Imagine sitting behind a desk with a cup of coffee in hand. The top of your desk holds a computer, a bible, a few commentaries, a notepad, and several pens. BibleWorks, Logos, or some other bible program shines on your computer screen. You've been given the gift of studying the bible for numerous hours every week in order to prepare one or two speeches.
Sermon prep is awesome for the pastor! He actually gets to read the bible and dig into its meaning for hour after hour every week. While most of us regular people struggle to find any time to read scripture during a busy week, the pastor gets tons of time. It's a blast!
For over two years as a professional pastor I was able to study all I wanted while I prepared sermons. It was great fun. This is not to say that it was always easy, but it was still a great experience for me. What Christian wouldn't want to get paid to study the bible?
Because putting sermons together is so much fun, the vast majority of pastors want this practice to continue. They certainly aren't going to speak out against it. Why give up such a good thing?
If, on the other hand, sermon preparation was drudgery I could see many pastors speaking out against it. However, that's simply not going to happen because studying the bible is wonderful.
Let's do the simple math here. Most Christians think modern sermons are biblical in nature and sermons are fun to prepare. This adds up to sermons not going anywhere anytime soon.
3 comments:
A couple of thoughts on this. Sermon prep is really right in the wheelhouse of most pastors, I loved studying the commentaries and such to prepare for two sermons a week. Who wouldn't want to get paid to do that? It also carries an image of being a pious burden, the more hours you can humble brag about spending on your prep, the better pastor you are. "Oh I spend 20 hours a week preparing my sermons" is not uncommon. Truth be told I could put together a decent expository sermon of about 45 minutes delivered in less than two hours prep time.
Arthur,
I guess salaried pastors have to find something to do with their time. Hours and hours of sermon prep is one way to do that. And it's fun! A nice deal for the clergy for sure.
Eric,
I guess you use the word "fun" in the sense of enjoyment, so, I have to say, "I enjoyed sermon preparation"(three different sermons each week, two Bible studies, two school Scripture classes), because I never spent time in preparation without learning something new about our heavenly Father, His design for His people.
Occasionally I would find that the hours were wasted in terms of the sermon, putting aside my notes and preaching on another subject extemporaneously, but the time in study was still precious.
By the way, I learned very quickly, not to judge one of my sermons as "decent", or "not so good" as my respected blogging friend Arthur does (sorry Arthur).
God's standards for service are usually very different to our own, no matter how well intentioned, so after a few years I began to do the very best I could, and not make any assessment of whether a sermon was good or otherwise, leaving the, often surprising, results to Him.
I was like the Hebrews in 5:11, "slow to learn" that God's ways are not our ways.
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