Strengthening Your Preaching in a Small-Town Context

Preaching is a serious responsibility. While it is not the only responsibility small-town pastors and church planters have, it is central to their role. In the Apostle Paul’s final New Testament letter, he wrote: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction (2 Timothy 4:2).

This reflects his earlier instruction in 1 Timothy 4:13 to devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. To stress the urgency of this charge, he followed it by saying, Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress (4:15).

It is healthy for pastors to feel the weightiness and pressure of the ministry of the Word. Yet I believe small-town pastors face some challenges that might turn this healthy pressure into an unhealthy sense of frustration.

First, they have limited preparation time. Many small-town pastors are bivocational. But even if they are not, their pastoral role requires them to be jack-of-all-trades since they have little, if any, support from either pastoral or administrative staff.

Second, there are few others with whom small-town pastors can share the preaching role. Their congregations rarely include other pastoral staff members, retired pastors, seminary professors, Bible college professors, parachurch ministry leaders, or denominational leaders. Training others to share the preaching ministry can be done, but it takes a lot of time.

Third, it is more difficult for small-town pastors to win the trust of longtime locals. As one church member said to a friend of mine who pastored in a small-town context, “I’ll still be here when you leave, pastor.” Paul’s ideal that everyone may see your progress (1 Timothy 4:15) is harder to realize in a small-town church.

Here are five strategies to help you overcome these challenges and strengthen your preaching. They move from maximizing the limited preparation time you have to building relational capital with your listeners. After all, as the old truism says, “they won’t care what you know until they know that you care.”

If you had to choose between one hour of sermon preparation per day from Monday through Thursday (a total of four hours) or eight hours on Friday, which would you choose? That’s an easy answer for me. I’d definitely take the four hours spread over four days.

Like Vernors Ginger Ale, which used to be aged for four years in oak barrels for flavor to develop, sermons need time for thought to develop. Some of the most important sermon preparation time happens when you are not working on your sermon. Even though you may not be consciously thinking about your sermon, your mind is working on it and making connections subconsciously. That’s why an insight will come to you when you are mowing the lawn or taking a walk or sitting by a campfire. Thus, you will make more progress in four hours spread over four days than in twice the time on one day. This leads to a related strategy.

Early in my pastoral ministry, I obsessed over solving sermon problems before I finished the day. I felt like I needed to state the big idea more clearly or develop a more coherent outline or finish my sermon introduction before I quit for the day.

Then, I read Eugene Lowry’s book, The Sermon. He counseled preachers to take the opposite approach. Lowry said that “it is vital to conclude one session of sermon preparation work at the point of a felt difficulty – not at the point of closure.” The reason is that “the mind will work on the sermon without the rigid constraints of conscious commitments.” In other words, you want a problem for your mind to work on during the “off hours” when you are cleaning out the garage or fixing dinner.

I am always amazed at how the outline that would not come together falls into place two days later or how the sermon introduction that would not take shape seems to write itself the next morning.

When I served a church in a rural community in Montana, a pastor in a nearby small-town church and I developed a friendship. We started meeting every other week to read (or stumble) through texts in the Hebrew Bible or to read theology. One day, we got the idea to preach a sermon series from the same text to our respective congregations. So, we each did a ten-week series on the ten commandments in Exodus 20.

My friend and I met each Wednesday for an hour and discussed the exegetical insights we gained from our personal study of the text. Then, we talked a bit about how we might preach the text to our churches. Our sermons were definitely not clones, because our personalities and communication styles were different. But the interaction brought a level of depth to our sermons that we could not have achieved on our own.

Our series went so well that a couple years later we preached through the Gospel of Mark together. Since this was a longer series, we typically did not preach the same passages on the same Sundays at our churches. But we were usually within a week of preaching the same passage. We met a couple times a month and shared our insights on two to four preaching passages.

This approach really did maximize our sermon preparation time because two people can usually push through obstacles more quickly than one. Is there an area pastor or group of pastors with whom you might partner for sermon preparation?

Another helpful strategy is using a sermon preparation team. This is both a time-saver and a relationship-builder. It can also be a form of discipleship. In most areas of ministry, we work with others as a team. Yet we assume that sermon preparation is a solitary task. However, I believe it takes a village (of believers) to prepare a sermon – even though only one person will deliver it.

I first did this years ago in a small-town church I was pastoring. I gathered a handful of people to help me think through the text I planned to preach on Sunday. I did not require any preparation. I simply read the text and then asked for their input about the three “developmental questions” that Haddon Robinson discusses in his book, Biblical Preaching.

• What do you need explained from this text? That is, where do you say, “I don’t understand”?
• What do you need validated? That is, where do you say, “I’m not sure I believe that”?
• What do you need applied? That is, where do you say, “What difference does this make in my life”?

Generally, I like to keep a sermon preparation team to about six people. I want women and men from different life stages, different social-economic circumstances, and different ethnic backgrounds. I typically ask for a two-month or three-month commitment. That way, we can meet weekly without burning them out. Changing personnel every two or three months also keeps the input fresh.

I’ll never forget meeting with a sermon preparation team before I preached Titus 2:1-10. When I asked what needed to be explained, a senior-aged member of the team said, “I don’t understand why the older men are supposed to be ‘sober’ and ‘grave.’ We don’t need more grumpy old people in the church. We need senior saints with joy and enthusiasm!” I realized that some of the older generation in our church still used the King James Version. Thus, I needed to take a minute or so in my sermon to explain that “sober” and “grave” meant “temperate” and “worthy of respect” rather than being a curmudgeon!

A related strategy is to meet one-on-one with church members to ask a couple key questions. These meetings can be informal. Simply invite someone to coffee or lunch and then ask your questions in the midst of casual conversation. Here are two of my favorites:

• What is the biggest challenge you – or people in your life stage – face in following Christ?
• Is there a question or issue I can address in my preaching that will help you in your walk with Christ?

Asking questions like this will build trust as well as provide insight. People like to be heard and feel like they have a voice. Developing a listening culture will establish rapport. It will also give you insight into their pain and their desires.

Preaching is hard work. But these five strategies can help you make the most of your time and develop trust with your listeners. Give them a try so that everyone may see your progress (1 Timothy 4:15).

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