We are a strange lot! Christians know the importance of modeling the life of faith, and of recruiting others to work beside us in ministry, and yet we so often do a poor job in training others.

A preaching example
I see it in the way we train the next generation of preachers.

A common way to expose emerging preachers is to ask them to preach in branch churches or at holiday time. So much effort and anxious energy is then expended by the preacher in preparation and delivery of the sermon. After the event the preacher sits down with the minister and maybe some others to go through the sermons: what worked, what missed the mark and how the sermon might be improved.

The best way to train people is indeed to have them do the task. The problem with the method I have just outlined is that it has a sink or swim outcome.

My suggestion is that instead of the seasoned preacher having no input until after the sermon is delivered, the novice preacher meets with the seasoned preacher as the seasoned preacher is going through his sermon preparation, in order for the novice to see how another person does things. The novice can then ask the ‘why’ questions about sermon preparation.

Then, as the novice is engaged in their own preparation of a sermon, they meet with the older preacher to discuss its development and so learn from significantly from the process. The review of the sermon then deals with issues of delivery and further tweaking to improve the content.

Of course, this suggestion means that the seasoned preacher must be open to critique and questioning. It means that they need to be thoughtful about how and why they prepare and deliver as they do, and they need to know when suggesting things becomes interfering in the development of the young preacher.

The problem for the novice and the seasoned preacher is that there is no fixed way of engaging with each other. It depends on the situation, and the character of the people involved. For example, a seasoned preacher with a dominant personality needs to be more circumspect than one who is not dominant. Likewise, a senior preacher who has been involved in the life of the novice since childhood will operate differently to one who has just become involved in the development of the student.

General training
What I am calling for is as much involvement in the process of preparing as is helpful, and it being a two way activity, where both seasoned and novice can ask the difficult questions.

This method is valid not just in preaching development, but in ministry training in general.

If we default to the sink or swim outcome then we are in danger of demoralizing or creating arrogance in those we are training.