Want to improve your preaching in 2018? Here’s one way to make it happen: preach your failures.
Wait, what? To be a more successful preacher, I need to preach my failures?
It sounds a little off, but it is absolutely true. When you preach your failures, people will open up to your messages in ways they never have before.
I was told a long time ago that people don’t really want to know their pastor. They want to know an image of their pastor, an image of righteousness to which they can aspire.
Wrong! (said in my Trumpiest voice)
I heard this idea when I was a young man training for ministry. Now, with more than 20 years of real ministry under my belt, I can tell you with certainty that the exact opposite is true.
They Want to Know
People DO want to know their pastor. They want to know their pastor’s successes, but even more, they want to know his failures. Not because they want to feel superior, but because they want to see that their struggles aren’t unique to them. Even their pastor fails more often than he succeeds. That levels the playing field.
I can’t begin to count how many times someone at church has told me, “Thanks for being real.” The statement almost sounds cliche, but I hear it all the time.
I own my weaknesses when I preach. I don’t just say, “I am a sinner.” That’s not preaching my weakness. That’s simply stating the obvious.
I share my SPECIFIC weakness and struggles. I have told our church about my battle with depression. I have shared my idol of people-pleasing and my deep-seated insecurity. I talked about my former addiction to pornography. My church knows that I see a counselor. The people at Connect know their preacher is a mess.
Conventional wisdom would say that I shouldn’t share these things. Who would want to follow a leader like that? Who would want to listen to that guy preach? This will send people off in search of a new church, one with a pastor who has it more together. So says conventional wisdom.
But, as is often the case, conventional wisdom is wrong. I’m sure someone has left our church over this at some point. But that person is in the extreme minority. The overwhelming majority of people welcome this kind of transparency in their leaders.
One of the chief objections people have about the church is self-righteousness. They believe the church is full of self-righteous, sanctimonious hypocrites. But when the lead pastor publicly owns his failures, it disarms them.
Obviously, we need to be wise in how we do this. There are some things that should not be shared from the stage. I’m not advocating transparency without discretion.
Here are a few questions to help you gauge whether or not something should be publicly shared.
1. Will this hurt or embarrass your family?
If so, it’s an automatic “no.” The only stories you tell about your family are stories that build them up. Be self-deprecating, not spouse-deprecating. And if you use your kids in an illustration, they’d better come out looking good. If not, you’re just being a jerk. Being a pastor’s kid is hard enough. They shouldn’t have to worry about being embarrassed in your sermon. Our oldest son is in middle school. If I have a sermon illustration that involves him, I always let him read it first. If he’s not comfortable with it, I cut it. No questions asked. He knows he has full veto power.
2. Do the other leaders in your church know about this?
Don’t surprise your elders in your sermons. If you’re going to share a personal failure, make sure they know about it first. If you have quality leaders, they can give you wise counsel.
3. Are you embellishing the story to make a point?
If you are, get rid of it. The goal is honesty. Embellishing is a fancy word for lying.
4. Are there any legal reasons you should not share this?
Will it break a confidence? Will anyone else be hurt if this is shared? If so, don’t. We didn’t lose our common sense when we became pastors.
5. Have you prayed about it?
No additional comment is necessary here.
If it passes the test…
Questions like these are essential because they help us separate the stories we can share in our sermons from those that need to be cut. But if a story passes these test questions, proceed with boldness.
We can boldly share our weaknesses because we preach to glorify Jesus, not to magnify our own image. [tweet that] We preach so people can find their hope in the gospel, not in us.
When I shared my struggle with depression, people with the same struggle leaned in. When I told our people about how insecure I am, all the other insecure people opened their minds and hearts to the message in a brand new way. When I shared about my previous porn addiction, it helped more people and more marriages than anything I had ever shared before.
But here’s the real reason why I am so honest:
When people open up to the message, I get to tell them about my hope in Christ. I tell them how the Holy Spirit is working in me; how he is slowly changing and healing me. I don’t stop at my mess. I use my mess to tell people about my Messiah. I’m not who I should be, but thanks to him, I’m not who I used to be, either.
It took me a while to embrace the concept of preaching my weaknesses. My aforementioned insecurity told me to preach from my strengths. I wanted people to think highly of me.
But as I have matured in my faith and in my preaching, my way of thinking has been flipped upside down. It really doesn’t matter if people think highly of me. I want them to think highly of Jesus. Preaching my weakness highlights his strength. I’m a loser, but Jesus loves losers like me. If that’s the message you preach, you’ll always have an audience.
Preaching your weakness isn’t easy. Being vulnerable never is. But it’s worth the risk. [tweet that]
As the Apostle Paul wrote:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
Be weak so you can be strong.
Mike Edmisten has been the Senior Pastor of Connect Christian Church in Cincinnati for 11 years. He and his wife, Nicki (who is way out of his league) have two boys (13 and 10). Outside of family and ministry, Mike is passionate about Cincinnati Reds baseball and FC Cincinnati soccer. You can connect with him on Twitter @MikeEdmisten.
