The Introverted Pastor: Part 3 of 3

As an introverted pastor, I can tell you that my preaching style has changed drastically over the seven years I’ve been in ministry and the ten or so years that I've been preaching. In college, when I was still wanting to be like John Maxwell… I would assemble an outline and throw in as many quotes and illustrations as I could. I would preach from that outline. The first few times I did this, it worked like a charm. I practiced preaching the outline until I pretty much had it memorized. I moved around the stage a lot, I preached from the outline, and did my best to make it look like I was a natural public speaker… and it worked… for awhile.

When I finally got into full time ministry in Kalamazoo, the lead pastor there gave me opportunities to preach about once a month. It was much more difficult in a full time setting to have each sermon prepared with enough time to practice it the 10 or so times I needed to actually memorize it. But I continued on… but without it being memorized, I felt much less confident and much more susceptible to nerves. (This introvert is no fan of public speaking when he might actually have to come up with some stuff on the spot.) In college, I got nervous… but I also had fun because I had enough time to prepare (memorize) and be confident enough to not let my nerves get the best of me. My first year in Kalamazoo was, well, the exact opposite.

I remember one particular Sunday night, I was preaching on 2 Corinthians 12, the passage where Paul says ‘in my weakness, I am made strong.” I remember being so nervous that night that I repeated many of my sentences. It wasn’t even a well written outline. My transitions from point to point were terrible because I couldn’t think clearly enough go from one point to another without just stopping the first point cold turkey… and starting the second point at a 100 miles an hour. I remember being so disappointed in myself that night and so discouraged. Something also clicked in the back of my mind about trying to figure out a way that would take my nerves out of my preaching equation.

I honestly don’t ever remember being taught about manuscripting in college… or if it was mentioned, I just ignored it because I wanted to preach like the greats who didn’t even have notes in front of them. At some point in my second year of Kalamazoo, I decided to try writing out my whole sermons… from start to finish. I was a little nervous the first time I tried this… but not for the reasons you might guess. I wasn’t the least bit nervous about talking in front of people that night… but I was nervous because I was giving up on my dream of preaching like a John Maxwell or Adrian Despree. A manuscript is basically a handcuff that keeps you pretty attached to the pulpit… so forget about looking like a natural speaker… forget about doing cool things like walking the aisleways.

As I prepared and preached that first message… I realized a couple of crucial things: First, I was much less nervous about my delivery… and more concerned with the actual message. In other words, all my creative energy went into my study and writing, rather than worrying about whether I was going to remember to say such and such on stage. As I compared my manuscripted sermons with my outlined sermons… there was no question about which ones had the most depth… the ones that were manuscripted. Second, my transitions were much smoother than ever before. Third, I found that people understood me better because I was forced to slow down… and I got rid of some of my annoying verbal hang-ups. (Um, you know, ah, er… ) I actually had fun again in my preaching… which was important to me. Fourth, I finally realized that it’s ok to play to my strengths in preaching. As a sports fan, I’ve heard the phrase ‘You just have to stay within your talents… or stay within yourself.’ or something like that. Basically, it means, you don’t have to do too much as long as you are doing the best you can with what’s been given to you. Study and writing are directly within my gift package… natural stage presence and public speaking are not. Changing to a manuscript preacher placed me directly in the middle of my gift package, which is a good thing.

Over time, I have become comfortable with the fact that I will never preach like one of the famous preachers. People who hear me speak now… they won’t see a dynamic public speaker… but they WILL hear a guy who loves to study and communicate God’s truth. I’m probably not the type of preacher who is going to get people to cry all over the place… but the people who hear me WILL hear a message that is God centered. I will probably never be invited to some huge conference to preach to a large crowd… but I AM (with God’s help) able to feed a local church congregation with the message of the gospel. I have long since put to bed the notion that I might be the best preacher ever… but in the process, I have picked up the desire to be the best preacher that I can be… and develop the preaching gifts that God has given me as well as I can.

What does an introverted preacher look like? In my case, it looks like a guy who is trying to stay within his God given spiritual gift package and lean on God’s strength to do something that he never would have been able to do on his own…