Preaching like a Shepherd (How to love the people you're preaching to)

Preaching’s a funny thing. It’s like public speaking (primarily because you’re speaking in public), but it’s not. When you prepare a sermon, you are creating content that you plan on delivering well. But preaching’s far more than just developing content and then delivering it well. It’s deeper somehow, and richer. And the reason that is so is this: the love of a shepherd.

When we preach, we shepherd. And because of that, a sermon is a very different form of communication. Since I do not sit in the lead pastor’s chair, I have listened to hundreds of sermons through the years. One thing I’ve noticed is that good preaching is more about shepherding well than delivering a polished product. It’s not that working on the craft of preaching isn’t necessary. It’s just that from where I sit, it seems clear that preachers who love who they are speaking to and want something for those people tend to have a bigger impact than those who might be better preachers—technically speaking—yet who do not seem to have much of a shepherd’s heart.

Here are a few ways to preach like a shepherd:

Labor Well

Shepherding people is hard work. To be sure, it’s rewarding work, but it requires much of yourself, and often times it is slow, plodding, and frustrating. I’ve known more than a few ministry leaders who would rather do less of the difficult shepherding and more of the “fun” work of preparing and delivering sermons. Often they are aspiring pastors, but some lead pastors have made a career of just preaching and leading meetings while avoiding the “messy” parts of relational ministry.

Whether this is really something a faithful pastor can do is an article for another time. I simply want to make the point that preaching should be hard work. It’s a labor of love. This includes the hard work of studying, being widely read, and submitting oneself to the Word of God, but it’s more than that. Good preaching should interact with real life, and that takes lots of prayer, thought, and laboring with and for the people you are preaching to.

Ask: Is it helpful?

Ultimately, a shepherd wants to help his sheep. Some would argue that asking whether a sermon is helpful amounts to pandering to felt needs. I would argue that a sermon that does not help the people who hear it hasn’t been given in love. Now, there are a variety of ways that a shepherd can help his sheep. Sometimes help looks like a sweet tone, coaxing the flock to greener pastures. Sometimes help looks like a warning against danger.

Ask: Is it faithful?

One of the qualities of a good shepherd is that the shepherd is constant and always there. While it’s important for a preacher to find his or her voice, I think we worry too much sometimes about being unique or clever. Yes, preachers should seek to get better, just as a worship leader should strive to be a good singer, and a small group leader should strive to lead better discussions. But I believe it is much more important to be faithful.

I don’t mean that as any sort of cliché, either. A good preacher is one who is faithfully obedient to the Word in his own life, who faithfully studies week in and week out, and who continually prays for the people he is preaching to. Perhaps is just because I’m getting older, but I believe we need faithful preachers who puts their heart into their preaching each and every week more than we need polished ones.

What other ways can we preach like a shepherd?