TPC Pillars : Healthy Preacher
This is part two of a six-part series on our six Preaching Co. Pillars.
The first time I read Paul Tripp’s book Dangerous Calling I was a 22-year-old youth pastor. As I read of the occupational hazards that accompany the pastoral call, I believed them, I was warned by them, but if I was totally honest I heard these as general warnings but in my youthful zeal missed the deep personal flare guns they were to be for my ministry.
I picked up Dangerous Calling again as a 29-year-old lead pastor, and I now read it with a deeper understanding of how we can give our lives to preaching for Jesus, counseling for Jesus, writing for Jesus, discipling for Jesus and all of it can be done totally devoid of an abiding, near, and joy-filled walk with Jesus.
As obvious as it may be, it’s important to say, a call to pastor and preach must necessitate a call to cultivate a healthy heart that rests and abides in Christ.
Pillar 2: Healthy Preacher
The second pillar of The Preaching Co. is:
Healthy Preacher: Cultivating the healthy heart and healthy family of a faithful preacher.
Before we can ever get to our work on how to prepare faithful sermons or how to deliver engaging sermons, we must start with the heart of us as preachers. Think about what Paul writes to Timothy as qualifications of overseers (1 Timothy 3), the list is dominated by character qualifications. Or consider these words from Paul in the very next chapter, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers.” We are to watch our life and our teaching, but it seems important to Paul that he lists life first.
In all that we do here at The Preaching Co. we want to equip and encourage men to pursue a healthy heart and a healthy family before the Lord. What does it profit a preacher to gain the preaching world and forfeit his soul? What does it profit a man to preach with the tongue of angels and lose his family along the way?
Before we get to exegesis and hermeneutics. Before we get to principles of good preparation or effective delivery. Before we get to anything else about the act of preaching we must start here with the heart of the preacher. When it comes to preaching, above all, God desires preachers, heralds fully devoted in their love for him. He desires men who love him wholeheartedly. He desires men managing their households well. He desires healthy preachers in his pulpits. We can’t take this for granted and must study and focus on what it means to be a man pleasing to our Lord.
The call to preach really does come with dangerous occupational hazards. We must tend our hearts. We have all seen what can happen in the life of a preacher whose competency in delivery as a communicator outpaces the character. When giftedness in preaching outpaces the godliness of the preacher, the enemy feasts in that gap. Let us be preachers always minding that gap.
If all God decides to use The Preaching Co. for is greater godliness in the lives of his preachers, we will stand before him one day pleased with the work. May God allow us to create content, coaching, and a community where the heart of the preacher is set as of highest importance. Because I will say it again: What do we profit if we gain the whole preaching world and yet forfeit our souls or families in the process?
