When you step into the pulpit to preach, certain things come with the territory.  When you preach, you will be discouraged.  Not every time, hopefully, but fairly regularly.  In this series of posts I want to list sources of that discouragement.  Perhaps there are ways to overcome each one, but I don’t claim to have the answers here.  It is helpful, however, to be able to distinguish between types of discouragement.  In this series I want to recognize and honor the discouraged preachers.  Perhaps the discussion stimulated by this will help us all, whether we are discouraged now or not yet!

1. Falling short of personal expectation. Often the flowing power-packed sermon you knew in the study feels like a stuttering limp effort in delivery.  We can be our own worse critics and it is worth remembering that we spot flaws in our preaching that others don’t see (vice versa is also true, of course!)  You know you missed that illustration, they don’t.  Sometimes it is worth getting feedback either from listeners or by reviewing the CD or video to see for yourself whether it was as bad as you thought.  Typically it wasn’t.

2. Negative feedback. Sometimes we receive feedback that pours cold water on any embers of motivation left after preaching.  It could be a “constructively helpful critic” who feels it is their ministry to spot a hole and point it out (a “well-intentioned dragon!”)  It could be a negatively wired individual whose general demeanor is cloudy and who speaks in a moan – they don’t have to comment on the sermon, just interacting with them steals any joy you may have.  Right after preaching, negative comments don’t have to be about the sermon to make us feel bad about our preaching!  Perhaps a persistent offender could be carefully encouraged to submit feedback later in the week when the emotions aren’t so raw and vulnerable.  Perhaps a persistent moaner will require a different strategy!

In part 2 I will list more sources of discouragement for the preacher.