What is Preaching?

What is preaching, anyway? Some people think you have not preached if you have not yelled, screamed, and drooled. You can do all those things while preaching, but haven't we all been in services where the quiet moving of the spirit came in a poweful way? Have you ever finished a service, and thought "That was the worst job of speaking that I have ever done," only to have someone come to you to say, "That was a great message"? If you haven't, the day probably will come.

Actually, we fall into a danger of equating preaching with a particular style. The best style for you and me is to use our own God-given personalities to communicate His Word. Also, our appropriate passion should be related to content. Have you ever heard someone say, "Amen," loudly but at the wrong point in a message?

What is preaching? One definition is that it is simply proclaiming the Word of God. That's why a person with very little training or experience can preach powerful messages. To proclaim the word of God, you can simply EMPHASIZE what is already there. The key, in any case, is to say what is actually true (that would be what is biblical in our case).

What about teaching and preaching, how do they overlap? Do they overlap? Indeed they do, some preaching is greatly enhanced by teaching about the background of a passage, the meaning of certain words or the cultural context of the original message. The key is to make sure there is a good deal of application when you implement teaching. Since teaching can also emphasize the Word of God, it may be hard to see when you have moved from teaching to preaching.

I heard, years ago, a definition of preaching given by a preacher named Jack Mount. I have found it to be helpful in my own ministry. His definition was: "Preaching is teaching, with persuasion, from a point of authority." The teaching has to do with imparting information. The persuasion relates to the style, and it can include the yelling, screaming, and drooling that we talked about earlier. We also need to know that there are other effective means of persuasion too. Some of them can be quiet. Some of them involve humor. Sometimes we need to speak slowly. The point of authority is the Word of God. If you know you are saying what God wants to say, you can do it with a great deal of confidence. It gives you boldness.

Let's proclaim the Word of God, and let's do it with the style that best communicates that message through our own personalities.