Editor’s note: We are pleased to offer this new regular feature, written by different faculty members of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. The feature’s name stems from the name of the main building on the seminary campus.

A Concern about Seminary-Trained Preachers

Once I was interviewed on a podcast regarding the subject of preaching. A godly man from another country, who has served the Lord faithfully over a lifetime, was also a guest. Throughout the interview, it became quite clear this gentleman believed that the dearth of Christ-honoring, urgent preaching in our day was largely the fault of the seminaries.

He is not alone in this belief.

In his indicting book Why Johnny Can’t Preach, T. David Gordon points out how many seminary-trained ministers in this generation talk about subjects, but do not bring out from the text a “convincing, compelling weight on the soul of the hearer.” In the same vein, Paul Tripp says, “I am convinced that the crisis of pastoral culture often begins in the seminary class. It begins with a distant, impersonal, information-based handling of the Word of God.…It begins with classrooms that are academic without being pastoral” (Dangerous Calling).

Jay Adams would likewise concur: “I have heard conference speakers, seminary professors, pastors, and just about every sort of preacher there is, from every sort of background and denomination. Yet the story is the same: poor preaching predominates. Everywhere I go I hear the same complaint from laymen: ‘Why don’t the seminaries teach men to preach?’” (Preaching with Purpose).

Why these indictments? I believe they stem from how preachers are typically trained. Pick up a common homiletics book or visit a preaching class at a seminary, and you will see a commonality. Often the ultimate focus in training is on sermon preparation rather than on sermon proclamation.

In his classic text on this subject, Martyn Lloyd-Jones says in Preaching and Preachers:

I believe that we have to draw a distinction between two elements in preaching. There is first of all the sermon or the message—the content of that which is being delivered. But secondly, there is the act of preaching, the delivery if you like, or what is commonly called ‘preaching.’ It is a great pity that this word ‘preaching’ is not confined to this second aspect which we may describe as the art of delivering the message.

To seek to counteract these concerns and uphold the distinction Lloyd-Jones makes, the homiletics program at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (RPTS) is designed in a practical fashion to train men to preach.

A Pastoral Approach to Homiletics

With our motto of “Study Under Pastors,” students at RPTS are blessed to have pastor-professors training them, as their teachers still serve the church as teaching elders. Whether sitting in a systematic theology class, a church history lecture, a language course, or a counseling session, students have the subject material related to them from a pastoral perspective with the local church in view. Consequently, all the courses at RPTS are aiding them toward studying God’s Word and preparing sermons for God’s people.

So when students step into a preaching class, I know they come equipped for doing the exegetical labors for sermon preparation. Thus, I can focus on what Lloyd-Jones called “the art of delivering a message” with them. I come alongside as a coach to develop a student as a preacher. Like Paul told the younger minister Timothy, I urge each student to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.…Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Tim. 4:13, 15). When these men preach in the RPTS chapel, I along with another professor give them pastoral feedback to encourage their progress.

Building Prayer Support

The Apostle Paul knew how reliant he was on the prayer support of the saints, saying to the Colossian church, “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving: praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak” (Col. 4:2-4).

Paul wanted God-opened doors to people’s hearts, the ability to reveal the gospel to them, and clarity in his ministry of the Word. He knew it was only through prayer that his preaching would have this effectiveness.

With that in mind, one of the first, simple assignments homiletic students are given is to assemble a team of prayer partners. Recruiting from their congregation, family members, mentors, and fellow students, the students are required to assemble at least eight people for their prayer team in the first week of the class. The student asks them to express a solemn commitment to pray throughout the course period for his development as a preacher. The student is encouraged to give regular updates to his prayer team and to invite them to attend when he preaches or to watch the sermon recordings. To seek the Spirit’s power and to foster comradery with one another, significant time is also spent in class praying for one another’s preaching.

Regular Practice in Developing Preaching

Regrettably, many students I have spoken to in other settings describe their experience in a homiletics class that follows this pattern: They go week after week to hear the professor lecture, then they come to one or two times in the semester where they make their public presentation(s) by giving a sermon in a chapel or laboratory setting. This approach is similar to asking a piano student to spend 10 to 15 weeks listening to his teacher talk about piano, give the history of music, and discuss the mechanics of the instrument, then expecting the student suddenly to perform at a recital. Students go to music instructors to practice their craft under the teacher’s tutelage. So must the homiletics student.

The RPTS homiletics classes have ample time for students to practice, following more of a workshop format. Each homiletics class has devotional and instructional content, but significant time is also set apart for student presentations. Week by week, the students prepare parts of their messages. They then typically do a two- to three-minute classroom or video presentation each week. Feedback is given on written forms that have categories for objective scoring and room for the instructor’s comments. For example, the students do assignments where they read their passage, present their homiletical point, preach their introduction or an illustration they will use, or proclaim a portion of their message where evangelistic urging is the emphasis.

Striving to Exalt Christ in Every Message

The call of the gospel to die to self and to live for Christ is most essential in the pulpit. George Whitefield once wrote to another minister friend, “The doctrines of our election and free justification in Christ Jesus…fill my soul with a holy fire and afford me great confidence in God my Savior. I hope we shall catch fire from each other, and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us, who shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus.”

With regard to preaching, exalting Christ is to come through both sermon content as well as the preaching itself. Certainly the content of the message must take any biblical text and reveal Christ to the hearers. Yet the minister must also preach as an ambassador for Christ, as though “God were entreating through us” (2 Cor. 5:20). As James Boice says:

When Jesus sent seventy-two disciples ahead of him to preach in his name and prepare the people for his coming, he encouraged them, saying “He who listens to you listens to me. And he who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:l6).…When I (or any other minister) stands up to teach the Bible, if I do it rightly, it is not my word you are hearing. It is the Word of God, and the voice you hear in your heart is the voice of Christ.

Regularly reminding and urging preaching students of this truth is essential to their proper training as ministers of the gospel.

Studying the Congregation to Address It Directly

One of my preaching mentors often said to me, “When you are done studying the Bible, you are only halfway done. You must now study the congregation.” John Stott captured this sentiment in the title of his book on preaching, Between Two Worlds, as he encouraged the preacher to engage both the world of the biblical text and also the world of his hearers. Contemplating the spiritual state of the hearers helps the preacher give his messages more urgency and direct application.

Thus, I work with the students to craft a message that is directly aimed at the congregation. We have discussions in class on how particular sermons would be approached differently for different congregations, such as one in a rural or urban setting. We also converse about how their message might be affected if the audience was a college group, a mission chapel, or a jail ministry. They are led to consider how to deliberately address within their sermon a unique group within the congregation, such as children, mothers, teenagers, the rich, or the aged. They preach their messages in chapel, where not only professors and students gather, but also wives, children, and friends. When they preach, students are urged to address the congregation directly with an exhortative voice, rather than abstractly with a lecture manner in the third person.

A goal of preaching 26 times or more (a half year of sermons) during their RPTS career is put before the students. Our desire is that upon graduation their feet will hit the ground ready to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all!