5 Preaching Islands to Avoid

In a recent episode of Productive Pastor, I talked about avoiding islands in our preaching. I encouraged preachers to be aware of how we sometimes allow our preaching to be separated from the larger mission of the local church. And there are plenty of ways we can both intentionally or unintentionally do this. I think the cultural moment we are in post C19 (and I really feel like I should say on the other side of 2020, with all that came with that year) this is more important than ever. As I think of my own ministry and how things have changed in the last couple of years I am becoming more and more convinced of the relationship between the churches mission, discipleship, and the role preaching plays. And we have to think specifically about preaching in this new world.

Preaching is a vehicle of discipleship.

The sermon, and the act of declaring the word of God in a communal context isn’t some action that divorces itself from the larger life of the church and spirit of the service. The sermon occupies a space that nothing else does in the life of the local church and for us to let it be an island at a distance from the larger church loses this effect. When we isolate ourselves from the congregation in the act of preaching, we are leaving too much on the table.

5 Islands to avoid when we are preaching in the local church

Apathy
Apathy is one of the most complex islands we can deal with in preaching, so lets start there.

What happens when the preacher is tired? Or when the preacher is frustrated with the congregation? What happens when the sermon becomes an agent of weaponization?

All of these can be different agents of apathy through preaching. Apathy can live on a spectrum from simply picking something to preach on because it would be easy that week, to writing messages of high divergence from the congregations belief system to chide or be stand-offish.

Apathy in preaching is when the preacher wants to be in some relationship of difference between the congregation and the sermon can be used to mark that line down. An apathy island keeps the sermon in a distinct relationship with the congregation because of the unintended gulf of difference.

Interest
There have been times in my ministry where I become extremely interested in something in scripture or a theological topic. I’ve preached and/or wanted to preach on them because I am interested in them.

But is the congregation?

Does this message fit into the missiological vision of discipleship for the church?

Or is it just a way that I can justify the time spent reading and preparing, and the book purchases to continue the research project?

The problem with preaching from an interest island (or any island) is that the sermon might be wildly removed from any contextual needs of the congregation. While it might be interesting to the preacher, and maybe even to others in the congregation, it just doesn’t make sense. It is a perfect example of the Jurassic Park rule; just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Disconnection
What happens when preachers don’t know their congregation? They become disconnected not just in preaching, but in outlook and leadership direction. In this situation, a preaching island springs up because of some sort of disconnect. It might be cultural, regional, educational, political or a myriad of other things. The good news is disconnection is an island that can be quickly brought back into contact with the mainland. You can build ferry’s and bridges to connect the two.

Congregational conversations about mission, about discipleship and growth can build a bridge. Investigating the spiritual history of a community and hearing the dreams and concerns of people also serve as connection points.

Safety
Preachers can build up an island of safety when they are looking for something that can be controlled. In times of disruption or chaos, control is something that we see to find. But control unleashed always leads to some new sort of disruption. The safety island happens when a preacher is trying to find something that can be expected, peaceful, some sort of return to a state where they are able to expect what is to come.

The sermon, and the preparation process become that. So the sermon becomes distant from the congregation because the pastor uses that part of ministry as the one thing that might seem to be “normal”. This doesn’t seem harmful necessarily, but it is living outside of the larger purpose. The good news is this time and the idea of message preparation can be a time of great ministry focus and energy AND still fulfill a greater purpose in the life of the congregation. It just has to be seen in a proper place with the rest of the mission.

Ignorance
So what happens if a preacher is consistently disconnected from their congregation? A disconnection preaching island happens primarily out of unintentional negligence. I think this happens more in the smaller church or more mainline settings when time is of an issue. This is where message series on denominational differences, or simple book studies that are making the rounds are preached.

Ignorance is related to other preaching islands, but it is what happens when they happen for a long period of time. While other islands might be occasional, Ignorance is an island big enough to have its own support system. But it is also difficult because it usually happens by well meaning leaders.

So how do you fix islands?

A longer explanation of this is for another post(s).

But…

To put it simply, we need to understand how not just the sermon, but the entirety of the worship services plays into the missiological vision of the local church. Generic Christian existence is not one that causes healthy leaders, healthy churches, or healthy communities. And in these movements, the sermon is a time for concentrated teaching, prophetic encouragement, for holy world-building, and a spoken example of difference making.

If you are more interested in this idea, I’d point you to two things. The first is episode 6 of The Productive Pastor. This episode is focused on preaching, and I talk about the ideas of islands in it. In this episode I also talk about a congregational discernment sheet I’ve created. You can get that for free here.