Why learning to preach might not be so different to learning to play golf

Can you teach preaching?  I am often asked that question.  After all, is not preaching spiritual gifting from God; a spiritual exercise dependent on the Holy Spirit’s enabling?  Older preachers used to speak of divine ‘unction’ to refer to the anointing which God gives when preaching is razor sharp and penetrating the soul.

 

So, can you teach it?  Well, I am banking on some teaching being required, or otherwise I am out of a job as ‘Director of the School of Preaching” at Wycliffe Hall!

 

As I often remind my students, no illustration is perfect and the parameters of the illustration need to be understood.  However, it seems to me that there is some parallel between learning a sport or musical instrument and learning to preach.  After all, we all recognise that Alfred Brendel (who recently gave his last ever piano recital in England) or Tiger Woods are exceptionally gifted.  At the same time, we recognise that their giftedness has only flourished as a result of hard practice and rigorous labour.

 

The Apostle Paul encourages Timothy to: Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (2 Tim 2:15)

 

When I moved to London about 10 years ago I missed my walking in the beautiful Derbyshire Peak District.  So, I decided that the next best thing was to take up a game that I realise is often called “a good walk spoiled”!  How do you go about learning to play golf?  I wonder, leaving aside the necessary prayerful pleading that comes alongside preaching preparation (although I did try that too with my golf!), whether there are not some parallels in how one learns to preach.

 

Books – before starting out on the course I read quite a number of books.  These were useful for learning what a “Birdie” “Fore” “9 Iron” etc. are.  But there is still quite a big disconnect between what one reads and what one experiences when wielding a club.  Indeed it is possible to play golf without ever reading what others have said about how the game should be played.  And of course the same is true for preaching.

 

Driving Range – Ah, now we are getting somewhere.  Having bought my first second hand pair of golf clubs I was ready to have a crack at hitting a ball.  Despite the slices and mis-fires it felt good to be taking out one’s pent up energy on that little white ball.  And, to my surprise, with a bit of practice, shots went a bit straighter and a bit further.  As a 17 year old, a relatively new Christian, I was grateful for the trust which my Vicar put in me to let me loose on his unsuspecting congregation and to preach my first sermon.  And I certainly know that I, for one, was reasonably edified by the experience!

 

On the Course – the first 9 hole game at a public course.  Well, there were flashes of genius!  But most of the time was spent looking for the miscued ball in the shrub land and the heather.

But at least I was playing and I got through my first complete game.  There is no substitute for preaching in front of a real audience.  Of course, they are not there as your practice ground.  Preaching has to be a real, spiritual experience for it to be preaching at all.  It is more important that preachers are godly and prayerful than they fill their heads reading books.  But of course, it is not either/or.  We learn as we go, and particularly for preachers, the maxim “lifelong learner” should be true.

 

Back to the Driving Range – with an Instructor! – Now I had got serious.  I had the bug.  I found moments of exhilaration in the game, but I was very conscious of my inadequacies.  Hitting the balls down the driving range with an Instructor present was a combination of learning and unlearning.  As well as working on stance and swing, he worked on the range of skills I needed in order to play the whole game.  It is no use rocketing 50 balls 200yard down the driving range and yet be unable to chip it 10 yards or putt it home.  This is where mentoring and modelling comes into the preaching experience.  Peer critique, preaching classes and ongoing feedback from carefully selected critiques really helps this process.

 

A Walking Lesson – best of all have been the couple of lessons I have had in a real game with a golf instructor walking me through it, coaching me as I go. .  Preaching is caught and taught.  I think I learned more from sitting under Dick Lucas’ preaching and listening to Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones’ tapes than anything else.  Hearing gifted people do it inspires me and enthuses me to learn from them and do it better.

 

Play, play, play – when all is said and done, playing the game, again and again, is what makes the golfer good.  Yes everything previously mentioned matters.  But golfers improve by doing it again and again.  I notice this in my preaching.  If I am preaching regularly I preach better.  Perhaps it is because I am forced to spend more time with God as I prepare.  Perhaps it is because there are skills which I hone and use more frequently.  Perhaps it is because I get to know my audience and my material more thoroughly.  But I do know that preachers need to preach in order to preach better.

 

Actually, learning to play golf was not a linear process.  All of these things happened (and continue to happen) at the same time, and all are necessary.  The same is true for the godly skills of preaching.

 

So, can you teach preaching?

 

Well, yes.  But teaching preaching (or rather, learning to preach) is a combination of books, lessons, seminars, preaching classes, peer critique, good modelling, practice, and a humble dependence on God for a life time’s ministry.

 

No teacher of preaching thinks that he can do all that is needed to teach preachers!

You can’t learn it in the classroom; you can’t learn it from books …. But they are necessary starting points.

 

For the above reasons training preachers at a place like Wycliffe Hall is the most integrative of the disciplines: bringing together all biblical and theological knowledge; systematising it and clarifying the material; putting it together in a structured and logical way; allowing the message to form, challenge and sanctify the preacher;  learning together in community; putting it into practice in live settings; being enthused to spend a lifetime developing and honing these skills; and under God, prayerfully allowing him to shape and mould the messenger as much as the message in order that congregations hear God’s voice through them.

 

John the Baptist – facing two directions

The announcement of John the Baptist’s birth is greeted by Zechariah in the words we know as the Benedictus.  The thing that is most striking about this song of praise is the way in which it points in two directions at the same time.  John is the last of the Old Testament prophets, anticipating God’s promised rescue of Israel from the hand of their enemies.

But as we read through Luke 1 it begins to dawn on us that a climactic day has arrived in the birth of John.  Now with John’s coming we shall see that he will prepare the way for one who will finally bring these promises to fruition.  He ‘brings the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins’ (Luke 1:77).

It is this description of the significance of Christmas which I find striking.  As Jesus is anticipated by John’s ministry we are told: ‘… the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.’

The imagery used here is very dramatic.  In the same way that we can look towards the glow of an emerging sunrise in the east and anticipate all the freshness and opportunity of a new sunny day, so in Jesus Christ, we have a new day dawning which will bring about forgiveness and peace.  The rising of the sun (Son) of God is truly the dawning of a new day.  It is a day which Zechariah got a first glimpse of.   But we have the great privilege of basking in the glory of the Son of God – enjoying his presence and peace.

Christmas Day is a great day – a Son day.  But it anticipates a great rising of the Son of God.  Having died on the cross to buy peace and forgiveness of sin he rose again on the third day.  The rising Son is the same Emmanuel – God with us now.

Happy Christmas!

The Financial Crisis (Part two)

Wycliffe Hall was very fortunate to be able to welcome Lord Brian Griffiths, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, to deliver a lecture on a Christian response to the current financial crisis to our students this week.

His perspective on the causes of this crisis are a combination three things:  excessive public borrowing with the ratio of debt to household income now standing at about 150%;  Banks turning into lending shops, the lack of relationship between lender and borrower, and failures to check people’s ability to pay; and, thirdly, the failures of world governments to regulate what is going on in investment banks.

The most interesting bits of his lecture were his three implications arising out of his Christian convictions.  Regrettably time was short, so these were little more than snapshots:

a.  Throughout Scripture debt is viewed as something that is problematic; e.g. laws about the land, debts and usury in the Pentateuch as well as the perspective of Proverbs 22:7 “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender”

b.  The cycles of economic life (upturn, downturn, boom, recession) need to be interpreted in the light the cyclical flow of the Sabbath, the jubilee provisions etc.  A good example is the Millennium commitments to the forgiveness of debts.  It is even more important that as we go into recession we hold to these commitments.

c.  Jesus says: You cannot serve God and Mammon (Mammon being the personification and deification of money).  Greed is not good – in fact, greed is the cause of excessive worry (according to Jesus in Matthew 6:24ff.).

As the financial crisis continues to deepen, it is good to be reminded of our commitment to care for the poor (and not renege on this as we feel the pinch) and the challenge to ensure that we love the Lord as our highest and best love, not the things of this world.

Wouldn’t it be good if Christian leaders faithfully teach the Kingdom standards set out in the Bible and help God’s people live wisely in testing times?