The Priority of Preaching

For 45 years I have taught preaching, mainly at what is now called Lincoln Christian University, but also in special courses throughout North America and around the world. I speak with the confidence of experience when I assert that preaching is in the DNA of the schools of my branch of the Restoration Movement.

I believe the pulpit is first among equals in the ministries of the church. If it does not speak with a clear, biblical, visionary, and challenging voice, sooner or later everything in the church suffers, and the other ministries will achieve less than their potential. Our schools offer a variety of majors that prepare students for other areas of ministry in the church and in the world. Effective preaching informs all those ministries.

The needs and challenges that confront us today, however, differ from those that called most of these schools into existence. For example, in the founding of LCU in 1944, hundreds of churches in Illinois were without preachers, and filling those pulpits was the major goal. The record shows that LCU has been effective in supplying preachers for those empty pulpits, while at the same time, her alumni have helped plant hundreds of new churches in the United States and around the world.

Emphasized by Our Schools

Our institutions have gone through curricular revisions, faculty and administrative changes, even renaming. But for most, the core purpose is still rooted in equipping people to proclaim the Christian message.

I recently undertook a careful examination of the school where I have long served and came up with the following observations. I believe these facts have parallels in most of our sister institutions:

• Our catalog lists two preaching courses for the Hargrove School, three preaching courses for Lincoln Christian College, and 15 preaching courses plus a thesis for a preaching major at Lincoln Christian Seminary.

• Our preaching faculty is well prepared. L. C. Sutton, Jeff Snell, and Chuck Sackett (adjunct) all have doctor of ministry degrees in preaching. They know their subject academically, and they model good preaching.

• We offer more scholarships for preaching majors than for any other area of study. The scholarships are not always used, however, because not enough students apply for them.

• Not everyone who becomes a preaching minister majors in preaching. Some choose other majors, such as Bible or theology, because they want more classes in the content of preaching.

• We emphasize preaching and leadership and how they can strengthen each other for maximum impact.

• We have sponsored the John M. Webb Lectureship on Preaching for nearly three decades. Nationally known preachers and professors of preaching have elevated the priority of preaching by their sermons and lectures.

• We strive to teach our students to think biblically and theologically and to apply those truths to our culture.

• We believe a person does not learn to preach well by studying only preaching courses. LCU has a “bench of preaching” that includes professors in a variety of biblical, classical, and practical areas. Those who sit on that bench are unified by a Christian worldview and a commitment to prepare preachers and other Christian workers to carry out the Great Commission of Christ.

• We have helped seminary students connect the dots in classes that are team-taught by a preaching professor and a professor of New Testament, Old Testament, theology, or pastoral care. Not only do students get the enrichment of two mentors in these courses, they also see the commitment of our faculty to enrich the pulpits of the churches where our students will serve.

• Our emphasis on a biblical worldview equips students to bring together Scripture and contemporary culture and, in Karl Barth”s words, to “preach with the Bible in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other.”

• Our undergraduate preaching majors serve a semester”s internship in a local church where they learn to contextualize what they have learned in the classroom. Seminary students who serve churches as preachers while they attend classes profit from integrating both experiences.

• The Hargrove School (adult education) offers students the training they need to serve churches that cannot afford a full-time preaching minister. Many of these are bivocational preachers who earn their living in the marketplace and are financially able to serve churches that, otherwise, could not fill their pulpits.

• We have weekly chapel services and a well-stocked media center that provide opportunities for learning by listening to sermons.

• We challenge students to grow in Christian character and in the skills of Christian ministry. For example, the seminary begins master of divinity studies with a required class on Shaping the Heart of a Leader and ends with a class on Shaping the Ministry of a Leader.

Needed by Our Churches?

We are united with sister institutions in commitment to prepare preachers. The need for preachers in the harvest fields of the world has not changed, but the needs of our churches have.

One of the biggest changes is that relatively few churches open their pulpits to beginning preachers. There are several reasons for this:

• The number of churches needing a preaching minister is much smaller than in the last half of the 20th century. A recent survey of pulpit openings in Christian churches/churches of Christ listed on the Web pages of our colleges, plus those in Christian Standard and on Crosslink.com, found 161 open pulpits””88 in churches of 100 or fewer and 14 in churches averaging more than 300. On average, including all 50 states, 14 churches per month post an opening, and only 40 percent are for pulpit ministers; 60 percent are for other staff positions.

Many of these churches cannot support a full-time minister. Salaries for listed full-time positions ranged from $16,000 to $35,000.

• Many preachers are preaching longer before retiring.

• LCU and her sister colleges have succeeded in preparing a large number of preaching ministers, so there are fewer openings without candidates for those pulpits.

• Churches are reluctant to call a recent graduate who has no experience.

Replaced by Nothing

The preachers are still coming and are willing to preach, but where will they be able to preach? Sixty-five years ago the churches and the colleges were avid partners in evangelizing the world for Christ. We still need each other to accomplish the task. We must partner together . . .

• to start new churches””still the most effective method of evangelism.

• to create a continuing culture of prayer for the harvest.

• to provide resources for growing healthy churches.

• to create places and occasions for beginning preachers to gain experience.

• to help every equipped minister, whatever specialization or associate role, to be firmly committed to the primary place of preaching.

• to recruit the next generation of missionaries who will multiply new pulpits around the world.

• because as the pulpit goes, so goes the church.

I agree with Paul Scherer, “The only thing that will ever replace preaching is better preaching.” You can sense the apostle Paul”s passion for preaching when he wrote, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:16). In our schools of Christian higher education we are also passionate when we say, “Woe to us if we do not equip preachers to preach the good news of Christ.”

Wayne E. Shaw is dean emeritus and adjunct professor of preaching at Lincoln (Illinois) Christian Seminary of Lincoln Christian University. This article is adapted from an article in the school”s newsletter, RESTORER.