Time has changed the way people view pastors. Perhaps we’re not lumped with scam artists or manipulative fundraisers, but we face an Olympic challenge to earn respect, credibility, and authority.
— Haddon Robinson
I attend a Bible study with business executives, and recently one man commented that in all the years he had been in business his pastor had never visited him at his office.
“It’s just as well,” said another. “A minister would feel out of place in my office.” Since I consider myself a minister, I pressed him to explain.
“Most ministers I know come across best visiting the hospital or working in the church environs. That’s their turf.” He went on to say that he saw the world of the pastor and the world of business people as very different. “The pastor is used to working alone or with a small staff, and his interest is relationships. The world of business is a more impersonal atmosphere dominated by people who put an emphasis on the bottom line.
“Pastors do pretty well with issues of grief and loneliness and interpersonal ethics—not stealing, coveting, fornicating, and so on,” he said. “But I don’t know too many pastors who address the problems of the individual’s conflicting loyalties in groups and organizations.”
Another man, who helps run a large construction corporation, agreed and offered an example: “A fellow owed us $500,000 when he died. He and his wife owned a house that was worth $150,000. The question is, do we sue the estate for the money we’re due, even if it costs the woman her house as part of the payment for her husband’s debt?”
He continued, “If you own the company, you can make a compassionate decision if you want to. But when you’re responsible to stockholders, and your job is to collect bad debts, where is your higher loyalty? Now, you might argue, ‘$150,000 isn’t worth it.’ But suppose the house is worth $500,000? Now do you go after it? Or a million? Is it ethical to go after a $500,000 house, but unethical to go after a $150,000 house?”
The businessmen agreed—rarely in church do they hear anybody even mention these kinds of issues. And yet that’s the common stuff of life. Those tough, morally ambiguous issues are where some business people have to live out their faith.
“While the preacher talks about absolutes, right and wrong,” one man said, “most of us deal with gray situations.”
Another said, “My pastor talks about ‘the good being an enemy of God’s best,’ but people in my world aren’t dealing with first or second moral choices. They’re down to the twelfth or thirteenth choices.
“As much as I appreciate my pastor and enjoy his sermons,” the businessman concluded, “it’s not often that he speaks about my world.”
I was dismayed by the conversation. Not everyone would agree with these businessmen; some people attend church expecting their minister to say something that will help them understand the broad issues of life a little better. But not many expect the preacher to be able to speak with insight to the particular world in which many of them live.
Changing Times
Time has changed the way people view pastors. The average preacher today is not going to make it on the basis of the dignity of his position.
A century ago, the pastor was looked to as the person of wisdom and integrity in the community. Authority lay in the office of pastor. The minister was the parson, often the best educated person in town, and the one to whom people looked for help in interpreting the outside world. He had the unique opportunity to read and study, and often was the principal voice in deciding how the community should react in any moral or religious situation.
But today, the average citizen takes a different view of pastors and preachers. Perhaps we’re not lumped with scam artists or manipulative fundraisers, but we face an Olympic challenge to earn respect, credibility, and authority.
In the face of society’s scorn—or being relegated to a box labeled private and spiritual—many preachers struggle with the issue of authority. Why should anyone pay attention to us? What is the source of our credibility? In such a climate, how can we regain the legitimate authority our preaching needs to communicate the gospel with power and effect?
Let me identify five guidelines that have assisted me.
Articulate Unexpressed Feelings
One way to build credibility with today’s congregations is to let people see that you understand their situation. Many people in the pew suspect that preachers inhabit another world. Folks in the pew nay listen politely to a reporter of the distant, biblical past, but they won’t be gripped unless they believe this speaker speaks to their condition.
This is why, in a sermon, I try to speak for the people before I speak to them. Have you ever listened to a speaker and found yourself saying, Yeah, that’s right; that’s my reaction, too? The speaker gave words to your feelings—perhaps better than you could have expressed them yourself. You sensed the preacher knew you. He explained you to you.
We capture the attention of people when we show that our experience overlaps theirs. For instance, a preacher might say, “There’s no good place for a .150 hitter in a championship lineup. No matter where you put him, he’s out of place.” If listeners know sports, they know that’s true. The preacher’s speaking their language.
Or the minister may take a punchline from a comic strip, or use material from Business Week or Advertising Age or The Wall Street Journal. A business executive will resonate with that. Obviously this pastor knows a bit more about the bottom line than playing Monopoly. Through illustrations, the preacher has revealed something about his reading, his thinking, and his awareness of life. When some areas of a speaker’s life overlap with the listeners’, they are more likely to listen. He’s gained some credibility. An ingredient in effective preaching is using specific material that connects with lives in the congregation.
The Invisible Congregation
Another way effective preachers connect with the audience is mentally to sit six or seven specific people around their desks as they prepare. I have assembled such a committee in my mind as real to me as if they were there.
In that group sits a friend who is an outspoken cynic. As I think through my material, I sometimes can hear him sigh, “You’ve got to be kidding, Robinson. That’s pious junk food. What world are you living in?”
Another is an older woman who is a simple believer, who takes preachers and preaching very seriously. While I prepare sermons, I ask, “Am I raising questions that will trouble her? Will my sermon help her?”
A teenager sprawls in the circle, wondering how long I’m going to preach. I can make the sermon seem shorter if I can keep him interested.
A divorced mother takes her place feeling alone and overwhelmed by her situation. What do I say to her?
Those are four of my seven. Another is an unbeliever who doesn’t understand religious jargon and yet has come to church, but doesn’t quite know why. Another makes his living as a dock worker. He has a strong allegiance to his union, thinks management is a rip-off, curses if he gets upset, and enjoys bowling on Thursday night.
The last is a black teacher who would rather attend a black church but comes to a white church because her husband thinks it’s good for their kids. She is a believer, but she’s angry about life. She’s very sensitive about racist remarks and putdowns of women, and will let me know if my sermon centers on white, middle-class values dressed up as biblical absolutes.
I change the group from time to time. But all of them are people I know. They have names, faces, and voices. I could prepare a vita on each of them. While they do not know it, each of them contributes significantly to my sermon preparation.
Admit Complexity
Let’s face it. Life is complex. But we sometimes preach as though it were not.
One time after I’d preached a sermon on love, a man came up and said, “You said that love means always seeking other people’s highest good.”
“Yes.”
“That’s fine, but my business puts me in competition with another man in this congregation. I run an efficient operation that lets me sell my product cheaper than his. What’s the loving thing to do—underprice him and take some of his customers? Or should I keep my prices roughly equal?”
Before I could respond, he went on.
“But that’s not the toughest part. A large corporation has just moved into town selling the same product. I’m going to have to scramble to stay in business, myself. I may have to cut prices so drastically it will drive my fellow church member into bankruptcy.
“I want to love this man. We’re in the same Sunday school class. I coach his kids in Little League. I want to do what’s best for him. But the name of the game out there is survival,” he said. “Why don’t preachers talk about these kinds of things when they talk about love?”
For us to communicate with authority, we’ve got to step into the slices of those Christians who are in the home and marketplace. No in alter how gray the issues, we’ve got to be willing to say, “As a pastor, I must talk about the hard questions.” In our preaching, we must recognize the complexity of the issues. How do we do that?
First, it’s helpful simply to admit the tension and point it out. All truth exists in tension. God’s love exists in tension with his holiness. Skillfully applying love and justice is not easy.
I believe God honors an honest try. People need to know that. Sometimes I’ll point out that we will make a wrong decision with the right motive, which is very different from making a right decision out of a wrong motive. As far as I know, the Bible never calls any action, in itself, right. No action is right apart from its motive. Obviously, there are some acts the Bible calls wrong: murder, lying, adultery. But it’s not as easy to classify right behavior.
Jesus talks about two men who went to the temple to pray—which sounds like a good religious act—except one is justified, and the o) her is not. Jesus talks about people giving—and that’s a good thing—except some give to be seen by others. That’s not good.
So in God’s economy, motive is a key factor. One of the things we preachers can say to people, with authority, is: “In these situations, it’s important to handle life skillfully, to make the right decisions. But the prior and more important decision is What’s motivating you? Are you willing to be God’s representative in this situation? Are you seeking what’s best in the lives of the people involved? Sometimes those decisions are confusing. We need wisdom. That’s what Christian friends and Christian counsel give you.”
Speak with Authority
Preachers, of course, have to be more than “fellow strugglers.” No one is helped by “You’re a loser; I’m a loser; let’s keep losing together.”
People want to believe you have taken your own advice and, while you’ve not arrived, you’re on the way. You’ll never learn to be a .300 hitter by watching three .100 hitters. You study a .325 hitter. Although he will occasionally strike out, he knows how to hit.
Likewise, people want to listen to somebody who knows what the struggle is, but who has taken the Bible’s message seriously and knows how to hit.
Of course, we identify with the needs and experiences of our people; we’re every bit as human as they are. But our task is to speak a word that is qualitatively different from normal conversation. Effective preaching combines the two and gives people hope that they can be better than they are.
When the combination is right, we preach with authority, which is different from being an authoritarian. Preaching with authority means you’ve done your homework. You know your people’s struggles and hurts. But you also know the Bible and theology. You can explain the Bible clearly. Preachers aren’t being authoritarian when they point people to the Bible. When Billy Graham explains, “The Bible says …” he’s relying not on his own authority but another—God’s Word—and he shows how that authority makes sense. We help our credibility when we practice biblical preaching.
The authoritarian, on the other hand, is someone who speaks about biblical and nonbiblical things in the same tone of voice. Whether the subject is the Super Bowl or the Second Coming, the verdict is delivered with the same certainty and conviction.
I realized the distinction one night when my wife, Bonnie, said to me, “You’ve been around the Bible too much. Any opinion from politics to sports has the same ring as your sermon on Galatians.” It’s easy to fall into that. An authoritative tone without genuine biblical authority is sound and fury signifying nothing.
When we speak with authority, we preach the Bible’s message without embarrassment, but we also communicate that we don’t always know how to tailor faith to life.
Be Precise in Descriptions
Authority also comes from a track record of being truthful and not distorting the facts. It’s especially important to be precise in our definitions and descriptions, whether we’re defining the historical background of the text or delivering an apt illustration. Accuracy builds credibility.
I once used an illustration about snakes and referred to them as “slimy, poisonous creatures.” A woman came up afterward and said, “Snakes aren’t slimy; they are dry. And most snakes aren’t poisonous.” She worked in a zoo, so she spotted that I was careless in my description. As a result, I had given her reason for suspecting the rest of what I had to say.
The need for precision is particularly acute with an antagonistic or less-than-supportive audience. They’ll focus on your minor error as a reason for not listening to the rest of what you have to say.
With the high stakes involved, what do we say when we need to use an illustration from an area outside our expertise? The answer lies in a recent sermon I heard. The preacher was from Britain, and he was trying to identify with his American audience by talking about baseball. He referred to a “four-base hit.” Baseball fans know you don’t get a four-base hit; it’s a homer. That didn’t turn me off to the sermon, but I remember thinking. He doesn’t know baseball. It distanced us. His credibility was diminished.
But, he could have sidestepped the difficulty had he simply admitted, “Look, I’m a stranger to baseball, but I enjoyed watching it. As I saw the game, here’s what happened.” Then people understand the speaker isn’t trying to speak with authority on this issue, and they grant him or her the license to speak in less-than-precise terms.
Years ago when I first began to teach at Dallas Seminary, I asked Charles Ryrie, another professor on the faculty, if he had any advice to help a young professor. He replied, “Whenever you state the case of someone disagreeing with you, imagine that your opponent is sitting in the front row of the class. State his position in such a way that he would say, ‘Yes, that is what I believe.’ And then you can take issue with the position.”
The advice for the classroom is good advice for the pulpit. It is dishonest to characterize someone else’s position in a way that person would disavow. Being precise and fair, even with differing viewpoints, also adds to our credibility.
Display Character
For church leaders, perhaps no factor contributes more to legitimate authority and credibility than authentic Christian character. It’s what Aristotle called ethos; in New Testament terms, it’s being me hire, upright. It’s what you are, which is always more important than what you do. These days, if we want credibility in the pulpit, genuine character has to come through.
The difficulty, however, is that credibility comes from the way people perceive a pastor’s character, and this may or may not align with what the pastor really is. Some pastors, dedicated to Christ and to the ministry, present themselves in a way that disguises their true character. A male pastor may be courageous but be perceived as effeminate. Another may have deep convictions but come across as slovenly or boring. How people perceive our character, spiritual life, intellectual life, and family life has much to do with how they respond to our ministry.
Part of effective preaching is the ability to make the presentation match the internal conviction. The image we project will influence our credibility. Appearance in the pulpit will affect the way people respond. I’m convinced inwardly, for example, of the importance of discipline and order in the Christian life. How can I present myself in a way that matches the conviction? In the first thirty seconds, people are deciding whether they’re going to listen. God looks on the heart, but people in our culture look on the outside. Am I disheveled? Do my shoes need to be shined? If I’m fifty pounds overweight, they may perceive that I’m not disciplined or that I’ m careless about myself.
Obviously one advantage of a lengthy ministry is that the pastor has a better chance to bring perception and reality together. The long-term pastor is judged more on his pattern of behavior than on a specific appearance. People are more likely to say, “The pastor not only talks love; he gives love. He was there in our family crisis when we needed him.” A pattern of care can cover a multitude of less-than-stellar sermons.
Of course, the flip side is that we may have things to live down, and that also takes time. A pastor I know lost his temper in a board meeting and spoke some harsh words in anger. Now, months later, when he stands in the pulpit, some people play that record mentally. Another pastor in a similar situation confessed his misuse of anger and publicly asked for forgiveness. He got it. In his case, people learned that the fellow they saw in the pulpit was real and had integrity.
Ethos comes from authentic ministry—praying for individuals, remembering people’s names, caring for them in times of crisis. And it comes from recognizing and articulating the struggles people face and offering an appropriate word from God. All this shapes our character, and this character is vital as we preachers strive for our rightful authority among those we serve.
Copyright © 1989 by Christianity Today
