What I Wish I’d Known Before I Started Preaching
When the time came to take preaching for my M.Div., my Episcopal seminary was between preaching professors.
However, my seminary was part of a consortium of seminaries, and right next door to ours was the Dominicans. If you don’t know, Dominicans are the Catholic order of preachers.
Preaching is what they do!
My Dominican professor couldn’t have been better experienced or prepared to teach his newbies, and I loved every minute of it!
By the end of the semester I felt encouraged and prepared to go forth and proclaim the gospel.
And then—I graduated.
And started my first call.
And preached regularly.
Prepared?! Ha!
Little did I know!
There’s a difference between the academic exercise of preparing a sermon for a homiletics class and the lifestyle of being a preacher.
One semester of homiletics does not a proficient preacher make!
Here are some of the struggles I had when I started preaching.
I’m sharing the main challenges I faced along with what I wish I’d known: suggestions to make this preaching life easier—no matter how many years you’ve been in the pulpit!
How do I Get a Sermon Ready on deadline without becoming a wreck?
In my first call, I was on a staff with two other preachers, and I preached once a month.
How long did it take me to prepare a sermon? Four weeks!
One week to recover from my last sermon, and three to get ready for the next one.
I had no idea how to organize my time.
I did a little at a time, squeezing some preparation in most days, not because I had a plan—but because I didn’t.
I didn’t know what I should be doing so I flailed around, jumping from one idea to the next, one commentary to next, and writing too many drafts.
I didn’t know how not to let the pressure of the deadline increase its weight as each week ticked by until I was in a panic.
Worst of all, I didn’t know how not to do sermon prep at home on my personal time—after my work day was supposed to be done or on my Sabbath day—because that seemed like the only uninterrupted time I could count on.
As a result, my mental health, spiritual health, and relationship with my spouse suffered.
What I WIsh I’d Known
Start early in the week with a slow reading of the texts to get them into my bones.
Make sermon prep time sacrosanct. Nothing gets scheduled over it, and nothing undermines the time unless my house is burning down around my ears or someone is literally dying.
Make sermon prep something to look forward to, with reserved treats and locations that are only for sermon prep, like special coffees and teas, music, and coffee shops. Oh! And don’t forget dark chocolate! : )
Begin with rituals. Each stage of sermon prep has its own ritual that transitions me from what I was doing into a holy space and time set apart to be with God. And because I’m not to be disturbed during that time, I feel like I get to “step off the planet” for a while.
Train people to leave me alone. When I put a “do not disturb” sign on my door, I mean it. I especially had to reinforce this in my household when family members kept knocking on my door when the house was not burning down around our ears. I had to be gentle and consistent in asking them to wait until I came out of my study.
what makes a sermon “work”?
In the fifteen weeks of my one semester of homiletics, I learned:
some about what a sermon is and isn’t
Tom Long’s enduring principles of “form and function”
and to have just one message in a sermon.
But beyond that?
Not a lot, because there just wasn’t enough time.
I went to seminary with a nursing degree.
I had experience taking care of someone after receiving a heart transplant, or after they’d been in surgery for twelve hours fixing their smashed bones and internal organs after a motorcycle crash.
Neither my undergraduate degree, my nursing experience, or frankly, writing academic papers offered any useful background towards preaching.
No amount of help from the Holy Spirit was going to make up the gap between my training and stringing together words into a coherent, compelling message that made a difference in people’s lives.
While becoming an effective preacher takes practice and feedback, there were simple things I wish I had known to focus on.
What I wish I’d known
Use a word count for manuscripts, or time a practice run through a sermon to ensure my sermon isn’t be too long. (Oy! I look back on some of my early manuscripts and wonder how people sat through them, they were soooo long!)
Relax about word choices. I didn't need to perfectly manicure my every sentence.
Some people will like my preaching “voice,” and some won’t. Every preacher has a unique style. Discover, embrace, and share yours for the sake of your integrity and authenticity with the Spirit, not because of the way people respond to it.
Find a mentor and editor. They might have been the same person, but I needed both. One who would help me develop in the craft, and the other to make my drafts better.
Improvement requires more than preaching workshops and conferences. I attended many of both, but I didn’t know how to apply and practice what I learned. I wish I had sought out more meaningful and long-lasting help.
Finally, receiving-line comments are not indicative of how “good” or “bad” I am at preaching. Parishioners listen to hear Good News, not with the aim of critiquing sermons. If I want useful feedback, I need to find someone who listens for that purpose and knows how to offer feedback skillfully.
How do I “earn” my place in the pulpit?
Although I gained confidence from my preaching professor’s affirmations, my confidence wasn’t enough to contend with my nerves when I faced a congregation of two hundred fifty people eager for Good News (or at the very least, eager to not be put to sleep) in the shadow of a rector who was deeply appreciated for his sermons.
What were they going to think of me?
I wasted too many sermons on what I thought people would like, for the purpose of securing their respect, and thus neglected what I actually needed to say.
I wasted time and energy feeling like I needed to “apologize” for my youth and lack of life experience, for “not knowing what I was doing.”
I gave more weight to the voices of “authorities” than to my own.
I had a lot of imposter syndrome to work through, believing I needed approval to preach, rather than trusting the call I had received that had been affirmed by my denomination.
What I wish I’d known
People respond more to speaking from the heart than a “perfectly” crafted sermon. Perfection isn’t needed. Showing up fully as myself is.
The philosophy of “get out of the way of the text" is as impossible as it is ridiculous. How can the Word abide in us—in us, our persons—without it shaping us, and being shaped by us for our sermons? There’s no such thing as a “pure” text that lives apart from humanity.
My perspective is valid and worth giving voice to. I may not be a writer by trade, but I study the texts, am connected to God, and take in what is happening in the world. I can “see” the reign of God, and I need to trust the Spirit working through me. I wish I’d trusted myself to preach what I believed was possible with God’s help.
Sermon prep can be a spiritual practice.
I was deep into contemplative prayer and reading the mystics when I started out preaching, but it never occurred to me that developing a sermon was a spiritual practice, too.
The key difference in sermon prep that’s infused with anxiety versus sermon prep that’s infused with spirituality? Intention.
Are we preparing a sermon so that we can get on to the next thing? Or so we have something to say, sparing us from the fear of having nothing to say? Or are we preparing a sermon to incarnate the Word of God in ourselves and for our listeners and the benefit of humanity?
I started with the former, and it took years to discover the latter.
More than all the others, this last piece of wisdom is the one I most wish I’d known from the start.
WANT to Shorten the Learning Curve?
I trust you are as capable as I was at finding your way and learning the lessons about preaching that you need.
But learning by trial and error takes a long time, and I wish I hadn’t lost so much of mine.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Left to your own devices, I’m confident you’ll find your way.
But if you’d rather shorten the learning curve so you can continue to grow in other ways, the Mentorship may be for you.
Born from my hard-won lessons hopes of saving other preachers the heartache I faced along the way, the Mentorship offers:
1:1 mentoring to address the calendar chaos, imposter syndrome, spiritual disconnection, or other challenges you may be facing in your preaching life
Loads of sermon feedback so you know what’s working, what isn’t, and most importantly, why! So you can become ever more confident and compelling in the pulpit
A community of like-minded preachers to walk with you through this program—encouraging, inspiring, and delighting in their diverse expression of God’s word