its going to make you a better preacher. If you’re not spending time with people who don’t believe Christianity, how are you going to know how to speak to them in your sermons, or to teach your people how to speak to them? Apologetic books are great, but they only give you good arguments – they don’t tell you how people think. To learn that, you need to actually spend time with people who aren’t Christians. I’m not going to tell you how to do that. I leave it to you to pray or think through what that can look like for you.

Find a barbershop where you can talk to the same Barber every few weeks and listen to him talk about his life, ask good questions. Find a group of skeptics who meet in a coffee shop in your area and ask if you can just start attending to listen to their conversations. Just go to coffee shops and listen to people talk. Be present in places where non-Christians meet.

7. Expect to be misheard. Expect critical feedback. Practice humility.