Taking Up Preaching: The Spheres of the Preaching Life

By Blayne A. Banting

As the complexity of our world increases exponentially, there is need for preachers to understand their identities and roles in this new reality and to navigate the landscape of the new challenges facing the contemporary church. Blayne Banting offers seasoned reflections on how contemporary preachers can build upon what cannot change in ways that frees them to practice their ministries creatively in ways which must change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666771756

Blayne A. Banting

Blayne A. Banting is an associate professor of preaching and Christian ministry at Briercrest College and Seminary in Caronport, Saskatchewan. Banting is married to Peggy and they have four adult children. He is the author of With Wit and Wonder: The Preacher's Use of Humour and Imagination (2013) and Take Up and Preach: A Primer for Interpreting Preaching Texts (2016).

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1

The Personal Sphere

How fair is that? Just when the panda comes off the endangered species list, preachers go on it. Does that seem fair? Hardly. What was once considered the noblest of professions now elicits an incredulous stare or a look of abject pity toward those declaring their intentions to enter the preaching ministry. Everyone has always known the pay was bad, but now so is its reputation. To speak to the personal life of the preacher is first to ask the question, Why would you want to do that to yourself? Before thinking this is the world’s worst way to begin a book on the preaching life, take some time to ask any preacher how they might be feeling about their career choice these days. Then be ready to sit for a while and listen.

We cannot make the same blithe assumptions about the challenges of serving the Lord’s people as we did only a few decades ago. The world has changed, the tectonic plates have shifted, and the possibility of someone sleepily wandering into a life of serving the church seems like a longshot at best (more on how the world has changed in chapter four). In the western world (Western Europe and North America, not just everything west of Toronto!), the role of preacher has lost a lot of its luster, and so we will begin here with the basic question of pastoral identity. To face what preachers are facing and will face without a firm conviction that God and his people are sold on the necessity of the preaching ministry would seem like a fool’s errand.

Before we proceed, it is important for me to show my hand. I have served the church in different capacities for more than four decades to date and have the scars and stories to prove it. There is no other life for me, and there is nothing I desire more than to see the brightest and best submit to the disciplines of the preaching ministry. But my heart breaks for those who have entered this sacred calling only to lie bruised and beaten beside the road with religious folks walking by on the other side of the road, averting their eyes, and holding their noses. My conviction is that this next generation of preachers will need to be more aware and resilient than we ever were, and my fondest dream is to help at least in some small way to make that a reality.

There are plenty of resources available to address these challenges, including books (some of which are listed at the end of this chapter), blogs and webinars, cohorts, and coaching, and I would highly recommend most of them. The issue in the Western church is not resources; it is resilience and the recognition of our current reality. I have no desire to add to this stockpile mindlessly so will try to be as succinct as possible (or as succinct as a preacher can be!).

Calling—The Preacher’s Identity

There is a pastoral crisis—not the one about boomer preachers retiring and creating a vacuum in pastoral leadership; or the number of high-profile moral failures among popular preachers; or the plummeting reputation of the pastoral office; or high levels of emotional trauma, mental health issues, and forced or voluntary terminations/resignations; or even the confusion of what a preacher is supposed to do these days—the crisis has less to do with function and more to do with identity formation. At its root, preachers are struggling with their basic identity. Does this sound familiar? In an age preoccupied with identity politics, it should come as no surprise that preachers are struggling with who they are—even more than what they are supposed to do (and there is a lot of hand-wringing about that, too!). Our performance culture has taken many preachers captive, and we are reaping a disappointing harvest once the familiar methods and rules don’t seem to work any longer.

Our identity is found in who (or, more accurately, whose) we are. Rick Reed calls this our sense of internal security (in a clever turn of phrase that well befits a preacher). He states, If we hope to keep our internal security as preachers, we must make sure our sense of identity comes from our salvation rather than our service.¹ This is not rocket science (or philosophical hermeneutics); it is ground-level truth that any of us will understand—cognitively, at least. It is nonetheless where we must begin. Preachers have always had to contend with others who feel preachers only work one hour a week; that is nothing new. I remember being asked by an elder what I did with the rest of my week. This guy was a fireman in a small city where the biggest fires were related to backyard barbeques! Really?

Preachers aren’t as good or bad as their last sermon, or just the one they invite to ask the blessing before a meal, or the one who is expected to be at every meeting of the knitting club even though the last time they dropped a stitch was in a cut above their right eye back in junior high. They are not the CEO, HR Director, social convenor, custodian, Bible encyclopedia, family counselor, jack or jacqueline of all trades, or even the one at everyone’s beck and call. Preachers are not, in the words widely attributed to Stanley Hauerwas, a quivering mass of availability. We are God’s chosen children, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, loved and cherished, known from before the foundation of the world, called and gifted into his service for his glory. That is who we are!

Sometimes that is not easy to remember when we are burdened by the weight of speaking life-giving gospel words and caring for the concerns of all the members of the congregation—the ones who love us, the ones who find us convenient, and the ones who can’t wait for our successors. But it is nonetheless true and needs to be spoken aloud with conviction and thanksgiving every morning and several times during each day without a hard or calloused heart. The ones whose care and complaints may be driving us to despair are not to be defamed or despised but loved and shepherded because they, just like us, often forget who (or whose) they are. All of us are a bit anxious these days because our internal security has been subverted subtly by the exigencies of our cultural moment.

If the preacher’s identity comes from being a child of God, the preacher’s authority comes from being a follower of Jesus. The ever-present cult of personality might suggest pastoral authority comes from gifting, platform, writing books, and speaking at the biggest conferences. We should never settle for this mess of pottage. Our authority comes sourced and mediated from a far higher fountainhead—the Lord Jesus. Jon Coutts avers, Every time we confess Jesus as Lord we deny the lordship of self and society, and confess to Christ our sins and our successes as well.² This may seem like it should go without saying, but judging from experience, it needs to be stated firmly and loudly. In a day when the pastorate is suffering from a lot of negative publicity, we preachers might be quick to claim our status as professionals and serve out of a self-assured posture of authority founded upon the office of preacher itself. Bad idea.

This is not to say that opportunities for professional development should be devalued. These opportunities can be life-giving and are an important part of pastoral formation. The truth is, however, formal institutional authority is almost always inferior to charismatic authority—who you are speaks louder than your position on the org chart. But this introduces us to the great paradox of ministry—while the Lord plays on our heart strings, the congregation tends to hold the purse strings. Such a tension will never disappear but should not be the reason for the preacher to bend to the political pressure exerted by some within the congregation (more about people-pleasing later in this chapter).

Every preacher lives and serves within a community—several communities, to be exact. All preachers are part of their own family—whether that be their family of origin or their own families. Many, if not most, will have a spouse and children. Preachers, by definition, belong to a faith community as the context of their ministry and that community is embedded into other layers of surrounding community expanding like concentric circles to locate them as ones who are connected to others in varying levels of intimacy. This is how God made us. We are social beings. Community needs to be recognized as essential without becoming idolatrous. All these layers of community interact with each other, sometimes in a helpful way and sometimes not.

It is a common story told by preachers’ kids that they felt ripped off by the amount of attention the church received at their expense. Spouses can tell this same story. Undeniably, this continues to be an issue for many ministry families. It can be heartbreaking, and it can happen and does happen to all of us at some time to some degree. How can the preacher juggle all these layers of community without dropping the ball? There are no easy answers here. To begin, it is important to state that not all layers of community are as personally and interpersonally significant as others. We start at the center with the most intimate of communities and work our way outward with each layer in diminishing priority to the previous levels. Pete Scazzero is very insistent that our ministry flows out of the most intimate of these communities.

Understanding singleness and marriage as callings or vocations must inform our self-understanding and the outworking of our leadership. Our whole life as a leader is to bear witness to God’s love for the world. But we do so in different ways as marrieds and singles. Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles—vowed or dedicated—bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love (italics his).³

The mission of the preacher, like all of Christ’s followers, is to make disciples. Jesus’ famous last words are to ring in the ears of preachers everywhere as the focus of what is to be done in his name: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt 28:18b-20 NLT). And eavesdropping on Paul’s call to Timothy: You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others (2 Tim 2:2 NLT), we get the sense that making disciples includes helping these followers of Jesus reproduce other followers, and so on.

There has been a recent recovery of the role of discipleship in the church, almost to the point where it sounds like it is something new (or maybe we are just paying closer attention to what has been there all along!). One of the most helpful aspects of the recovery of discipleship is that our task has been given focus and force as well as a new metric. We now can measure how we are doing at making disciples and not just simply counting all the resources and activities we are involved in (which gives us no accurate picture of our progress).⁴

This mission outcome can ground all of ministry. Scott Gibson has given a helpful insight into how this fits a preaching ministry: Preaching is a means of discipleship, a shaping of men and women into the people God wants them to be—growing, deep believers able to face the world in which they live because they have been nurtured to do so by the Word.⁵ The same could and should be said about all aspects of the preaching ministry.

Before we leave the discussion of the preacher’s identity, it would be good to give a tip of the hat to what many preachers would unconsciously place first but only merits inclusion after the rest of what we have included. Preachers, whether they appreciate it always or not, are seen as living representatives of the church in general and a local church/denomination in particular. The preachers wear the church colors and are billboards for what the church stands for (or at least what people think the church stands for). Preachers are ecclesiologues, which is a term you won’t find in many dictionaries, but any preacher will attest to its validity. Not too many decades ago, being the church representative was more positive than it can be at times and in places today. Regardless of how the fortunes of the preacher may have flagged, there remains a social and public role to be stewarded wisely. Paul’s words to the Corinthians remain as guides for us in this part of our role: This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful (1 Cor 4:1–2 ESV).

Those whose vocations have them serving God within the church have the honor of representing the living Christ (which is something we will address in chapter six) in each of the communities of which they are a part. This may be complicated by the weight of the church’s public image and even by our own baggage about the church, or at least with some people within the church. As one preacher friend said to me, I love Jesus, but his girlfriend drives me crazy!

So, in terms of the formation of the preacher’s calling/identity, we might summarize by saying the preacher’s identity comes from being a child of God, pastoral authority comes from being an obedient follower or disciple of the one who has all authority, the ministry context is community in its many levels, the ministry mission comes from the mandate to make disciples who also make disciples, and the preacher’s profile comes from being a representative of Christ and his church in visible ways. That is a lot to comprehend, yet is only the beginning, as this identity takes shape in a kind of character formation that puts wheels onto who we are as called persons.

Character—The Preacher’s Life

Calling does not guarantee a good character. That might be discouraging at first blush, but we are surrounded by so many people, preachers included, whose capacities outstripped their character which led to their ultimate downfall. King Saul, King Solomon, King Jeroboam, and Samson are among the biblical rogues’ gallery of those who crashed and burned due to flaws in their character. Naming names of preachers, both high and low profile, who have shipwrecked their ministries and traumatized many in their wake is not necessary because it is an all too painful reality. Looking to the lives of other leaders in the public square is not going to provide much help either, hence Will Willimon’s words: Lacking a sense of the peculiar shape of ministerial character, bereft of a well-formed church, we become the victims of whatever cultural images happen to be in ascendency at the moment.⁶

Over the recent past, more emphasis has been placed on the qualities of character necessary for pastoral leadership than the competencies needed to move the church from here to there. This is not to ignore proper practices of leadership but to place a certain priority on matters of character over those of competencies. The latter can be learned on the job. The former—not so much.

The kind of well-rounded character formation needed is noted by Scott Gibson: The preacher’s personal world is shaped by inner development and inter-development [Gibson’s term for relational development] that show the contours of gospel growth as demonstrated in the markers of maturity within the context of discipleship.⁷ We will mention only five of these markers that seem to be most pertinent for preachers in this place and time. The first four come from what I consider to be the primary qualities for today’s preacher: holy, humble, hungry, and hopeful. I call this 4-H Leadership. I was raised on a farm and like many others I was shaped by membership in our local 4-H Club. This is a youth organization that has been around for more than a hundred years (think Boy and Girl Scouts for farm kids). Our 4-H leaders were respected members of the community who took time out of their busy lives to help youths become contributing citizens. I never forgot their investment in me and my peers. It seems like this quadrilateral of holy, humble, hungry, and hopeful sums up well the character qualities we need in today’s preachers. You might even detect some affinity here to Brad Lomenick’s H3 Leadership or Patrick Lencioni’s The Ideal Team Player⁸ as well as my overwhelming urge to alliterate.

There are reasons to keep the focus on these dispositions of character rather than going through a laundry list of required virtues for preachers. First, the list of virtues would be exceptionally long, longer than we have the space to expound. Second, there are others far more qualified to speak to these virtues each of which has a long and weighty history. And third, this soil of character formation is the seedbed from which these virtues grow, as Stanley Hauerwas notes, . . . virtues, finally depend on our character for direction, not vice versa.⁹

The Preacher as Holy

What happens to terms that connect us with transcendence in a world that considers itself above all that superstition (note the irony of feeling above what is from above)? They get deconstructed and sometimes even profaned. Such is the case with our use of the term holy. In popular parlance holy evokes images of self-righteous, otherworldly, repressed, hypocritical elitists (Too much? Maybe). For some it has been demoted to profanity: holy _______ (insert your explicative of choice)! Regardless of people’s impressions of the term, it has hardly become a quality that is high on their personal development agenda. The preferred term is spiritual over holy because it can be infused with almost any combination of dishes from the self-improvement buffet. Preachers have no choice; we are to be holy, just like the rest of God’s people (1 Pet 1:16; Lev 11:44). We may need to do some reclamation and reconstruction on this term to make it meaningful in our contemporary context.

Simply put, being holy affects the status and