Rick Ezell is the pastor at First Baptist Church in Greer, South Carolina. Rick is a consultant, conference leader, communicator, and coach. He is the author of six books, including Strengthening the Pastor's Soul.
“Preaching is not so much preparing a sermon and delivering it as it is preparing a preacher and delivering him,” wrote Bishop William Quayle nearly a hundred years ago. When you preach, in many respects, you are the message. If your personal life is not congruent with your words, then a mixed message is delivered. Your integrity will be called into question, and your message will not be received. Here are five keys to embodying the message:
1. Develop a personal vision. Vision
comprises an ability to see through God’s eyes what he wants
accomplished through your preaching and ministry. Your vision is the
wood that keeps the fires of your ministry burning. Vision understands
that you cannot do everything as a preacher, but you can do something.
What is God asking you to do?
2. Balance your priorities.
Priorities are doing the right things right and putting the first things
first to produce order, peace, and wholeness in life. As a preacher,
one of your highest priorities is preaching each Sunday. If your
priorities are not in order, it is easy to let the urgent dominate your
life, it is easy to say yes to the lesser tasks of ministry, it is easy
to waste your energy on unimportant events, and it is easy to be
influenced by controlling people. Make the main thing the main thing.
Preaching is one of those main things.
3. Focus your planning. Planning
comes by scheduling your priorities, not by prioritizing what’s on your
schedule. Preparation for preaching must be calendared, scheduled, and
committed to on your daily agenda. Then it must be honored with as much
importance as any other plan. Planning allows you to create rather than
to react. If you are waiting until the end of the week to prepare your
sermon, you are not giving it the needed attention, research, and time
before God that it needs.
4. Invest in foundational pursuits.
These are the actions that replenish and refresh the soul. Preaching is a
demanding and draining task. Someone equated preaching a sermon to the
equivalent of laboring an eight-hour day. If you don’t invest in
yourself, you will destroy yourself. The foundational investments are,
first, rest and exercise for physical stamina. Second, engage in your
personal spiritual growth. You should meet with Jesus, not just to
prepare a sermon, but for your own spiritual progress. Third, read for
lifelong learning. Great preachers never stop learning. Read beyond
sermon preparation material. Fourth, reflect on the journey. Reflection
helps you to see where you’ve been, where you are, and where you are
going.
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