Recently Mike quoted Haddon Robinson concerning preaching being your center:

“If preaching is not your center, then you will not preach. You will give all of your time, all of your energy, and all of your heart to other areas of ministry. However, if you are called by God to preach, if you burn to preach, if preaching is your center, then you will do whatever is necessary to make preaching central to your week of ministry.”

The target for this statement is evidently the full-time minister.  But what about the thousands of preachers who earn their living in “secular” employment?  Andrea in Italy wrote and asked, “How can preaching be my center, when I have a secular job?  Is there anyone in a situation like mine?”

Globally there are many more preachers earning their living from other employment than there are those privileged with a paycheck for preaching.  Of these preachers who earn their living outside of preaching, there are two categories.  First, there are those, like Andrea, with a passion and burden to preach.  Second, there are those who preach occasionally, but preaching is not primarily “their thing.”

So if you have a passion and burden to preach the Word, but by choice or circumstance are paid for other work, can preaching still be your center?  I believe it can.  First, God knows your situation and the time you are able to sacrificially devote to preaching (reading, studying, preparing, etc.)  Second, the fire can still burn in your heart as you work (analyzing culture, learning about people, experiencing life in all its complexity, practicing the presence of God through conversational prayer, reading a preaching book during lunch, etc.)  Third, whether it is our job or not, we all have to continually choose whether preaching is really central to our reason for existence!

The Bible does affirm the reimbursement of some who are devoted to preaching and teaching.  But the Bible does not require a preacher to be “full-time” in order to serve God in such a ministry.  A preacher with other paid employment may have some disadvantages (less time to study the text and prepare), but also has some definite advantages (more opportunity to study the listeners, potentially greater credibility, and typically higher income !)

If a preacher has other employment and still tries to preach three-plus times each week, then I feel for their predicament.  But if they preach slightly less frequently than paid preachers, perhaps there is little difference overall!

I remember a conversation with a missionary in Africa who felt discouraged because he often had to work 18 hours per day on the land in order to sustain his family.  He felt like he should quit the ministry since he didn’t have more time, or “full-time” to give.  I asked if he’d seen any fruit in his ministry.  He had.  Through this brother God had planted six churches among an unreached nomadic tribe.  He knew of no other evangelical missionary working among this people group.  So, my profound advice to him?  Don’t quit.

Pay is a privilege for some of us.  Ministry is a privilege for all of us.  If preaching is the central passion of your ministry, then whatever your life circumstances, it will show!