Many churches have one preacher and the pulpit is a protected zone.  Other churches have a pulpit that is shared between several speakers.  Some churches have to give their pulpit to visiting speakers in order to function.  Following on from the two posts on multi-speaker series, here are a few more thoughts:

1. Protected pulpits can be shared more.  If you’re a pastor who always does all the preaching, perhaps it’s time to loosen your grip.  Is there another pastor in town you could switch with periodically?  Who are the gifted individuals in the church that you could encourage and train to preach now and then?  It’s ironic that some pastors feel threatened by this, but in reality they could be saving their own future.  A protected pulpit will need filling if you are out of commission through illness or family crisis.  If there are two or three men in the church that you’ve trained, then they could keep things ticking over for you.  If there aren’t, then the church will have to look outside, which could mean calling a new pastor.  Having said that, if you’re trying to protect your office by your own effort, perhaps it’s time to move on anyway?

2. Develop the preachers within.  It is healthy for the church to have individuals developing and using the gifts they have.  So seek out those who have potential to preach and then develop them.  If they aren’t ready for your pulpit yet, is there a struggling church nearby they could be a blessing to in the meantime through semi-regular visits?  As well as in-house training, why not use church money to send them on a formal preaching course at a local seminary, or a one-off event (see “Preaching Course” tab at the top if you live in the UK).

3. Use once a year speakers carefully.  If you have individuals that can preach, but do so very infrequently, be careful which Sunday you give them.   It may be tempting to give them a stand alone service like Easter Sunday, Christmas or Mother’s Day.  After all, they can prepare for months, the material is not complicated and they aren’t bound to the constraints of a series.  However, remember that those are days when visitors will be in church.  It would make more sense to give visitors a taste of the more regular preachers. 

4. Use outsiders carefully.  Some churches have no choice but to use outside speakers.  But I am surprised by some churches that choose to use outside speakers more than necessary.  Be careful to select wisely.  Be careful to promote wisely.  I’ve seen it more than once where an outsider is coming in to “preach evangelistically” and the church has been encouraged to “bring friends” – only to have a very uncomfortable or disappointing experience.  If you do use an outsider for an evangelistic event, communicate repeatedly and in detail with both the speaker and the congregation.  A contact with a neighbor may take months or years to nurture, so to have that work wasted by an uncomfortable evangelistic service is very painful . . . and that church member won’t be rushing to bring outsiders in the future.