Four months ago, I came up with a novel way to help grow our young and upcoming preachers of the Word of God. On the coat tails of the cooking competition show MasterChef, I suggested a similar kind of event called MasterPreacher to help our ministers improve their craft.
Here's an excerpt to remind you of my original idea:
Contestants are given a passage of scripture or a topic, and a context in which they need to give a talk… As soon as they receive the passage of scripture or the topic, then they are each allowed five minutes in a theological library to select their resources. Then they get two hours to prepare their talk, which they then give in a simulated environment to the three judges.
Whilst this kind of exercise is not entirely foreign to theological students, the suggestion that contestants receive the prize of a 'speaking gig' caused many people to object. Whilst I said that “I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek”, it was considered by some to be unhelpful.
One of the problems is that I see speaking as a sport. At school I was a keen debater. Instead of kicking a piece of inflated pigskin around a paddock, I competed with other orators in an attempt to convince an adjudicator of the superiority of our manner, method and matter.
Yet, none of the topics we used to debate had much importance. Whether or not the affirmative or negative team was successful in proving that 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' is of little significance.
Yet, speaking God's word is something completely different.
When a Word minister teaches the Bible, they are handling the very word of God. They are shooting with live (life) ammunition. To be awarded a prize based on the ability to move even a simulated congregation's heart and mind is to be at risk of devaluing God himself.
It's a little like the difference between practising CPR on a mannequin and a live human. When I have learnt how to pound the chest of a plastic torso I could do so with some light humour. Learning a funny tune to accompany the regular pounding of the heart seemed perfectly fine.
But if I was practising this skill on someone who had stopped breathing and had no pulse, then it would be wrong to treat it lightly. Even if I spent my life as a paramedic, I should never treat the task of resuscitation in this manner.
In my attempt to help young preachers develop their speaking gift, I ended up treating God's living word like it was a plastic mannequin.
We must rightly avoid seeking "man's empty praise" as we minister God's Word. Preaching is not a sport. It is far too important to be handled with such contempt.
Do preachers need debating competitions?
Yet, this doesn't mean that speaking shouldn't be treated as sport.
Other than the invaluable and life-changing theological framework and knowledge I received from my years at Moore College, the greatest single contributor to my preaching skills was my stint in my school debating team. The need to present from palm cards a seven-minute talk based on an hour's preparation gave me some of the best training in public speaking.
So, rather than run competitions in preaching, maybe we should make debating an essential part of our ministry training. If we want our preachers to be able to argue persuasively from the Scriptures, then we should help our students to develop their skills in debating.
