The sermon can do so many things, but how is it “the most important leadership activity of pastors”? Will Willimon invites you, as preachers, to consider your role, your character, and whom and what you love, as you lead with the sermon.
First, framing the sermon as leadership is not meant to add pressure but to assure preachers that what you are already investing a lot of time in is exercising leadership.
Christian faith is basically auditory—it is heard. Can you remember before you were a Christian? If not, it’s hard to see how strange it is that people hear the good news about Jesus and it changes them. But this means that preaching is identity-forming and identity-reminding.
“Preaching sets the terms under which my congregation can justly be called a church,” Willimon says in his book. In each sermon the church is reminded who it is and to whom it is accountable.
We don’t need leadership when everyone is walking in the same direction. But we are not in such times.
The church of today needs pastors who not only soothe and care-give, but who can say with clarity: “Here’s what we’ve loved about being the church. But we want to be part of God’s future, and just doing what we did before isn’t going to cut it. Let’s go!”
You have been summoned by God to lead God’s people, to orchestrate, to convene, to encourage, and to equip—that is, to lead.
Sermons are going to lead somehow. They can lead us to be inward-focused or complacent. Toward what are we leading people? How many people have forsaken church because nothing surprising was ever uttered?
Will Willimon is a great believer in the lectionary. But sometimes you do need to set it aside to meet the moment. The Revised Common Lectionary wasn’t created (50 years ago) for the leadership crises of today. If the church doesn’t have any word for us in the midst of big events, then what are we doing? But often the scripture in the lectionary can set the agenda for the word we need to hear. Willimon gives an example from his own preaching life to powerfully illustrate that. When things are coming unglued, you really need to know who God is, and that’s what Scripture does.
Congregations go no further than their pastor does. Preachers as leaders are a key element to the vitality of the congregation. You are called to step up and be courageous in difficult times. That is what it means to follow a crucified Lord.
The lectionary makes us preach on things that we don’t want to address but that the church needs to talk about.
What are important character traits of the preacher who leads?
- Submissiveness to the biblical text
- Loving Jesus more than we love our congregation
- Desire to tell the truth
- A willingness to be unpopular
- A lifestyle that shows a struggle to be congruent with the Gospel
- An ability to receive the pain that people inflict
How do you have an honest view of your character, as a leader? Can you work with Jesus Christ and not resent him for what being honest about it does to you?
It happens to preachers that we “trim our sails” to how much we love the people and don’t want to make their lives harder than they are. But loving in the way of Jesus means telling the truth. You’ve got to love the text and love the Lord.
For more on this volume in the Working Preacher Books series, Leading with the Sermon: Preaching as Leadership, listen to a podcast episode or watch it on YouTube, in which Will Willimon discusses the book, as well as his wider perspective on preaching, with Rolf Jacobson and Karoline Lewis. Recorded in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, some unique scenarios from that time and other references that are timeless frame the discussion.