Preaching as Leading
Our sermons have sometimes been maligned as being simply theological lectures that reinforce dead orthodoxy or worse: ritualistic performances of spiritual platitudes that do nothing but maintain the status quo. Perhaps that is unfair but it is not hard to see how they could degenerate into that if we are not diligent. One way this can be avoided is to recognize that preaching is a leadership activity. We aren’t simply instructing or handing over information. Preaching’s purpose, according to God’s will and gift, is to bestow forgiveness on the repentant and to move the hearers toward deeper faith, to give them a firmer resistance to sin, and to aid them in a more deliberate fulfilling of their vocations to their subordinates, authorities, and neighbors. That preaching is a leadership activity should not be surprising because all leadership activities are forms of communication and most of them involve talking.
At some point I came across the idea that any leadership task can be divided among three interconnected realities: management, command, and inspiration. I’d like to give credit where it is due but I don’t know where it is due. I am not even sure if those were the exact terms used, but this is how I remember it and have understood it. Management had to do with preparation and planning. Command was giving specific directions to subordinates. Inspiration created a shared team emotion and was largely related to motivation.
The idea was that all three of these aspects are needed for effectiveness. When they are confused problems arise. For example, if management is lacking them the subordinates will be without the tools and knowledge they need to accomplish the mission. If commands are issued in the way of inspiration, they sound to subordinates like suggestions and may not be followed. If inspiration or a particular emotion is simply commanded the subordinates might lose sight of the mission or feel manipulated. The suggestion was made that most people are by nature and experience good at one or two of these. Learning to recognize which of these come most naturally and developing a conscious need for all three could make leaders more effective.
Here is how I apply this to preaching. Management is most of the preparation work, not only exegesis and writing, but also service planning and constant interaction outside of worship with the hearers. Some of this is deeply rewarding, but it can also be tedious. Much of it is cumulative. The prep work done for one sermon carries over to other work and the better we know our hearers and listen to them carefully the better preachers we become. Again, this can be and often is deeply rewarding but it is also somewhat repetitive and is rarely in the public eye. There are also occasions when there isn’t much time for it. Preachers sometimes have to preach without all the time they need to prepare. It is a reality that can’t be escaped on this side of glory. All of this leads to a temptation to skip the preparation or to take shortcuts. A man can get away with that from time to time, and may need to, but this should not become a habit. A preacher needs to set times for this work and not neglect it. Management is the part of the iceberg under the water or the foundation of the building. It is usually unappreciated until it is missing. Nonetheless, as inglorious as it may be, this is where content is discovered and preaching and leading first takes shape.
The command aspect is in the delivery of the sermon. It is the bulk of the content. This includes exegetical statements and the opening up of Scripture, doctrinal assertions and explanation, and spiritual counsel or applications. This is what the Reverend President Heath Curtis terms “telling people what to think.” Sermons need to make assertions. Those assertions should be supported by Scripture but they are not suggestions or the opinions of the preacher. They are the truth of God’s Word. We might be able to categorize them as Law and Gospel to some degree, but they are more than simply reassertion of Law and Gospel in simple terms. A sermon is different than a evangelism conversation or witness. Sermons command more than convince or prove. To this end, they should be textual, doctrinal and catechetical, and also practical. Over time, they should cover the whole counsel of God. Bible class is a fine custom for supplementing and supporting the preaching of the church, but her doctrine is not known or taught primarily there. It is chiefly known and taught in the pulpit. Preaching issues commands and should be done so without embarrassment of the authority that we exercise according to God’s call.
Finally, inspiration sets the tone, the emotion or mood of the sermon and models for the congregation a godly response to His Word. There is overlap with command for inspiration also takes place in the delivery of the sermon. In my thinking, inspiration is more than emotion. It also includes specific eschatological hope and vocational encouragement. This is where the idea of performative speech or the sermon as absolution comes in. These are, in a sense, motivational. I think that when Walther says the Gospel should predominate the sermon he is speaking of this aspect, of what I am calling inspiration, more than command. It is not so much the doctrine of the Gospel that he means, but rather inspiration. I also think that when protestant preachers say that the sermon shouldn’t just be about Jesus or about the Gospel but actually proclaim the Gospel or give Jesus to the people this is what they mean.
Our sermons must always reorient the hearer back to reality as it confessed and shown in Scripture. There is a Law application of this, namely that the world is evil and the enemies arrayed against us are terrible and we don’t deserve God’s goodness, but it is mainly a Gospel reality. God is good. He is in control. Jesus lives. He knows what He is doing. I suspect that in the innumerable proud fantasies that play out in the heads of preachers, inspiration is most what is at play. This is the aspect that our pride is most interested in, that which garners the most praise from men, and probably what we most desire. That is okay, in a sense, but it can’t happen without management and command. To make a sermon lead it needs all three.
My suggestion is that you preachers spend a few minutes contemplating which of the three, management, command, or inspiration, seem most important to you. There is a decent chance that what you think is most important clues you into what you might be neglecting. Another approach is to consider if there was anything in the explanation above that made you cringe a bit inside or created a spark of guilt. That could be a call to look at that more closely. Of course, this isn’t in the Bible. Your mileage may vary. I am not claiming it came from either heaven or science. I am simply saying it can be useful. Thus I commend it to you as a way to think about preaching with the hope that it will stir you to think more deeply about preaching, about leading, and help you avoid sermons that are merely information or academic lectures. I do hope we will embrace the reality that sermons are leadership acts, that they are meant to not simply convert but also to move our hearers toward deeper faith, into a firmer resistance to sin, and assist them in a more deliberate fulfilling of their vocations.