More About Preaching

To remember those who have greatly influenced my preaching requires remembering Clark Pafford.  Between my freshman and sophomore year of college, I worked as a summer youth worker under the supervision of this pastor.  He knew I aspired to be a preacher so he allowed me to fill his pulpit a few times that summer for some of my earlier preaching experiences.  However, before I preached on Sunday morning, he required me to preach my sermon on Saturday night in the sanctuary to him.  He did it not to berate me with "how to it better," but to encourage me.   

I took something from those few Saturday nights that he might not have anticipated.  Clark Pafford reminded me preaching was oral communication and that the oral part needed work as well as the written part.  For the span of my ministry, few sermons were preached on Sunday morning that had not first been preached on Saturday night to an empty church.  I would take my sermon to the pulpit on those Saturday evenings, preach it two or three times, and then give it back to the Lord who gave it to me asking only that He do with it what He wished on Sunday morning.   

One of the things I noticed in those early days of wanting to preach was that the preachers I regarded as those who did it well were those who preached without manuscript, or notes on Sunday morning.  I may never have achieved the level that my preaching mentors did, but the Saturday night work in the empty sanctuary enabled me to preach unhindered by written words in front of me.  It made the act of preaching more exciting for this preacher and it is always better to preach with excitement about what is being preached than the alternative.