Transforming the Preacher

What happens when the one preaching transformation is the one who needs it most — and may be the last to know?

“For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matthew 23:4).

I had asked Google to create an image of a preacher speaking to a congregation. The image provided by Google was usable, but I needed a few changes to the speaker’s appearance. While I was waiting for the modified image to finish, I noticed that Google’s progress update said, “Transforming the Preacher.” What a powerful and telling phrase — on multiple levels!

It occurs to me that the most difficult part of the Lord’s work is “transforming the preacher.” Sometimes he is the one most in need of transformation, the one least in touch with his need, and the one hardest to actually transform, even when he sees the need for it.

I speak primarily of myself, of course. Others will have to speak for themselves, but I look back on my years in the pulpit with complete astonishment. How could I have failed to see the transformation that I needed? I often made the disclaimer that every preacher makes: “Please understand that I need this lesson as much as you do. I’m preaching to myself this morning as much as to anyone else.” But we preachers know that those words, while easy to say, are mostly unverifiable. In all likelihood, there won’t be any tangible evidence whether we did anything about the sermon we preached or not. The congregation will never know whether any real change took place.

For me, it took the complete destruction of life as I had previously known it before the truth finally got hold of me. And I think the need for life to “break” the preacher is not uncommon. John Piper was right when he said, “Preaching becomes deeper only when the preacher is broken, humbled, and made low by their own trials.”

Google can transform the photograph of a preacher, but it can’t transform the preacher himself. Images can be manipulated, but people can’t be changed as easily as pixels. And sadly, a preacher can manipulate his own “image” without making any change in himself.

So, brethren, how long has it been since a member of your congregation had a “talk” with you and you were deeply changed?

“An expert is notoriously hard to influence. He has been the one doing the talking for so long, with everybody listening to his advice, that he’s gotten used to being the smartest person in the room. He’s lost the ability to be ‘talked to’, especially by people he presumes to be less knowledgeable” (C. Walter Perkins).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com