Nothing else smells like middle school boys. They begin middle school with a particular odor, forgetting deodorant as often as they remember it. They end middle school smelling just just as strongly, but no longer of body odor–they have discovered their body odor and now work to mask it in gallons of cologne and body spray.
Why do they smell so bad? Because they have no idea how bad they smell. They begin middle school with no realization of their body odor, so deodorant is optional. They end middle school having discovered girls and their own odor and over-compensate by bathing in cologne–but again, they do not realize how bad they smell.
Preaching is like that. In the beginning of your preaching journey, you have no idea how bad you preach. Your preaching often stinks, but you do not know it. You forget to do the hard work of sermon prep, you neglect prayer, you do not even have access to the tools necessary to preach well, but you have no idea. Like a middle school boy, you strut through the hallways without knowing that your stink is driving people away. You smell too much like you.
As you progress through your preaching adolescence, you become aware of your stench. You work to flower your sermons with beautiful illustrations. You fill your messages with quotes from Spurgeon, Piper, Chandler, Calvin, Wesley, and Augustine. If you have progressed far enough in your studies, you throw in Chrysostom for good measure. You quote at length from commentaries, and yet your sermon still stinks. You don’t know it stinks because you have put in all the work necessary. Like the middle school boy in the bathroom, you have covered your smell. The problem is that you have covered too much. Your sermon no longer smells like you, it smells like dusty library books.
William Zinsser warns would-be writers this way: “Few people realize how badly they write.” The same is true for preachers, few preachers realize how badly they preach. Just as readers will “notice if you are putting on airs,” so too will church-goers notice the short-comings of your sermon.
“Truth through personality,” was the definition of preaching that Phillips Brooks offered. Zinsser warns writers that a fundamental rule of writing is to “be yourself.”
Writers must find their voice and so too much preachers. If your preaching stinks, don’t be embarrassed, just fix it. It’s OK to find yourself preaching with the middle school boy syndrome, but it is not OK to stay there. If you are not sure if it stinks, make sure you ask someone else. Remember, middle school boys do not intrinsically know to put on deodorant, they have to be taught because they can’t smell themselves.
You won’t smell your terrible sermons. Your own opinion will betray you. You are rarely as good of a preacher as you believe yourself to be (conversely, if you are inclined in the negative direction, you are rarely as bad as you believe yourself to be). Ask others, get input, and find your own voice (here’s a form for sermon evaluation). Consider these 5 Steps to Better Preaching.
Speak God’s truth, but do it in your voice and with your own kind of illustrations and rhythm and length. You are not Charles Stanley or David Jeremiah or John MacArthur. You are you, but you are the you that God has called and gifted to proclaim his truth. If God has called you, then allow God to use you. He has a purpose, and his ways are always right.
Who knows, he might just make those stinking sermons into gospel gems that he will use to advance his kingdom.
