Yesterday I considered the blessing of genuine encouragements received in preaching.  The best encouragement of all may not be the comments from others, but the observed life change in those fed by the Word.  But I also noted the need to record such encouragements, because there will be times when you encouragements drawer will offer much needed strength in the face of stone cold silence and apparent fruitlessness.

But there is more sweetness to preaching than just seeing lives changed.

If the sweetness is changed lives, then don’t miss the one life that hears every time you preach.  I don’t mean your spouse, although any encouragements there are worth so much.  I mean you.  Every time you or I prepare a sermon we are involved.  We go through the times of prayer, the valleys, the highs, the wrestling with the text, the grappling with the big idea, the prayerful cutting of material, the sermon run throughs for an audience of two (the Lord, and yourself).

A lot of this process may be agonizing.  Much of it can seem like thankless toil.  But there are good times too.  Times of sweet fellowship with the Lord.  Times of clarity in the exegesis of the text.  Times of blessing and encouragement.  Sweet times.  When these occur, perhaps find a way to mark them just like the thank-you notes we mentioned yesterday.  Perhaps an entry in a journal, or a note on your notice board, a visual memorial on a shelf . . . something to remind you of how good it can be, and will be again.

Preaching is agony much of the time, it has to be.  But it is a sweet privilege to see God at work in your life, and through you, in the lives of others.

Today’s post could not be more relevant to preachers.  But to get to it, you need to click here.

What are some of the reasons that preacher’s lose the motivation and half quit over the years of ministry?  Yesterday I pondered the issues of church battle scars, spiritual warfare fatigue and emotional drain.  Let me finish the list now, although this is only intended to start us thinking.  What would you add?

4. Physical Weariness – A preaching ministry is not a natural vocation in which to be physically fit.  Sitting, reading, thinking, praying.  We would do well to be good stewards – watching what goes in, watching how much or how little we do, etc.  Over time there are also the challenges of physical ill health, not always related to fitness.  Preparing to preach with a tired body and foggy mind is hard, and we’ll be increasingly tempted to just do “enough.”

5. Seasons Without “Success” – There are seasons of ministry that just feel like a hard slog.  Every inch gained feels like it took it out of us.  People can seem unusually unresponsive.  Hearts can seem extremely hardened all around.  Somehow our ministry seems to be like a slog through mud, and we don’t know why.  These seasons can really take the wind out of our sails.

6. Seasons With “Success” – The opposite is also true.  Seasons of unusually responsive people can lead to us being drained and somehow weakened.  Like Elijah we can come from great success into great inner turmoil and struggle.  We need to watch out for the good times that we always pray for during the tough times – neither are easy to navigate well!

7. Distracted Heart – This could and should be a post on its own.  How easily our hearts get distracted!  The list of potential other loves that could draw us from our devotion to Christ is probably endless.  Hobbies.  Power.  Illicit fantasy.  Pursuit of fame.  The love of money.  The only One who can search and know the state of our heart is the One before whom we must keep our hearts forever open.

And…?

Yesterday I blogged about the danger of the “half quit” – that way in which our heart pulls back as we go through the motions. We can do it in passage study, in message planning, I’ve seen it done in delivery, I know the regular temptation in post-sermon reflection, then there’s seasons of criticism, or lack of response, etc. While we may be unwilling, for a variety of reasons, to fully quit, the half quit is an ever present temptation.

So how do we overcome the half-quit? I suppose there are several approaches, some better than others:

1. The inner self flesh effort. Look within, steel yourself, determine to be diligent, be your own drill sergeant, do the right thing! Lots of ways to say it. Typically only one ultimate outcome. It is easy to feel like we are rousing ourselves to great commitment under the hype of a presentation on the need for personal discipline (even our listeners might get stirred if we preach that way, but don’t be fooled into thinking it will still be “working” come Thursday!) The problem here is that self-stirring to great devotion in ministry is exactly what we’re talking about – what do we do when we come to times where that is absent. It makes no sense to rely on the very mechanism whose absence is the problem.

2. The outer appearance self-elevating effort. Here’s a real danger. What will people think? We can be stirred to press on due to keeping up appearances. In one sense there is value here. We don’t want to stumble others. We don’t want to crash and burn because we love those who would be caught in our wake. But there is a real danger here. Doing the right thing in ministry in order to look good creates an ever-increasing divide between reality and appearance. Eventually this show becomes as paper thin as the performance of a stand-up comedian who performs outwardly, but is utterly broken within.

3. The energy from genuine relationship. There is little in life that is as motivating as good genuine fellowship other’s captured by Christ. Looking to Christ together with others who are not performing somehow will stimulate motivation to press on like very little else. We need to be genuinely conversing with our Lord in every circumstance. He is the One who we press on to know more, who puts the fire in our bones like the prophets of old, who is the real treasure at work within these breaking vessels!

Any solution to the half quit that is about looking to myself, or about how I look to others, will be self-defeating and only make matters worse. We need to be responding to the life giver Himself, for fellowship with Him is life itself. Maybe the temptation to half-quit is a warning that the conversation has gone quiet, that your heart has grown distant and distracted. Let the warning nudge you back toward Him.