Let’s just start with what I hope is obvious: preaching is really important. The Word of God is the lifeblood of the local church. It is the means by which we come to know and love our God and saviour, Jesus Christ. It is the means by which we come to understand what he wants for us and from us. It is the means of growth for God’s people. So, before we go any further, I am not arguing for less preaching here or less Word-ministry. This is not any sort of denigration of preaching.
However, I do think pastors should preach less. Let me explain what I mean. I think there are three primary reasons why pastors should preach less: (1) legacy; (2) sustainability; (3) pastoral necessity. Let me briefly explain each one.
First, the issue of legacy. Pastors need to preach less because they need to be concerned with training up others who can continue the ministry when they are gone. I won’t say too much on this because I think this little video summarises the point helpfully:
Just in case that video didn’t work for you, in essence it argues that many churches with very successful pulpit ministries crumble when the pastor moves on. This is primarily because they didn’t train anyone else to preach. Others, with similar successful pulpit ministries, gave up preaching opportunities to train those who would come after them so that the ministry could continue when they were gone. If we want our ministry to continue after us, we need to preach less and give up opportunities in the pulpit so others can learn to preach and continue the ministry when we are gone.
Second, we need to think about sustainability. The burden of ministry was never supposed to be carried by one man. That is why (I believe) the Lord insists on plural eldership. But the same applies to pulpit ministry. You surely want – as far as possible – everything to keep going even when you are away. Whether it is preaching out at another church, on holiday, away at conferences or whatever, it is a bit of a problem is everything grinds to a halt if you aren’t there. Whilst certain decisions can be delayed until your return and some things can trundle on in their normal pattern unhindered, Sunday always comes and people need to be fed. Someone needs to be in the pulpit. You could get somebody in from outside, but that can both get expensive and is not as sustainable as training people in house. For the sake of sustainability, it is worth preaching less and using the pulpit to train some others.
Finally, we should preach less out of pastoral necessity. Alexander McClaren of Manchester used to spend 40-hours or more a week writing his sermons. I remember Mark Dever quoting this once and saying, with all due respect to McClaren, perhaps he should have spent a little less time in his study and bit more time with his people. And I can’t disagree. It might have been possible to sustain this kind of ministry in the 19th Century – though I strongly suspect it carried deficiencies even then – this simply will not do in the 21st.
The fact is, pastoral ministry requires spending time with people. The nature of the modern UK requires many more hours in the community building up relationships with people. The idea of doing nothing but writing sermons for 40 hours per week, being utterly invisible except on Sunday (an aim McClaren actively stated), will not lead to adequate pastoral care nor the kind of community involvement that might lead people to the Lord Jesus locally. Sure, some people may find you. But the reality is, the majority will not and it isn’t a credible approach to modern pastoral ministry.
One of the ways to address this is to give up some of your pulpit time. Give others opportunities in the pulpit. Yes, in part, to train them but also to free you up to do other things in the community and among your people. If all you do is preach, you may find things do not continue after you, are not sustainable while you are there and there are deficiencies in your pastoral care and community outreach. For all these reasons, it might be worth asking: should your pastor be preaching less?
My pastor preaches for 10 minutes and I’m sure he spends at least that much time preparing.
I do my best
First, you should learn what a “pastor” is. One of the qualifications of the pastor/elder is to be “apt to teach”. Too many people like you confuse the preacher/evangelist with the elder/pastor (of which there are to be a pluralilty). When you get that right, then you can start to make your argument.
Thanks Harold.
Perhaps Paul was also confused when be told Timothy to both ‘preach the word in and out of season’ and to ‘do the work of an evangelist’ whilst also giving him instructions as an elder and for eldership in his church? Maybe the Apostle John was confused to call himself ‘the elder’ whilst clearly doing evangelistic and pastoral work?
Perhaps, of course, my argument doesn’t rest on the distinction you propose here? I have a fulsome book on eldership out later this year if you would like to understand what I really think about eldership altogether – I would be much happier with that patronage.