Preaching: Do you normally preach in series?Ortberg: I do preach in series. I think it's just the best. You can just do a lot more research and thinking and tie stuff together that way.
At our church right now we're doing a series called "Open Doors." And we're getting to launch a couple of multi-campuses. So the vision is taken from an image that's used a lot in the New Testament, but especially from Colossians 4 where Paul says, "Pray for us that God may open the door that we may proclaim the gospel boldly as we should." And so we're going through six weeks on God opening doors for our ministry.
Preaching: Do you consider yourself more expositional or thematic? What's your approach to preaching? Advertisement
I love different styles of sermons. One of my pet peeves is when people will talk about homiletics or sermons and they say, "Here's the one structure that you ought to use." When I think about preaching that has touched my life or I'll talk with other folks, any kind of structure you can imagine has been used by God. So I actually love the variety of different styles. I love to teach the Bible. I love to study the Bible and to teach it in creative ways, so sometimes I'll get extremely immersed in a text. I love life, and sometimes I'll find an image or metaphor that hits life issues real strongly, and I love to talk about how does God want to address fear or courage or faith or something like that. So I would feel deprived as a preacher if I were straight-jacketed into just one style each week.
Preaching: What do you enjoy most about preaching? And what do you find to be your biggest challenge as a preacher? Ortberg: What I enjoy most about preaching is when I stand before a congregation and it feels like God is at work. I feel like I'm listening to the congregation, and I'm trying to discern what's going on. Do I need to slow down for a moment? Do I need to speed up? Are they ready for a challenge? I'm trying to listen to the Spirit. It's hard to put into words, but I feel like every cell in my body is alive and at work. But it's not labored. It just feels fully, fully alive.
The hardest part is when that's not happening. I'm talking, and it's not connecting. It's not working, and it's laborious. And my armpits know it's laborious, and my adrenal glands know it's laborious. And I feel guilty, and I feel semi-ashamed.
God, what am I doing wrong? Has my spiritual life slipped up? And I want to go slink away. (Laughter)
And both of those things can be happening on the same platform, sometimes in the same message. There's no exhilaration like it when it feels like God is using you, and there's no pain like it when it's not connecting.
Preaching: If you could give counsel to young pastors, what would you advise them to do as they are early in the ministry?Ortberg: Early in the ministry I would say be as ruthlessly honest about whether or not you have the spiritual gift of teaching. You know, it's an interesting thing—I loved seminary and had a great seminary education. I place a high value on theological reflection, theological education. But I think one thing that often doesn't happen in seminaries, and maybe it can't, is to help people find out whether or not they have the spiritual gift of teaching, preaching.
Folks who do [have the gift] will find out because they will find that they have a love to study Scripture. They love to think about how to communicate it. They have a good radar for a congregation. They will get feedback from a congregation—"God has used your preaching to change my life, to put a marriage back together." They have an internal affirmation from God about how they're being used. People who don't have [the gift] or have it to a lesser degree won't have those kinds of things going on.
So be ruthlessly honest about it. If you don't have the spiritual gift of teaching, don't teach. Do something else. It will be really painful for you to admit it, but better pain for a few months than 40 or 50 years of pain for you and a congregation. If it's in your gift mix but not the top gift, maybe you need to preach once every two or three or four weeks. Make sure you're part of a team so you don't have to do it all the time.
If it is your primary gift, hone it. Devote yourself to it. Teach a lot. Get really good feedback from people who you know and love who will talk to you honestly. Get tapes of messages and listen to people who are really good preachers and teachers. Read about it. Experiment with it. Just keep honing it. Don't neglect your gift by thinking, "Well, there are other parts of pastoral ministry I'm not too good at, so I'll spend more time shoring up my weaknesses." Don't do that. Just hone it, hone it, hone it.
This article originally appeared on Preaching.com. Used with permission.
