If done right, preaching never produces a conscious moment of being in the spotlight. But it will put the spotlight where it belongs – on Him whom we preach. And in gazing upon that spotlighted figure, those to whom we preach will be bettered, and helped, and encouraged, and enabled to persevere, forgive, repent, serve, and worship. And the one who preached will back up into the shadows where he belongs and be thankful.

I recently read a quote by a man who spends a lot of time leading leaders. He has a great number of followers and I have no doubt that a great number of church leaders have been helped by what he has to say. He made this quote earlier this week – “Another way to take the pressure off yourself and help your church experience consistently strong preaching is to share the spotlight: develop a team approach to preaching…The best way to break the chains of insecurity is to share the spotlight with someone more gifted than you. So share the spotlight. It will do you and your church more good than you realize.”

Well, allow an Are Not to comment.

It is good advice for a pastor to share the preaching ministry in his church. It is almost a complete misunderstanding of the ministry of preaching to call it the “spotlight”.

There is no doubt that there are spotlight aspects to preaching. There are those who, after a message, will thank the preacher, pat him on the back, say how meaningful the message was to them. While preaching, the preacher is the centre of attention, the centre of most of the congregation’s attention, the one who appears on the screen and seems to be the only one in the room. In some churches the preacher has an actual spotlight shining on him. But a man whose work includes the regular preaching of the Word of God and who thinks that one of the reasons he should let other people preach from time to time is so that they can share in the spotlight does not truly understand what preaching is. Having a team approach to the preaching of the Scriptures may be a good thing if there are those in the church who are gifted for it and can be properly trained. But putting them into the pulpit so that the spotlight can be shared is about as far away from a legitimate reason to preach as possible.

Real preaching is pastoral. I have the privilege of preaching in different churches and it truly is a great honour. I believe that if I can preach to strangers in any effective manner, it is because I have been trained to do so through preaching to people I pastored and shared life with. Really effective preaching takes place by a man who is part of the church in which he preaches, and he is preaching to people he knows. He is preaching to people he has visited, prayed with, prayed for. He knows that when he goes into the pulpit there are sitting in front of him people who are overcome with all kinds of problems. There are parents agonizing over the life choices of their children.

Read More