How Will We Equip & Encourage Preachers?
I interned at a great ministry in Chicago after my sophomore year of college. For a fun day as a team, we headed into the city to play tennis. I was an athlete, but I was not a tennis player. That is an understatement.
While we were picking teams, we settled on the young guys vs. the older guys. My teammate was confident. I wasn’t. The game began and we got absolutely obliterated on the tennis court. I was so bad that the other three men were actually shocked by the abysmal level of talent I brought to the court.
After a few games of losing miserably, the president of the ministry purposely picked me to be on his team. The next 30 minutes would shape the way I thought about leadership for the rest of my life. There were three things he did immediately:
1) He encouraged me: He told me that we would win this game, and that I was going to play the best tennis I have ever played in my life (that wasn’t saying much).
2) He coached me: Just speaking encouragement would be nothing without some help to actually improve. He told me to focus on two things and two things only. He spent five minutes training me on how to do just these two things.
3) He stayed with me: As the game began and I made mistakes he encouraged me, reminded me of the lessons he had coached me on, and picked my head back up.
We came to the end of that match and had actually won. I was still a very bad tennis player but through encouragement and coaching we were able to do something together that I was not capable of on my own.
HOW THE PREACHING CO SEEKS TO ENCOURAGE & EQUIP YOU
We need help in our preaching ministry. All of us do. We need people who can confirm the calling, sharpen the craft, and encourage us to endure. The Preaching Co. was born to serve the local church and those who preach the word within the local church. We seek to equip and encourage the next generation of preachers to preach the word in four primary ways:
1. The Content:
We will regularly release content that will help men called to preach sharpen their craft, encourage their hearts, and deepen their convictions to preach the word. To begin we will do this primarily through The Preaching Co. Blog and The Preaching Co. Podcast. We dream of the day the Lord may lead us to begin Preaching Co. Publishing to write and publish books that equip and encourage the next generation of preachers.
2. The Courses:
We are in development of our six Preaching Co. Courses to train preachers in our six Preaching Co. Pillars. The online courses we will offer are:
Preaching 101: The Calling and Conviction to Preach the Word
Preaching 201: The Heart of the Preacher
Preaching 301: Prayer and Preaching the Word
Preaching 401: Establishing Your Preparation Process
Preaching 501: Engaging Sermon Delivery
Preaching 601: Endurance in the Call to Preach
3. The Cohorts:
The Cohort is a 12-week training and coaching program where we focus on the preacher, the preparation, and the preaching delivery. We gather in a 90-minute weekly cohort training call and then each participant also receives a weekly, personal coaching call to review their sermon. We launch cohorts every September (fall cohort), January (winter cohort), and April (spring cohort).
4. The Conference:
We will host an annual Preaching Co. Conference, bringing in some of the best preachers in the world to equip and encourage preachers in the call to preach the word. It is our hope that this conference becomes one of the most strategic gatherings of preachers in our country to be equipped and encouraged to exposit the word of God to their congregations.
We all need ongoing equipping and regular encouraging in the call to preach. Sunday is always coming and with the coming of each Sunday, God’s people are coming hungry for the word. It is our hope that The Preaching Co. is a ministry whose content, courses, cohorts, and conferences serve the local church to see bold, biblical preaching being proclaimed from our pulpits.
