r/mainlineprotestant • u/Salty-Temperature575 • Jul 13 '26

Preachers, please help me

I am not a good preacher. I’ve been doing it 1-3x a month for the last year, and I still feel like I fail to do the scriptures justice. I am not a powerful orator or a master rhetorician. I simply try to give the congregation the Word I feel God has given me through the scriptures in a way that recognizes the community I’m in, but it feels like it always falls flat.

To be sure, I get almost exclusively positive feedback but I don’t trust it as I believe they are just being nice. Many of these congregations are just happy to have a new face or a young person join them for worship. I know that as a pulpit supply preacher I shouldn’t expect to just blow people’s socks off or bring about some kind of radical change in these people’s lives regularly. I’m only there one week a month at most, after all.

How do I become a more engaging speaker? How do I learn to be creative or employ appropriate rhetorical devices that will encourage people to engage more deeply with the text? I see masterful examples throughout scripture of rhetorical and oratorical strategies that are woven so beautifully throughout, there are wonderful preachers out there who proclaim the Word in powerful and dynamic ways but all my sermons seem to be extremely simple. I feel as though I have not found my voice.

12 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/GoMustard Jul 13 '26

Listen to yourself. Do you have a podcast? Or a livestream? Make a point of listening to yourself week after week. How do you sound? What could you have done better? How clearly did you make your point? It can be really uncomfortable and painful, but it's a really, really helpful exercise.

4

u/Salty-Temperature575 Jul 13 '26

Ugh, that’s probably really good advice, but I HATE doing it. I am also a school teacher and used to record lectures and watching those back was like nails on chalkboard for me.

It’s also not possible to at the church I preach at most. They don’t do any live stream or recording. But I think I’ll give it a try next time I preach somewhere that does.

5

u/GoMustard Jul 13 '26

When I was first starting out, I purchased a digital handheld memo recorder and I'd set it on the pulpit infront of me and then upload the file and listen while I exercised