"I've never confessed this before to anyone," a pastor once told me, "but I hate preaching." Using his tie as a handkerchief, he wiped his eyes. "Yet I love serving God," he continued. "To those who enjoy preaching, I must sound like some kind of freak."

"You are not alone," I said confidently, because I've had the same feeling.

Some ministers lose sleep prior to Sunday's sermon, literally get migraine headaches and feel nauseous as the event approaches. Sunday afternoon they suffer a range of emotions, from despair to self-hate. But migraines and despair are only symptoms of a deeper problem: the need to preach with excellence, or even better.

Theodore Isaac Rubin's book Compassion and Self-Hate provides help for those driven by the demands of preaching. He writes of his own struggles to become a great lecturer who "wowed" people. At the end of lectures, however, he knew only head-aches and intense ego-aches. Rubin's understanding of his complex reactions is handily adapted to preachers.