TEACHING LAY PEOPLE TO PREACH
“I’ve simply got too much material,” Phil told me. “There is no way I can preach it all in one Sunday. You’ll have to give me at least two!”
“You have the preaching bug,” I laughed, “and you have it bad!”
“This is great,” he went on. “This must be just like Chuck Swindoll does it. I’ve always wanted to be able to present the Word of God that way.”
Phil is a maintenance man in a local hospital. Like the majority of people in my former church, he is a blue-collar worker. But he was preparing the sermon for a coming Sunday service.
I suppose I was as surprised as anyone.
Do-it-yourself study
Three years ago at my former church, Mt. Morris (Michigan) Community Church, some lay people urged me to start an early morning Bible study. Since some of them were autoworkers, early meant 4 A.M.!
We began our study with Philippians, and I taught them the system of Bible study I use in my devotional time, which involves writing out the text and diagramming it. I also taught them how to use study tools such as Vine’s Expository Dictionary and Thayer’s Lexicon, which each one purchased.
My goal in the study was to let them feel the power of gleaning insights from Scripture on their own. I did not want to share my insights, so I did not even do the study with them. I simply refereed.
One of my rules was No commentaries allowed. If they came to a text they did not understand, I let them wrestle through it on their own. I wanted their conclusions to be their own, not just the party line or clichs. When they did come up with the standard interpretation, I challenged them to defend it. It did not take long for them to make sure what they were saying was truly coming from the text.
After a few months, they were “dividing the Word” with incredible accuracy and creative insight. At about the year mark, I was so impressed with the quality and depth of their study, I began to wonder how they could share it with the rest of the congregation. Maybe this could become a preaching course, and each person could develop and preach a message for the church, I thought.
Why not?
But I’d never seen lay people preach on a regular basis in a church. Usually people who wanted to teach took the adult Sunday school class or gave a testimony. And I knew most pastors’ concern for guarding the integrity of the pulpit.
It struck me, though, that when the Lord Jesus chose disciples, he did not choose any “professional” clergy-priests, Pharisees or Sadducees-yet he chose them “that he might send them out to preach” (Mk. 3:14). And throughout Acts, Peter and John and other “uneducated and untrained” (Acts 4:13) people went everywhere “preaching the Word.” This was one aspect of discipleship, I figured, that was being neglected.
I finally came to the conclusion I should protect my pulpit from unbiblical influences, but not from the possibility the congregation might see someone without formal training handling the Word of God as well as I. If my calling is to equip the saints for ministry, maybe that ministry includes preaching, too.
That meant training. Even naturally gifted speakers need to learn how to do exegetical study, synthesize material, determine the main idea, develop an outline, illustrate it clearly and creatively, apply it practically, and communicate it forcefully.
But the lay people in the study already knew this. There is a realism in lay perceptions; they realize they need help with biblical and theological understandings, and training in particular skills. They were willing to work hard and learn. Not everyone in the church had the same willingness, but those who did had a deep hunger to study and teach.
In the pulpit
So one morning I suggested my idea. Surprisingly, they agreed! They knew how powerfully the Scripture had spoken to them, and they wanted to let others know what they had learned.
We established a schedule. Each person would prepare and preach one message for a Sunday evening service. We would work through Philippians over several months, with a layman preaching every other week, and me taking the weeks in between. We selected the various passages for each week, and one by one they began to prepare. They developed their own main idea and outline. Then as a group we would discuss the pros and cons of their ideas and outline. Adjustments were made. During this process, I sought to impart the importance of their own spirituality in their message, and the need for a clear idea and practical application.
The congregation was warm and open when they preached. Attendance did not go down; it went up. The people preaching usually invited family members, friends, or coworkers who said, “I’ve gotta see this!” It turned out to be a great outreach.
I think all of us were genuinely surprised by the quality of the messages. I remember Phil’s preaching about “life in the arena” and telling of his work and ministry in the hospital-how he tried to meet people’s needs but had to endure much from unbelieving friends. Another lay preacher, a metal worker in an auto shop, preached on “God is at work in you,” and illustrated with a process for tempering metal that he knew from work. The illustration was perfect, and one I could never have used so well. Why didn’t we do this before? I thought.
As these people preached, more wanted to become involved, so I started an evening study. Meanwhile, members of the first group went on to preach at a rescue mission, an InterVarsity meeting, a ladies’ seminar, and Sunday school, and even served as the church’s built-in pulpit supply.
My deepest fear, I guess, was of reaction from the congregation: “Why isn’t our preacher preaching? That’s what he is supposed to do.” But all I heard were compliments on the messages the members gave. I did take some kidding, though: “Pastor, these people are stiff competition. You’re going to have to work to keep up with them!”
Kenneth B. Quick is pastor of Parkway Bible Church in Scarborough, Ontario.
MORE IDEAS
College-Level Care
“My wife and I have seen all four of our children leave for college in a distant location,” says Lud Golz, pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. “We were excited for them and sensed they were even more excited to be on their own. Yet we found them delighted whenever we would visit.
“Not long ago, as I was preparing to go to a conference, the idea hit me, Why not visit some of our college kids frown church along the way?”
Golz didn’t know whether the students would want to meet with their pastor and his wife on their turf, but he decided to see. He made a list of all the church’s collegians who were within reasonable distance of their planned route. He sent each a note indicating when they would be at his or her school and asking if that time would be convenient for a brief visit. The note said if he didn’t hear from them, he would try to call them the week before.
“My first visit was in a high-rise dorm at Ohio State,” Golz remembers. “The mother of one student had asked me to deliver a care package to her son, whom I had met only a couple of times. Dorm life on the 22nd floor was a zoo but with a care package in tow, I was warmly received. To my surprise, his roommate’s family had attended the church a few times. We chatted a few minutes-no messages from me, just questions about how it was going for a freshman on campus.”
The next few days the Golzes went from one college town to another. With some students they had breakfast, with others lunch or dinner. They were not able to contact a few students until they got on campus, and yet even with short notice, these students found time for a Coke or a chat outside the library.
“In all the meetings there was warmth, humor, and encouragement,” says Golz. “A few students were facing serious issues they really wanted to talk about. What a joy to participate in critical decisions they were making.” Golz left each student with an article he had written about knowing God’s will.
Golz thought they would be doing well if 50 percent of the students made time to see them. But of the twenty-six they tried to see, they were able to have face-to-face contact with twenty-two.
“Not one gave us the impression he or she didn’t want to see us. In fact, the opposite was true.” The parents of the visited students also told Golz they deeply appreciated his reaching out to their kids, and some said positive things had been happening in the students’ lives as a result. Says Golz, “This was one of the most fruitful and satisfying mission trips I have ever taken as a pastor.”
Double-Duty Dinners
A problem for many churches when they sponsor special films, Bible studies, and other faith-building programs is how to attract the people who need them most. Too often the people attending are ones who already are highly committed.
St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in St. Louis faced this problem with its annual four-part Christian education film series. Announcements were made from the pulpit, posters were hung, and flyers were inserted in the bulletin, but attendance at the first film was typically low. So the church came up with a new approach.
“The church has a history of supporting causes, whether youth work, missions, or whatever, through fundraising dinners,” explains associate pastor T. Scott Baker. “But the four-part film series received only modest support. So we decided to unite the two events.”
The church scheduled a pancake supper for one hour before the showing of the second film. The supper was prepared by the young couples’ group, with all proceeds designated to help refurbish the nursery. The result: an 80 percent increase in attendance at the film.
The third film, the following month, was preceded by a chili supper with all proceeds benefiting a home for adults with mental handicaps. This helped boost film attendance to 100 percent above month two.
Church-Shoppers’ Fair
Ned Flexer, pastor of Shepherd of the Hills Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, learned at a conference last year that during any week, the average person will be found in three places: home, work, and a shopping mall.
If local shopping malls can host psychic fairs, health fairs, and RV shows, why can’t they host a “church fair?” he wondered. Why can’t local congregations take their message to the public in this unique, busy setting?
Flexer, then pastor of Hatboro (Pennsylvania) Baptist Church, told his colleagues in the Hatboro ministerium the idea, and they agreed he should pursue it. When he explained it to the manager of the Village Mall in nearby Horsham, the manager offered the mall facilities for one Saturday that September-without cost.
Flexer sent letters to seventy-nine area churches, inviting each to set up a table and display area in the mall on that day “to describe and explain the ministry of your congregation.” Forty-two churches, representing over a dozen different denominations, responded.
Flexer’s church set up two tables with sample church bulletins, pamphlets such as “Who We Are As Baptists” and “How to Study the Bible,” free copies of the New Testament, and pens with the church name. Behind the table were three panels with pictures showing the church building, staff, and various programs; and signs telling about the church’s times of worship, and van ministry.
The next display, set up by the Lehmann Memorial United Methodist Church in Hatboro, included a miniature version of the church’s steeple made of cardboard and wood. People from the church handed out to children several hundred balloons carrying the church’s name.
Other churches played videotapes of their worship services or well-known Christian musicians.
“From 10 to 9, people strolled by the booths, picked up literature, and talked with church representatives about their church experience or lack of it,” says Flexer. “Another great benefit was the feeling of oneness the people from all these churches felt that day. It was like a church convention: members from the different churches circulated and talked to each other.”
Apparently the Christian witness of the participating churches was noticed. One mall merchant said to a Hatboro Baptist member, “This has been a good day for the mall and for my business. We’ve had a different kind of clientele that has been very enjoyable.”
Special Touch for Guest Speakers
When a church invites a guest speaker or musician who is married, it’s easy to forget that a spouse has had to stay home. The speaker’s family members have had to make sacrifices, and often feel lonely or left out.
So when the singles ministry at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle hosts a guest speaker who is married, they send roses to the spouse left at home, according to a report in Single Adult Ministries Journal.
Says staff member Rich Hurst, “It’s a way to acknowledge the value of the mate left behind, to affirm that he or she is a vital part of the ministry team, even though not getting up-front attention. Flowers are one way to say, ‘We recognize the price being paid. Thanks for sharing the gifts of your mate with us.’ “
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