Spiritually Formed Preachers: How to bring spiritual formation into your entire sermon process

An article I recently wrote was published this week at Preaching Today entitled “Spiritual Formed Preachers: How to bring spiritual formation into your entire sermon process.” This goal has been one of the driving forces in my preaching but sometimes has been an elusive aim. I tried to put some of my thoughts into this article and I hope it’s helpful for other preachers. Although the article is likely behind a paywall (although I’d encourage preachers that the resources from Preaching Today are well worth the price), here is the first section of the article to whet your appetite.

The first message I ever preached was most likely only memorable to me. I was a high school student, newly set ablaze in my faith, and ready to tell people about Jesus and how vital it was to live for him. Filled with passion, and more than a little rough around the edges, I unloaded lengthy biblical passages and ideas on living for God. More than 30 minutes later, a sleepy room stared back at me after my scattershot approach, and I feebly closed in prayer.

Looking back on that day, I remember that God works in and through us often in spite of ourselves. I’m not sure what I hoped to accomplish in that message, but I know I had many ways to grow.

As we grow in our calling to preach, we know it is God’s work in and through us that is central, but sometimes we may lose focus. We venture into thinking of preaching merely as a skill-based event within a worship service. Yes, skill is necessary in preaching and should be faithfully honed, and, yes, the sermon is an event within a service of worship that should be memorable and contribute to the whole. But preaching is so much more than just that.

Sometimes we think of the sermon only as a way to get people to do something, whether step forward in faith, join in with small groups, or give to a capital campaign. As important as all these things may be, preaching is more than that.

At our worst, preachers sometimes wander into the dark land of using preaching to build our ministry platform or contribute to our sagging ego. In these seasons, we desperately need to turn from ourselves and get back on track because preaching is definitely much more than such self-serving efforts.

There is a sort of language that, unfortunately, is not often explicitly associated with preaching but should be. That is the language of spiritual formation. These pandemic years have revealed the truth that we are always being formed in one way or another, both in our inner and outer lives. While we can always be formed unintentionally, spiritual formation describes the intentional process of formation by the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus from the inside out.

From “Spiritually Formed Preachers,” Preaching Today, October 2023.