I mentioned the other day the debate about whether or not you should reuse sermons. The assumption there is that you will get a lot of your preaching experience from going to various different churches, perhaps a different church each month for six months and then visit the same churches again the following six months.
There is a tradition in some contexts of churches primarily relying in visiting preachers. Methodist churches will have a team of preachers supporting the minister and these will be connected together in a circuit of churches. The Brethren tradition was to hold an evening Gospel Service and the speaker was normally a visitor from another Gospel Hall.
The benefit of such an approach is that you hear from a variety of voices who can bring an outside perspective. The challenge is that you are not hearing consistently from leaders, called to shepherd you, who are on top of the context and needs of the church. Also, the preacher isn’t there to pick up the damage when things go wrong, or just when painful things need to be said. That can go two ways as it happens. Either a preacher can be reckless in going in hard on the application or they can feel that they are not in a position to challenge/correct/rebuke and so the church is fed a diet of warm encouragement only. Furthermore, sermons are more likely to be one off and topical because its harder to ask the visiting preacher to fit into your series.
So, my preference is to see the elders in the local church taking primary responsibility for regular preaching and teaching. There is a benefit though to supplementing this with visiting speakers but these should be chosen carefully. You will want to bring in people who will be have something specifically helpful to bring to the whole church. There are some churches though that will still be dependent upon outside support because they won’t have the people within the church who can commit to regular preaching and teaching.
However, when it comes to new/young/trainee preachers my personal view is that they are likely to learn best, not by going round and preaching at various churches. This comes back to my point that the preacher should be seeking to bring God’s word to the specific context and needs. They need to learn not just about exegeting God’s Word but exegeting the congregation too and they will learn that best in a settled context. They are also more likely to get constructive feedback in their own congregation from people who know them well rather than just a polite thank you.
This means that existing church leaders have a responsibility here. We have to create space for new preachers to train and practice. We have to give them opportunities to preach and not just once a year, they will need to be preaching regularly if they are going to learn and improve. This also means that we need to think about how we best look after our congregations whilst new preachers are learning and growing.
Does your church have a plan for how it will spot, train and develop new preachers?
Faithroots 