Here is a letter from a reader from a post a week or so ago; the letter is used with permission<\/em>. Read it to the end because he is asking a question that many are asking today: What is preaching? What good is it? He needs some advice and I\u2019m confident many of you have things that can help him. Pray for him too. I have.
\nScot (Dr. McKnight),
\nI\u2019m a 30-something minister in transition and I was really struck by your post \u201cPastors thinking pastorally for pastors\u201d on February 4. This letter started as a response \u2013 and then I decided it was getting too long and self-indulgent, so I didn\u2019t post. I tried to pare back my questions\/comments, but was pretty overcome by emotion, and had to stop and spend a lot of time in prayer. Because I had so much stuff churning around in me, I finally started my own blog to siphon off some of the excess so I could focus. I\u2019m still churning though \u2013 there\u2019s so much I feel I need to know (and be, and do), such a \u2026yearning\u2026but I don\u2019t know what to do with it all.
\nI suppose the biggest change in my perspective has been the shift from \u201cminister\u201d to \u201cpastor.\u201d That\u2019s a semantic difference in a way \u2013 but it ties into a couple things for me. I\u2019m from a Baptist background where \u201cpastor\u201d meant (only and always) \u201cpreacher\u201d and was used interchangeably. Plus, I saw what I consider to be abuses of power and pastoral authority so pervasive that I didn\u2019t want to claim any pastoral authority. And, my experience as a summer missionary, where I preached 3-4x a week for 10 weeks, left me with some distaste for preaching. I found myself constantly looking up passages of Scripture, not for devotional reasons or to let God speak, but to have something to say. It felt, at the time, like I was going through the motions \u2013 not waiting on God to speak to me, but scrambling for something to say that *sounded* like it was from God.
\nI suppose this is a cry for help. As a result of the above (and other things), I went to seminary \u201cknowing\u201d I wasn\u2019t called to preach, whatever else I was meant to do. I was a \u201cminister\u201d not a \u201cpreacher\u201d or \u201cpastor.\u201d While I was in seminary, I wasn\u2019t interested in preaching. My preaching professor was one of the holiest and most graceful persons I\u2019ve met \u2013 he carries an aura of sanctity with him \u2013 and he was extremely gracious to me when I was in his class, despite my being the only one there asking questions about why we preach, what we intend to accomplish, why our preaching is so different from Jesus\u2019 or Paul\u2019s, and why so many of our texts for preaching were so terrible. (Not all of them were \u2013 Kathleen Norris and Barbara Brown Taylor and Fred Craddock were good.) But while I got to ask my questions without penalty, I didn\u2019t get them answered. You were just supposed to know what preaching is for and why it\u2019s important \u2013 it didn\u2019t matter if preaching left your listeners cold or asleep, just be faithful.
\nWhat is preaching? Who is it for? How do we learn to do it? How do we judge if we\u2019re doing it well?
\nI assume you learn by doing and that\u2019s my goal. But if there\u2019s any advice you can share, any books that you can recommend as absolutely foundational stuff? None of the three books you mentioned in the post are available to me right now, but our public library\u2019s pretty good. I don\u2019t know entirely what I\u2019m asking. Just \u2013 for help, I guess. I wish pastors had pastors. I wish spiritual directors didn\u2019t have to be paid to help a fellow Christian discern God\u2019s voice. (The worker deserves their wages \u2013 but I can\u2019t afford \u2019em right now, and my spiritual director\u2019s only able to schedule about 1-2 meetings a year with me, and is generally a month or more getting back to me to schedule an appointment. Seems like spiritual direction ought to be a primary function of pastors.)
\nI\u2019m impressed with the readership of your blog and would have welcomed their advice too. Anybody\u2019s \u2026. Just breathe a word of prayer, and keep up your blog, and I\u2019ll be grateful. Do say that word of prayer, though.
\nBlessings to you and yours,
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