When the Word of God is preached, something happens.  God’s Word, inspired by God’s Spirit, pointing toward God’s Son, spoken by a person empowered by the Spirit of God for their calling from God’s Son, to people prepared by the Spirit of God – it’s a recipe for response!

At times we can see that response.  We get to see the people moved, the individuals gripped, the lives changed.  Sometimes we see something at the moment of preaching, or soon afterwards.  Sometimes we only see the response over months and years of ministry.

At other times we don’t see the response.  We preach our hearts out and are devastated by polite niceties.  Or perhaps we don’t see the response we long for.  Perhaps we get the response of criticism, or argument, or outright attack.  Not quite what we had in mind when we prayed for lives to be changed!

Nevertheless, let’s be committed to preach for response, even an apparently negative one, rather than playing safe and settling for nothing other than polite platitudes.  Obviously any one of us could abuse this post.  We could take it as an excuse to wind people up, to create tensions, to lack sensitivity.  We must all answer for our own motivations, and of course, we will answer as preachers for how we have taken the opportunity to present God’s Word (2Tim.4:1-2).

Let’s not settle for smooth, let’s rather preach the Word with sensitivity to God and to His people, with a prayer-fuelled passion to see Him prompting response rather than apathy, transformation rather than safety.

There are some preachers that claim to be oblivious to negative emotion in regard to preaching.  That is to say, when it’s done, it’s done.  No looking back, no regrets, no negative emotions.  I don’t believe there can be too many like that.  For most of us preaching involves giving of ourselves and often feeling vulnerable and low afterwards.

It’s important to remember that our own perspective on our preaching is not fully trustworthy.  Sometimes what felt horrible to you will have been a real blessing to some listeners (and genuinely not horrible to the rest).  Sometimes what felt like a stunning message to you will have felt somewhat flat to most listeners (and perhaps even poor to some)!

It is important that we don’t trust our own feelings in post-sermon self-evaluation.  Perhaps you have a spouse or friend who understands your need for encouragement afterwards and constructive critique a day or two later?  Perhaps you’ve found it best to always come back to the Lord and hand it all over to Him?  Perhaps you have learned to reason with your own flawed thinking and pray it through?

I’m not going to suggest one approach to handling this issue, but I raise it to suggest that you may need to find an approach that works for you and keeps you pressed up against the Lord in the dangerous post-preaching phase of ministry life!

The elements that go together to make up this thing called expository preaching are four. There is the God’s empowering/anointing/superintending element. There is the true meaning of the biblical text element. There is the effective communication of the preacher’s words and life element. And there is the emphasis on the contemporary relevance to the listeners element. Each of these is critical, but surely the first is the hardest to define.

I suppose in simplistic short-hand the key to the message being superintended by the Spirit is to pray throughout the preparation process.  The deliberate act of prayer demonstrates the preacher’s dependence on God rather than on self.  Obviously this is a simplistic explanation, but not so simplistic that it shouldn’t be expressed.  How many preachers grow increasingly deficient when it comes to prayer in their ministry?  Of course, prayer offers no guarantee or short-cut, but it is absolutely vital.

If we were to push deeper into this element of preaching, then we would have to look beyond the simple matter of prayer in preparation and consider the whole spirituality of the preacher.  We do not preach out of a vacuum of preparation and a pot of resources restricted to that particular sermon.  As someone once said, it takes hours to prepare a sermon, but it takes a lifetime to prepare a preacher.  There is something about the preacher’s personal walk with the Lord that is essentially linked in to the ministry of that preacher.

But there are other factors to consider.  What about the whole issue of anointing and gifting for ministry?  What about the spiritual state of the listeners?  What about the role of prayer beyond that of the preacher in preparation?  What about the jar of clay circumstances sometimes imposed on the preacher?

The necessity of empowerment from God is undeniable.  It’s the defining how that all works that’s the challenge!

Before you know it, 2010 will be here.  What do you hope for in terms of your preaching ministry during next year?  Do you pray for more opportunities or more help with the preaching in your church?  Do you pray for more fruit in the lives of your listeners, or more fruit in your private spiritual walk?  Do you pray for one area of your preaching to be strengthened, or for greater consistency in your preparation?  Do you pray for fruitful times in the Word, or fruitful pastoral interactions with people in the church?  Do you pray for diligence in following through on that training opportunity you are wanting to pursue, or for the courage to follow through on mentoring others?

There is a lot that we can pray about in advance of 2010.  Of course, praying is vital.  But it is worth asking, if you have a specific and tangible goal, what are you going to do to meet it?  Prayerfully, of course, but it probably requires something of you too.  When January comes everyone goes on about New Year’s resolutions.  As a leader you need to be ahead of the game.  Perhaps the next few days might give opportunities, moments of respite from seasonal festivities, to prayerfully ponder your preaching ministry in 2010.

The last thing we want to do is preach just because we do.  There will never be another 2010 . . . how can we make it count.  If you’ve given any thought to your 2010, please share for our encouragement.