Do you miss Preaching?

For the first 30 years of my professional career I was a preacher. I preached, as an associate minister once a month for 17 years. Today I am grateful to the congregations for giving me the opportunity to hone my craft as a preacher. They were gracious and they may not have realized it at the time, but they helped me develop my preaching style. For 13 years I preached on a regular basis as the senior minister in a local congregation. During that time I learned how to develop my preaching as a tool to convict the audience (and sometime myself), cast vision and encourage people through the spoken word.

Recently I was visiting a church representing the University and I was asked, "Do you miss preaching?" Before I answer that question, you need to know I continue to preach about 35 times a year in various settings. Sometimes my messages focus on the University and how individuals can partner with us. I also "fill the pulpit" when a minister is on vacation. I do have ample opportunities to preach. However, the more I thought about his question; “Do I miss preaching?” The more I thought about preaching, what do I miss most about preaching? 

First, I miss the weekly interaction of sermon preparation - I know it sounds crazy, but after 30 years of preparing messages, I still enjoy the AHA moment when I discovery a new insight in scripture. The Hebrew writer is right speaking of scripture as the "Living Word". Every time I dig into scripture I find new nuggets of wisdom that I cannot wait to share. My preaching today is usually a message that I have preached several times depending on the need of the congregation as it relates to the university. While there is preparation involved is not the deep study that comes from preparing a different message each week.

I also miss preaching in series. During my 13 years as a preaching minister, I made it a habit to preach in series or to preach through a particular section of a book. I miss the opportunity to "unpack" a section of scripture for 4 to 6 weeks and to help the congregation journey through the whole counsel of God. 

Finally, I miss the opportunity to see and hear about the life change that comes about from preaching the whole counsel of God. There is something about being at a local congregation and saying, "Last month we talked about this issue" or "You remember we looked at Paul's writings in..."  As I travel from church to church most of my messages are “stand alone” messages, thus I seldom know the impact of a one shot message. I envy the men who stand in the pulpit each week and develop a relationship with their congregation through the preaching of the Word.

Do I miss preaching? I miss some aspects of preaching, however, I am content to be faithful in the place God is calling me.