“What Does It Mean to Preach and Biblical Witness in Preaching” Preachers regardless of whether they happen to be beginners preaching their very first sermons or experienced ministers who have preached more often than they recall, approach the work of preaching with a wide spectrum of attitudes and feelings, from zestful anticipation to reluctance, from enthusiasm to paralyzing fear. Despite the prevalent assumption that all ministers are free from the pains of shyness or the terrors of stage fright, this simply is not true. Pastors with a clear understanding of the power of preaching in the life of the Christian community, pastors who have seen the people sitting in the pews hungry for a truthful word that clarifies and compels knows that …show more content…
To discover this joy in the work of preaching does not mean whittling down its size, hiding from its demands, or eliminating its anguish. It means strengthening our grip on the truth that the announcing of the good news of Jesus Christ in human words is an inestimable gift from God. To have our own lives, our own work, our own words, our own struggles and fears gathered up in some way into that event is an occasion of rich and joyful grace. So therefore, to be a preacher is to be entrusted with the task of speaking the one word that humanity most urgently and desperately needs to hear, the glad tidings of God’s redemption through Jesus Christ (Long p 12-13). Preaching is joining in on what God is already doing, and we dare to preach because we believe that Jesus Christ is already speaking to the church and to the world. Preaching in the name of Christ is possible only because Christ is already present, because Christ has already decided to be with us, and because Christ has already chosen to meet us in the spoken word of preaching. To preach is to join our human words with the word that God in Christ in the power of the Spirit is already speaking to the church, to the world and to speak in Christ’s name is to claim Christ’s own promise (Long p