Preaching Worth Hearing

by Joe Thorn on September 13, 2006

I have heard of churches/gatherings who creatively read old sermons as the preaching for their services. Everyone knows this is not original material, and they happen to enjoy going through classic sermons. This was done in a couple of churches that were without a pastor, but wanted to be fed. I’m cool with that.

I have also heard from preaching professors that a preacher will, and should not be afraid to, borrow from others. Illustrations, examples, etc. were said to be fair game.

I understand that as one prepares to preach or teach many influences enter the mind, and heart and one cannot always recall where a phrase or idea comes from when speaking to the people. In my estimation, this is not a problem.
But until recently I had not heard of pastors being exhorted to simply reuse the sermons of popular preachers and forgo their own study and sermon preparation (and development in this area). Recently Steve Sjogren argued for this kind of approach to preaching and Dr. Ray Van Neste takes issue with it.

What are you hoping for when looking for a preacher? How important do you think it is for a pastor to preach his own sermons? Read both articles and leave your thoughts. I have some things I would like to say, but will have to come back later when I have time – I am busy preparing a message.

About Joe Thorn

I am the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Saint Charles, IL, and author of Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself. Jen is my wife, and Katherine, Elias, Madeline and Kilian are my kids.

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  • http://ctlillies.blogspot.com/ Josh Kidwell

    “A good fisherman fishes in many ponds,” my first pastor told me once. He was talking about preaching. He didn’t, however, say “A good fisherman steals fish from other fisherman.” I think–which is easy to do sitting in a pew–that preaching should be an expression of a pastor’s inner spiritual life.

    Preach on!
    Josh

  • http://www.buzzardblog.typepad.com Justin Buzzard

    Ya, I read what Sjorgen’s comment in his church planting book and was shocked and surprised. Game on with gaining insight, ideas, and such from fellow preachers, but what a tragedy for the gospel, gospel contextualization, and for the people to simply copy cat a sermon.

  • http://www.chriselrod.com Chris Elrod

    How can you preach – with passion – something that isn’t yours? Not possible!!!

  • http://scottslayton.blogspot.com Scott Slayton

    The thing that stikes me about sermon borrowing is that the pastor is not taking the time to wrestle with a passage of Scripture for himself. There is something that is incredibly powerful on Sunday when a pastor emerges having wrestled with God and His word that week. Spending 25 hours a week working on messages is not a waste of time. It is one of the best things that I pastor can do.

  • http://theviewfromosprey.blogspot.com/ Tom Bryant

    I too fish from a lot of ponds… but it’s amazing to me that the only 30-45 uninterrupted minutes that we have with our people where we can reveal not only the heart of God through the Scriptures but also our own heart, we let someone else do the talking.

  • http://www.jasonkearney.net jasonk

    All these noble comments being written, even while preachers everywhere are cracking open their MacArthur commentaries, in preparation for Sunday.
    Joe, it is like singing a song. I like songwriters, because they are the ones who can sing their songs with the most passion, since they lived the song. They may not be the best singers (eg Bob Dylan) but because they lived it, it is more meaningful coming from them.
    Preaching is not much different. Looking back over all the sermons I preached in my 15 year career as a preacher, much of it was inspired by the heroes of the pulpit, but I wrote every word, and if I used a quote from someone else, I always gave credit.
    Part of the problem with reaching people is the credibility of the preacher. Preachers have credibility problems because they are known to be liars, even from the pulpit. They tell a story as if it is true, when everyone knows it is not. They personalize an illustration, and half the people there heard the same story personalized by a different preacher.
    Bottom line, preach your own material, but be inspired by others’ material.

  • Pingback: Thinking about preaching (around blogdom) « Expository Thoughts

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