There are a lot of embarrassing things that can happen when you’re preaching. One time, and this was one of my earliest preaching opportunities, I completely blanked out. It was as though my entire vocabulary was lost, and I just stood there for what seemed like at least 15 seconds (which is a really long time to be silent when you think about it). Another time, I preached one of the worst messages of my life at a friend’s church. The entire thing was a scattered mess, and I felt like I wanted to die (especially when people were offering polite compliments).
There are some things I haven’t done, thankfully. (At least, not yet; there’s still time.) But you know what I expect would be really embarrassing? Being invited back to a church and preaching a message you’ve already shared.
At that church.
Toward the end of Preaching and Preachers, Martyn Lloyd-Jones shares a number of stories of preachers who had this happen. He wasn’t saying this to steer his hearers away from re-preaching a message, but to give wise counsel: if you’re going to do it, make sure you keep track of where you have already preached the message.
This is good advice, for obvious reasons. Although I prefer to not re-preach my own sermons, the odd time I have, I’ve made sure to note where so I don’t do it again.
But, I’ve got to be honest, sometimes it’s sorely tempting to just re-preach out of convenience. After all, I have a young family, a full-time job and multiple hobby jobs⌠it’s not like there’s a lot of time that exists to write new sermons every time I preach.
But there’s just something about the process of preparing the message that feeds and encourages me, even as the purpose is to encourage others. When I re-preach, I rarely have that same experience. I don’t feel truly prepared, no matter how much time I spend reviewing the text and manuscript. When I preach new material, it’s the message I need to hear, as much as it is the message for the congregation. For me at least, that seems to be a pretty good reason to err on the side of original. What do you think?
On more than one occasion I have told a spur of the moment story to enhance a point only to reach the end and forgot the point.
I remind myself and my congregation often that the # 1 person I am preaching to myself.
These are good points, Aaron. I can see the benefits of preparing new sermons each time. One benefit of re-preaching, however, is that it’s easier to make improvements. One doesn’t learn to hit a baseball without swinging the same bat over and over.
I can see that, for sure. In thinking about the baseball analogy a bit, I wonder if it could also be argued that even with preparing new messages each time, you’re still swinging with the same bat (the act of preaching, rather that the sermon itself). Maybe I’m reaching, though. Thoughts?
Yes, I agree that preaching new messages helps. The analogy is not perfect, and I don’t disagree with the point of your post. It just reminded me of one benefit of “re-preaching.” In training men to preach at my church, the most invaluable method has been having them practice the sermon on a small group, receive feedback, make adjustments, and the “re-preach” for the congregation. You were making a different point, however, and I agree that there are challenges involved with re-preaching to multiple congregations. Thanks for stimulating me with this topic!
For sure. Thanks for also pointing out this positive on re-preaching đ