Preach

There is a huge need for preachers of the Word!   Every week I am reminded of that need as I serve the churches here in Australia.   Currently we have 13 vacant positions in our churches.   These are ministry positions that need to be filled by preachers.  In a decade this number will double if nothing is done to meet this need.   So what do we need to do?   How do we raise preachers?  Immediately we might think, we need to send people to Bible college.  But I believe we need to something long before that.   We need to get people to start preaching.

Preaching in the Bible is not at all what we are accustomed to our churches today.  We often identify preaching with giving a learned, rehearsed, and well-or-poorly delivered sermon.  But preaching, where only a specified few college or seminary trained few who are ordained as preachers may preach, is not found in the Bible.  In fact, when persecution drove the church into Samaria and beyond we are told that wherever Christians went they preached the Word. (Acts 2:4)   Preaching, as the Bible understands it, is done by all Christians wherever and whenever they proclaim the good news of Jesus.  You can call it exhorting, evangelizing, sermonizing, announcing, witnessing, sharing the good news, or proclamation.  These are all aspects of preaching the Word.  And in a real sense, every Christian becomes a preacher of the Word upon salvation as they pass on what they have received and believed to others who do not yet know it. 

In my early teenage years we had no youth group in the church I attended.   So my pastor asked me and two friends to begin one.  We were mentored by two couples in the church.  I was simply told, study the Bible, invite other youth from church, and share with them what you learned in the Bible.  And that is what I did.  We would get together and I would share the good news found in the Bible.  I would preach the Word.  And then we would discuss it. In the first year our group grew to well over 50 young people.  A decade later I returned to the church of my youth as a guest preacher.  They had just hired a former school classmate of mine who now served as one of the pastors in that church.  As he introduced me to the congregation he shared how years earlier, as a teenager, he heard me one night preach in youth group.  That night he received Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord.  God used those years when I led that youth group and shared the Word of God with them to solidify a call in me to a lifetime of Christian ministry.

When we arrived in Australia, our home church (Bray Park Community Church), had a young man who was challenged to start preaching in church.  He was well mentored by our pastor at that time, John Hoogenhout.  I still remember the first time he preached.  And the second time.  Before long he enrolled in a few courses at Bible college.   And when John was nearing retirement, this young man, Adam Schoenmaker, now a bit older, and married, was ordained as a minister of the Word in the CRCA.  He now serves as lead pastor of our church.  Today I am coaching a young man in NSW who will be given the opportunity to preach in his home church in the not too distant future.   Perhaps like Adam, when this young man starts preaching, it will spur him on, as it did with me, to pursue a lifetime of ministry in the church.

Recently I met with a leader in one of our 'vacant' churches.   I wanted to discover how they were tracking as a church, and see if there was assistance they might need from me or the CRCA.   I came away from this meeting so encouraged.  I learned that in this church they require all their leaders to preach the Word.  Not just paid ministry workers, but all their ministry leaders including all of their elders.   They provide coaching before they preach and feedback after they preach.  But they are expected to preach the Word.   Many of them preach in their regular Sunday morning service.  This church believes that by getting people to preach the Word they are building leaders for the church today and into the future.  And I agree!

Do you want to learn how to preach the Word of God?  Talk to your pastor or other church leaders.  Or go to one of the workshops Wycliffe Bible Translators puts on called Story the Bible.  These workshops will equip you with skills to use Bible stories in mission, ministry and everyday life.  They will stretch you, equip you, and inspire you to share God’s story with others.  Perhaps God will use this as a stepping stone into fulltime gospel ministry. 

So here is my challenge to address the need for more gospel workers:  get people to start preaching the Word.  Not just those with Bible college training.  Get people out of the pew and into the pulpits, and into small groups, men and women gatherings, among children and seniors.  Get them to tell the stories of the Bible and showing people how these stories apply to everyday life.  Challenge your ministry leaders, your elders, and your young people to preach the Word.  Help raise up people for gospel ministry by getting them to preach!